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Phoebe Cates' Pool Scene

Taking off her Bikini, Phoebe Cates' Pool Scene shattered teenage innocence and changed a 17 year old woman forever.

By Frank WhitePublished 8 years ago 6 min read
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After ending a brief but successful modeling career by seventeen, it took Phoebe Cates less than 24 months to become famous for what Rolling Stone has consistently voted Phoebe Cates' pool scene, as the hottest bikini scene in film history. It would be a defining moment for cinema and the end of innocence for a young Cates. The sexualization of Phoebe Cates began before she was even legal. By the time she was nineteen, it was 1982 and she had done several nude scenes in films like Paradise. Fully nude was fully nude. It seemed coming off the 1970s decade of sex, drugs, and rock & roll, nudity even for a teenager, was more socially acceptable than in the 21st century. Paradise was another version of the cult classic Blue Lagoon where Phoebe’s peer Brooke Shields, also quite young, played a sexually active teenager.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Fast Time at Ridgemont High is a famous film. It has achieved cult status. No matter what article you read, Phoebe Cates' pool scene with her opening her bikini poolside, is cited as one of the things that helped the film achieve iconic status. Followed in close second is the scene where stoner Jeff Spicoli, played by a then unknown Sean Penn, had pizza delivered to his high school classroom. The film did not survive transformation to a TV series, because at its core it was a film that appealed to the deviant in all of us. The scene with Cates is actually part of a masturbation fantasy scene.

Bikini Scene

Brad Hamilton, played by Judge Reinhold, is in the bathroom jerking off to Phoebe Cates’ character. Clad in a solid red bikini, she rises from the pool, soaked, her hair perfect and lipstick unsmudged. Looking directly at the camera and in slow motion, she approaches. The first time you see it you are speechless. It takes only a few seconds for that top to come off and expose her perfectly sculptured breasts. It feels like minutes before the viewer is taken back to the bathroom with Reinhold’s pants beneath his ankles and him spanking it. She was eighteen years old. Today, something is very wrong with that. Exploitation is only one of the issues that makes me uneasy with the scene. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good pair of breasts. Her breasts were amazing, but again she was eighteen, and the scene isn’t real, it was about a guy jerking off to this eighteen year old. Of course I have no problem with teenagers jerking off to teenagers, but what happens when the guy jerking off is the teenage guy’s dad.

Sexualization

This sexualization of teenagers is nothing new, from Saved by the Bell’s Elizabeth Berkley to High School Musical’s Vanessa Hudgens, but Cates was the original. And perhaps that is why she so abruptly left the industry in 1984. Cates later admitted regretting being in the movie and said, "What I learned was never to do a movie like that again." According to her co-star Willie Aames, "She will have nothing to do with the film. She's really upset about it. She won't do any promotion.”

Following Phoebe Cates' pool scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, she costarred with Matthew Modine in the sex comedy Private School. Cates's other film roles were less sexual in nature from the Gremlins films to Drop Dead Fred. But for years it would be hard to separate the fantasy from reality.

Later Life

Phoebe Cates hit it off with the Kevin Kline during what would be an unsuccessful audition for the 1983 cult classic The Big Chill. They were married in 1989, a big year for Kilne winning an Oscar for A Fish Called Wanda. While she had a few minor roles, she never really returned to the limelight. As an actress she was met with varying opinions by different critics, many of whom I am sure hit the rewind enough to break their vintage VHS tape player. As a favor to Fast Times co-star and great friend Jennifer Jason Leigh, of Hateful Eight fame, Cates resurfaced in a small role in Leigh's The Anniversary Party in 2001. She has since raised a family and rarely makes an appearance in the Hollywood scene.

But back in 1982, when the coming-of-age film Fast Times at Ridgemont High exposed what exactly was going on in the brains of hormonal male teens when they are spending too much time in the shower, she was on the cover of every major teen magazine. Amy Heckerling's directorial debut launched her career, including films like Look Who’s Talking and Clueless. And while neither have spoken publicly together about the freedom that filmmakers had in the 1970s and 1980s to explore teenage sexuality with actual teenagers and not twenty-three-year-olds acting seventeen-year-old parts, it has always been something that neither has shied away from discussing individually. Heckerling admitted that her original choice for Cates’ role was Justine Bateman, who had already committed to Family Ties. Family Ties would go on to be a huge hit TV series. No chance of taking off a bikini on network TV in the early 1980s.

Perhaps it was the innocence of the time, but the scene has lost none of its popularity. In the face of millions of possible options on the internet, the scene remains at the to of every bikini list published. Just search “famous bikini scenes.” Most often it is number one, alongside these other iconic bikini moments. Irrespective of how deep the bikini movie rabbit hole goes, there wouldn’t be a Nicollette Sheridan in The Sure Thing without Fast Times. Elizabeth Berkley may have never shown everything in Showgirls if Phoebe had not shown hers. Denise Richards may never have exploited herself in Wild Things if Heckerling had not exploited Phoebe Cates' pool scene in her directorial debut.

A Sure Thing

In the 80s sex comedy, A Sure Thing, Walter “Gib” Gibson, played by John Cusack, hitchhikes his way across the country in an effort to get laid by “The Sure Thing,” a sexy blonde played by Nicollette Sheridan. Her tan body, complimented by her white bikini, had people searching after their own “sure thing.”

Showgirls

In 1995’s Showgirls, Elizabeth Berkley, heads to the pool naked and waits for Zack Carey, played by Kyle MacLachlan to join her with some champagne. The two indulge themselves, in both some champagne and each other, around the pool in the highly erotic and explicit scene.

Wild Things

Wild Things, a 1998 sexy crime drama, is a two for one deal when it comes to sexy pool scenes. Shapely Denise Richards makes her debut in the film in slow motion from a pool in a skin tight bathing suit. Another sexy pool scene occurs when she locks lips with co star, Neve Campbell which results in two floating bikini tops as things get start to get steamy.

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About the Creator

Frank White

New Yorker in his forties. His counsel is sought by many, offered to few. Traveled the world in search of answers, but found more questions.

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