"Some Kind of Wonderful: Because Tomboys Have Feelings, Too" by Cindy Price

A few years ago, my friend Trish and I ended up in line behind Mary Stuart Masterson at the Union Square Whole Foods. Like all good New Yorkers, we abide by the city’s common law regarding celebrities: don’t hassle them unless you’re really, really into them. You maybe get three lifetime passes on this living in the Big Apple. Don’t blow that shit on Clay Aiken.

Masterson might have landed in the dead zone, but as it happens Trish and I are big fans of Some Kind of Wonderful – the 1987 John Hughes film starring Masterson as Watts, a tough-but-sensitive drummer tomboy who harbors feelings for her alterna-nerd best friend, Keith, played by Eric Stoltz.

In classic John Hughes fashion, Keith can’t see the writing on the wall, so blinded is he by the popular-but-complicated Amanda Jones, played by Lea Thompson. It’s like the love triangle in Pretty in Pink, albeit with two girls and a guy. But unlike poor, sexless Ducky (who I’m sure is slow-stirring an artisanal cocktail in Williamsburg as we speak), Masterson’s working-class best friend actually gets the guy.