Weird Science and Early American Writing: More Similar than You Think

At first glance, there are few similarities between John Hughes’ 1980’s comedy Weird Science and early American writings by Winthrop, Crevecoeur, Edwards and Franklin. Stylistically there are no similarities, however there are some overarching themes that are found in both the movie and early American writings. Firstly in both Hughes’ movie Wyatt and Gary are able to create a girl after their ideals much how the American settlers did to their society. Winthrop explains how Americans formed “new laws, a new mode of living, a new social system” (Winthrop 39). Both Lisa in Weird Science and colonial America served as an example for future models. Gary and Wyatt use the method for Lisa to try and create a girl for Max and Ian. Similarly, America became a “city on a hill” (Winthrop 3) that others looked up to while starting communities of their own. A final connection in the themes of Weird Science and early American writing is the notion that if one does something unconventional or out of the norm that one is punished. As Gary and Wyatt create Lisa the sky outside of their home turns red, lightning strikes, eerie music plays, things get sucked into the fireplace along with other unusual things that happen. In Jonathan Edwards’ sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” he warns that anyone who steps out of line and does something that God finds incorrect will be punished - “the wrath of God burns against them [those who sin], their damnation does not slumber; the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them; the flames do now rage and glow” (Edwards 56). Although seemingly unalike at first, there are conceptual similarities between Weird Science and early American writing.