Bad Manners (also known as Growing Pains) is a 1984 comedy film directed by Robert Houston.
Teenage delinquent Piper gets taken to an orphanage. After a while of playing the lone wolf, disrespecting the orphanage's authority figures and generally raising hell, he develops a strong friendship with fellow misfits Joey, Blackie, Whitey and Mouse as they're repeatedly put in solitary confinement together. When Mouse gets adopted by an obnoxious rich family, the other four break out of the orphanage to go rescue him.
Tropes:
- Bestiality Is Depraved:
- One couple comes in to adopt a child. When Sister Serena asks why they want to adopt, the woman says "Well, we tried it with a dog", which certainly means the couple adopted a dog, but also sounds like she tried getting pregnant from the dog, which is in keeping with the movie's edgy and gross humor. Sister Serena fails to reply and looks rather disturbed.
- Any sweetness in seeing Piper and Joey kissing each other gets ruined when a dog gets loose and starts humping Piper's legs (with his "red rocket" being visible).
- Blood Oath: Piper, Joey, Blackie, Whitey and Mouse cut their middle fingers with Piper's knife and press them against each other, mixing their blood while swearing to regard each other as family.
- Flipping the Bird: The five orphans are all rowdy miscreants, so they will often show their middle fingers in defiance; it's also a sign invoking their Blood Oath because it involved cutting their middle fingers.
- Foreign Culture Fetish: Mouse's adoptive brother Garth is obsessed with Japanese culture, going as far as wearing nothing but a loincloth even at dinner and sporting a chonmage
. - Girliness Upgrade: Joey starts out as a short-haired tomboy dressed in a shirt and slackers. Sometime after they escape the orphanage to look for Mouse, she starts donning dresses (which is also when she and Piper start showing mutual romantic interest in one another) and stays in them until the end of the movie.
- Mature Work, Child Protagonists: Four of the protagonist orphans appear to be in the 12-15 range, while Mouse is younger than that. The movie is rated R and engages in a lot of edgy and sexual humor, often stemming from the misbehaving kids' coarse words or actions.
- One of the Boys: Joey is a tomboy (easily confused for an actual boy thanks to her haircut and clothes) who's never seen hanging out with anyone but the four boys she forms a Blood Oath with.
- Riding into the Sunset: The last shot of the movie is the five orphans walking off into the darkening horizon together, cheerfully talking about all the cool stuff they can do now that they're free.
- The Smurfette Principle: The five orphans have one girl among them, which is Joey, though she initially easily passes for one of them.
- Son of a Whore: Piper's mom is an "entertainer" in the sex industry. This has given him a big chip on his shoulder, not helped by the fact that several characters mock him about it.
- Your Mom: Joey has a tendency to reply to orders or slights by shouting "Your mama!"
