"When he filmed Stand by Me, the 1986 Rob Reiner adaptation of Stephen King's novella The Body, River Phoenix was only 14. In 1990, the year my middle-school friends and I watched a rented VHS copy of that movie at every sleepover, we were 13. If you'd asked us at the time, we wouldn't have been able to explain why Phoenix's character, Chris Chambers-the brave, wrong-side-of-the-tracks leader of the boy gang on a quest to see a dead body-did it for us."
"To be sure, Phoenix always had a foxlike, sincere handsomeness. But the other actors we liked played dangerous, older, more explicitly romantic characters-Christian Slater's J.D. in Heathers, Patrick Swayze's Johnny in Dirty Dancing. Why would we spend every Saturday night watching young Phoenix, Wil Wheaton, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O'Connell wrestle, bicker, tell ghost stories, and get leeches on their testicles in the middle of a forest?"
"I was a Gen X tween, without a LiveJournal or a Tumblr to pour forth my obsessions. My love found expression mostly in the purchase of reams of teen magazines and movie posters, to be collaged into a mosaic of River for my wall. Over the years, this old teenage crush became a party anecdote, its power lost to me."
When River Phoenix filmed Stand by Me in 1986 he was 14. In 1990 a Gen X tween and middle-school friends were 13 and watched rented VHS copies at sleepovers. Phoenix's Chris Chambers is a brave, wrong-side-of-the-tracks leader whose foxlike, sincere handsomeness drew sustained adolescent attention. Other popular actors portrayed older, dangerous romantic figures, yet the boys' camaraderie, ghost stories, and gross-out scenes held appeal. Teenage devotion showed through buying the movie soundtrack, copying songs onto blank tapes, and collaging posters into a River mosaic. Years later the crush diminished to an anecdote but resurfaced during a family screening with an eight-year-old who reacted with disgust.
Read at Slate Magazine
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