TEEN YOUR ENTHUSIASM (23)

By: Kelly Jean Fitzsimmons
June 8, 2023

One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of heartthrobs from our adolescences). Series edited by Heather Quinlan.

CHRISTIAN SLATER

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is one of my all-time favorite movies. I previously shared my motto, “Nothing good comes from blue drinks,” in KIRK YOUR ENTHUSIASM. I didn’t share how utterly turned on teenage me got by Christian Slater’s cameo appearance as the night-duty officer who awakens Captain Sulu in his quarters.

A lifelong Star Trek fan, Slater nabbed the role because his mother was the casting director, and along with stealing his Starfleet uniform, he framed his paycheck. Innocent of these fun facts, my teen kid’s heart skipped a beat when I recognized Slater’s voice, which always sounds both ominous and as if there’s a perpetual grin dangling from his vocal cords. My body reacted in other ways I don’t like to think about, considering “my date” to the movie was my father.

A friend once told me David Bowie in Labyrinth awakened her sexuality. I’m sure this is true of many people, but since Labyrinth came out in 1986 before our mutual age hit double digits, I found her admission surprising. I caught up a few years later. You might think Christian Slater shook my sexuality awake with his dark turn as charming bad boy J.D. in Heathers, but no… the moment came (pun intended?) during 1990’s Pump Up the Volume. The first R-rated film I saw in the theater. This is the part where I should summarize what the movie is about, but if life has denied you the pleasure of experiencing Pump Up the Volume, for the love of God, stop what you’re doing and go watch it.

Now that you’re back, tell me you didn’t just about die during the scene where Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis, as Mark and Nora (aka the “eat me, beat me” lady), circle each other while Ivan Neville’s “Why Can’t I Fall in Love?” fills the night air along with their teenage angst. Both are shirtless because after a shy Slater stammers, “We’re so different,” Mathis pulls her sweater off over her head in one fluid motion to reveal her braless torso. Her bare breasts act as supporting evidence for his following words, “I meant, uh, you’re so fearless.”

The boy whose voice I could listen to forever tongue-tied in the face of the girl he adores. Their half-naked bodies circling round and round, tongues darting across lower lips in anticipation. That was the moment when one of the world’s true constants became Christian Slater’s hotness.

In Star Trek VI, Slater stands in the shadowy doorway and apologizes to Sulu for waking him because “Starfleet urgently requests any data we have on the whereabouts of Enterprise.” Teenage me couldn’t stop squirming in my seat, however, because all I could hear was Christian Slater as “Happy Harry Hard-On” proclaiming I am everywhere. I am inside each and every single one of you. Just look in and I will be there waving out at ya, naked wearing only a cock ring, heh, heh, heh.

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MORE ENTHUSIASM at HILOBROW

TEEN YOUR ENTHUSIASM (23)

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