Amanda Peterson From Can’t Buy Me Love Has Passed Away
I pedaled my bike 5 miles across town and paid to get into Can’t Buy Me Love, just so I could sneak out and head over to the R rated Robocop. Robocop didn’t start for another half hour and by the time I needed to sneak out of Can’t Buy Me Love I was completely hooked. Amanda Peterson played the perfect stereotypical gorgeous cheerleader in Cindy. And Patrick Dempsey played the perfect dork-cum-in=crowd wanna be. It was the movie that most gorgeously hot-wired the connection between total dweeb and perfect female. Of course I still slid into the next showing of Robocop – it just meant I went later than I had initially planned on going.
To that end I watched Can’t Buy Me Love last night, in memoriam of Amanda Peterson, who died this past weekend in her home in Greeley Colorado. Just to see if it held up or fell completely apart. And I was surprised at just how much I enjoyed it all over again. I went looking for an interview of her back in the day during the media tour for Can’t Buy Me Love and found this absolute gem of a clip:
Come on. That is magic. Hahaha. The eighties really were a one of a kind decade. I remember walking out of the movie theater having watched Robocop, AND Can’t Buy Me Love and totally being transfixed by latter and not the former. To think that maybe we geeks could actually be seen as valuable and accepted?! And this was way way back in the day before Geeks were cool. Nerds were definitely a lower caste system and at a remove from everyone else on the planet. Its only now that we are useful and “clever” that we have been deemed acceptable. So I applaud Amanda for her role in this movie that had such a huge impact on my own life.
Well, anyway, Amanda Peterson, the world was a better place just knowing you were in it, and you will be missed. Here are a few of my favorite scrapes from my movie watching last night.
