Line #4 YMMV/Kids - TV Tropes


1	* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: What's going through Jennie's head when she [[spoiler: closes the door on Telly's and Darcy's intercourse?]] [[YouAreTooLate Despair]] or [[TheFirstCutIsTheDeepest bitterness]]? You'd think the former, but she ''was'' told what they were doing upstairs, and [[spoiler: leaving a blatantly discomforted child to an older boy's ravishing]] is not a moment of grace.
2	* CriticProof: Despite critics being horrified at the film's subject matter, it was quite profitable; it was something of a SleeperHit, grossing $20 million on a $1 million budget.
3	* HarsherInHindsight:
4	** The film implies a morbid ending for Casper, [[spoiler: who contracts HIV from raping the unconscious Jennie]]. It's even sadder when the viewer knows that his actor Justin Pierce committed suicide only a few years later.
5	** Likewise, the ringleader of beating the man to unconsciousness in the skate park is Harold - whose own actor would be dead a few years later as well.
6	** Telly is something of a popular character in-universe. Unfortunately, it went the opposite way in real life for his actor Leo Fitzpatrick. He endured such backlash from people who didn't get that it was just a film that he had to move twice and wasn't comfortable acting again until he was in his twenties.
7	** And, of course, a film depicting characters engaging in horrific sexual abuse being distributed by the Weinstein brothers...
8	* HilariousInHindsight:
9	** Rosario Dawson plays a sexually active girl who ''doesn't'' test positive for HIV. Ten years later, she's on the other side playing Mimi in the film version of ''{{Theatre/Rent}}''.
10	** Chloe Sevigny plays a girl who has only had sex once in contrast to a more promiscuous friend. Of course, it's rather amusing in light of ''Film/TheBrownBunny'' - where she infamously performed unsimulated fellatio on camera!
11	* MemeticMutation
12	--> "Don't worry, it's Casper..."
13	* RetroactiveRecognition: Creator/ChloeSevigny and Creator/RosarioDawson as Jennie and Ruby.
14	* TooBleakStoppedCaring: Critics at the time were horrified by the bleakness of the story; a protagonist who makes it his mission to take young girls' virginities and in turn is revealed to have HIV and therefore unknowingly spread it. He and his friends also beat up an adult in the skate park, which the screenwriter took from real life. It's something of a RunningGag for viewers to say they watched it as teenagers and didn't realise the true horror until they were older.
15	* ValuesResonance: Teenage delinquency has stayed about the same if not worsened over the years, and ''Kids''[='=]s representation of it seems a lot more relevant nowadays.
16	* TheWoobie: Jennie is only a teenager, who's had sex just once, and contracted HIV from it. In 1995, this was practically a death sentence. All she can do is search the city in vain for Telly and tell him he's got the disease. She's taken advantage of by multiple other characters [[spoiler: and never accomplishes her goal on-screen]].

Context YMMV / Kids