By Kevin Kaumans, Entertainment Editor
I don’t know if this is as big of a deal as in other countries, but here in America, it feels like both adults and kids alike make a bigger deal of prom than it actually is.
To be honest, I blame the film industry for this.
Every time I see a romantic comedy where the falling action takes place at a high school or college ball, I can’t help but roll my eyes at how absurd it is.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand that proms are a hallmark for some people. It represents the turning point for maturity in a lot of teenagers.
It is not just young men and girls who dance awkwardly while deciding if they should pop a kiss on the lips or not. It shows how romance and social hierarchy is viewed from the point of view of the adolescents of our society.
Personally, however, I never really saw the point of it as I was growing up.
First of all, I went to a small school in an even smaller town; counting both staff and students, there were less than two hundred of us.
My graduating class alone was made up of only seven or eight kids. Needless to say, there were not a lot of girls to choose from, not a lot that would have been interested in a kid that was built like Nikocado Avocado in his prime anyway.
The only girl I have ever taken to a dance was a girl two grades below me, and that was only because her mother asked me to because she wanted someone, anyone, to take her daughter to the dance.
To this day, I am not sure if it was because she felt more sorry for her, or me.
Secondly, I never was one for big crowds, especially ones that involve making a fool of myself on the gym “dancefloor”.
If I’m being honest, if someone put a gun to my head and told me to choose between dancing in front of a crowd or digging through a toilet bowl of rusty needles, I would pick the latter.
Here’s the thing: I’m not bashing on people who genuinely have fond memories on their prom night.
All I’m doing is pointing out how many movies and television shows make it to be this be-all-end-all, when in the end, most people do not really care.
You know how people who cheat on their partners will say something along the line of “They mean nothing to me?”.
That statement is the same thing I would say about prom, with the only difference being that it’s actually true. You know why it’s true? Because I have never thought back on my prom night until right now as I’m writing this.
I see how the characters in these movies talk about prom like it is some life-changing phenomenon that everyone will remember forever, and all I am thinking is: “You do realize that you all will barely remember any of this ten years from now, right?”
And while yes, I get that it’s supposed to satire, but my argument still stands: Hollywood has exaggerated proms and their importance to the point of comical.