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I need thoughts and opinions from people who liked "Stand by me"

30 replies

brigidsexcitableaunt · 28/01/2025 23:17

I see a lot of people on here have cited Stand by me as an all-time favourite and/or something they want their kids to see. I'd really like your thoughts and comments.

I watched it with 16-y-o DC because she was required to do so for school (we're not in the UK). We didn't think much of it, and I had a lot to say about how self-indulgent it was, and how it had a gun in the hands of a 12-year-old save the day. Then I realised that probably won't go down well with whoever set it as homework and that I hadn't been at all helpful.

I gathered that the themes are:

bonding (I really hated seeing 12-year-olds talking about "your mom" licking up their bodily secretions (think it was vomit) and the complacent voice-over saying that's how they talked about each other's mothers;

maturing as a writer (Gordie's friends critique his pie-eating story);

facing your unfounded fears (the junkyard dog turns out not to be dangerous); and
dealing with new ones (but its owner damages Teddy psychologically by telling him his father is nuts and not a war hero);

private moments can be beautiful and best not shared (the meeting with the deer);

the tragedy of not being the favourite child;

death is sad and scary;

you can live all your life in a small town and never hear the local animals at night?

OP posts:
Original poster
brigidsexcitableaunt · 21/08/2025 21:39

Wow, posters have really given me food for thought now. Zombie threads can be great!

@lljkk excepted, because we're discussing a film, and wild speculation about my childhood and my character isn't pertinent

OP posts:
EverybodyLTB · 22/08/2025 01:11

brigidsexcitableaunt · 21/08/2025 21:39

Wow, posters have really given me food for thought now. Zombie threads can be great!

@lljkk excepted, because we're discussing a film, and wild speculation about my childhood and my character isn't pertinent

I hadn’t realised it was a zombie 😂

In the interest of full disclosure, I watched SBM what must have been 150+ times as a kid, about age 10 until 12, with my group of best friends who were all of us growing up in some sort of situation. All bonded together. Then when I got older realised it was a Stephen King story, so then read that about 5 times, plus studied literature at uni so now dissect everything annoyingly. I mentally pull every theme to bits from every piece of art and media and string it back together - nobody IRL asks, fortunately for them!

Puppypower83 · 22/08/2025 11:21

Excellent take @EverybodyLTB !
this was my comfort film in my mid teens and twenties. It's so bittersweet. My kids are too young to watch it but I look forward for sharing it with them when they're older and would use your excellent breakdown to explain it! You should do York notes 🤣

AliasGrace47 · 25/08/2025 03:06

EverybodyLTB · 20/08/2025 03:20

I think you’ve failed to understand that ALL classic books will have context that must be understood before you assess them. You won’t find one AFAIK on a booklist that isn’t problematic. My son called Jane Eyre an embarrassing pick-me before I explained the context and also the Brontës’ lives and he adjusted his thinking just a small amount.

A kid in 50s Oregon, a boy, will be very familiar with guns. They hunt, shoot and fish, although unlikely at 12 to have already used a handgun for defence. That’s why they’re terrified of it, they aren’t glorifying it. If you want to put it into context of today’s problems with knife crime etc you can view it as scared people doing things their maturity level can’t and shouldn’t have to handle.

The gun represents the death of innocence. It’s Gordy’s turning point, he's past the point of no return in terms of childhood once he points that gun at Ace and is truly willing to use it. Chris’s death isn’t about the gun, it’s about innocence again. You can’t fight the unfairness and cruelty of the world, it was foreshadowed by Ace putting the knife to his neck - which Gordy saved him from. You can’t save everyone or take the bullies out of the world.

The train tracks represent the journey, it’s a coming of age story and is neatly hemmed by the following of the tracks, the perils along the way being life’s journey and the end of their old life (of childhood innocence). The vulgar language and ‘your mom’ insults represent their immaturity, you’re not supposed to like it, you’re supposed to understand that they’re silly kids who have no business going through what they’re going through. The events of the book/film grow them up too fast.

It’s a ‘neat’ film to me. The book, too. No excess, no unnecessary scenes, just pure and simple telling a painfully beautiful and real story of what life was like for rural, poor, post war boys. Pre 60s, pre JFK getting shot. In an age romanticised as an age of twee innocence, the book subverts that image that Americans/europeans were fed about the American lifestyle. Reality was that people struggled and were often miserable. Two, I think, of the boys were affected by war/the army. One of the dads was a war vet, and Gordy’s brother, whose death looms large across the film, died in the army. It’s all about the death of innocence and that’s on a bigger scale than for the boys, it’s the death of the American dream. Poor Ray was out picking berries ffs. How innocent is that? Representing freshness, sweetness, summer. And it’s wiped out in a flash.

It's ironic that on YouTube, lots of the comments are nostalgic ones which seem to think the world of the film is hunky dory because the boys get to play outside!

Also the attitude to guns in the film is ofc still common in rural America today.

AliasGrace47 · 25/08/2025 03:10

Happyinarcon · 29/01/2025 03:54

I think you should bear in mind how hugely inappropriate many of the required reading is for children at the moment. I had to complain about one for my 15 year old which featured an awful indecent assault scene. The school agreed to take it off the reading list for next term but it shouldn’t have been on it the first place.

So compared to what she could be reading I feel that Stand By Me is not too bad. Although I agree it normalises the use of weapons in group conflicts among children, which is seriously something we don’t want to push at the moment, especially as schools keep insisting they are powerless to either recognize or prevent blatant violence and bullying in the playground 🙄

What book was this which featured indecent assault?

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