How Early Are Teenagers in Movies Waking Up and Why: An Expose

Something’s been bothering me about “Love, Simon.”

Yes, “Love, Simon” the movie from last year that everybody liked--including me.

Something has really been eating me up about it.

How...early did all those students get up for school?

For those of you who haven’t seen the film, Simon--

Okay, for the purposes of this piece of writing, all you need to know is that a significant portion of the movie is Simon waking up, eating a breakfast (or not eating it) made by his sister, picking up like three of his friends, all of them going through a drive-thru coffee place that is not Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks, and then going to school.

Um…

This might just be me, but…

Was I the only high school student who literally got up five seconds before the bus came to get him for the first year of high school and then made his mom drive him for the following three years so he could get an extra twenty minutes of sleep?

...Okay so maybe it wasn’t that extreme for ALL of you, but first of all, don’t judge me.

Second of all, HOW EARLY IS SIMON GETTING UP?

In the movie, it’s already pretty bright out when he wakes up, which seems disingenuous, because the movie takes place over the course of the school year, so at some point, it’s winter, and that means, it should be pitch black out if he’s on his way to school and has time to grab three friends and some lattes, am I right?

I get that daylight savings time doesn’t give us that pop of color we want in our teen romantic comedies, but IT IS REALITY, SIMON.

And I shouldn’t just pick on this particular film.  A lot of movies do this.

They love those scenes at the breakfast table.  Everybody just chilling out, eating pancakes (Pancakes!  Do you know how long it takes to make pancakes?), dressed, ready to start their day.

And I’m sitting in the movie theater screaming--

YOU WOULD ALL HAVE TO GET UP AT 4AM FOR THIS TO BE POSSIBLE.

And maybe they do, but many, many, many people don’t.

And I know that for a fact, because I’m the crazy person who messages a thousand people with these insane thoughts before I turn them into a thinkpiece so I know I’m right.

Also, where are Simon and his friends getting the money for all that coffee?  Again, they’re not going to Dunkin, but even if they were, it doesn’t seem like any of them have jobs.

Are Simon’s parents just giving him hundreds of dollars a month to spend on coffee every day?

And if that’s the case, no I don’t want him to find love, I want him to find an AFTER SCHOOL JOB TO PAY FOR HIS CAR INSURANCE AND MACCHIATO ADDICTION.

But yeah, back to the wake-up time of teenagers in movies.

We’re lead to believe that the only teens who aren’t up when the sun rises having witty conversation with their parents about the big history test are slackers who are transformed by the end of the film into Homecoming King.

Bullshit.

It is perfectly normal in an American household for everyone to be running around like crazy people, half-dressed, screaming about where their backpack is, and feeling lucky if they can shove a Pop-Tart in their mouth before they barrelass into the car AND STILL WIND UP BEING LATE.

That’s NORMAL.

And I think that we, as a society, need to keep pointing out when things that have existed in popular culture forever are just straight-up nonsense.

Society wants us to believe that morning people are the norm and those of us who hit the snooze button seventeen times and think breakfast is what you eat at Denny’s at 2am after six consecutive hours of karaoke are the outliers.

And I call BULLSHIT.

Now, if any of you DID wake up super early to eat the breakfast your little sister made you and drove half a dozen of your friends to school with you--

Go away.

I don’t want to hear from you.

Don’t even look at that comments section.

You have no business here.

...Aside from all that, it’s a lovely film.