Recently, I watched “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” the 1982 comedy still considered to be one of the best high school movies ever made, for the first time. It has obviously become incredibly dated (but is still absolutely hilarious), yet it took me seeing the film to realize that virtually every high school movie for the past 30 years owes it a humongous debt. Its fingerprints are all over the genre today, so much so that it has become almost inconspicuous.
The “Fast Times” social order still reigns supreme today. Nice guys finish last, slackers come out on top. If you’re smart, you’re a nerd. If you’re a jock, you’re cool. If you don’t hang around them, you probably aren’t. And of course, just don’t try at anything because the naturally cool will just have people attracted to them like bugs to a light. Whether the movies that came out of this mentality actually reflect high school is questionable, but they have all served to reinforce the “Fast Times” ideal.
“21 Jump Street,” on the other hand, is a bird of a different feather. It actually dares to question the preconceived notions of high school movies and imagine an entirely different set of tropes, ones that feel modern and appropriate. The film’s protagonists, undercover cops Jenko (Channing Tatum) and Schmidt (Jonah Hill) graduated high school in 2005 in a very “Fast Times” environment and expect little to have changed when they go on a covert operation to their alma mater in 2012. Boy, are they wrong.
Marshall and the Movies 
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