YMMV / Never Been Kissed

• Alternate Character Interpretation: We see Kirsten, Kristen, and Gibby be outright cruel on multiple occasions, and at the prom they are clearly angry with Josie and disturbed to learn that she's actually 25. Despite this, at the end of the film they still show up to Wrigley Field and seem to be rooting for Josie, with Kirsten even saying "That is so wrong" when it looks like Coulson isn't going to show up. Were they only there for the spectacle, or did they read her article and have a Heel Realization?
• Designated Hero: Gus is supposed to be a tough but fair editor to Josie but he comes off as condescending at best and sleazy and bad at his job at worst.
• Fridge Horror:
  • Colson was very clearly falling in love with Josie. But the thing is, he had no idea about her true age. No one did. So it could be argued that he fell in love with a high school girl.
  • More straddling the line between this and Fridge Logic, but — Rob is a 23-year-old pretending to be a high-school student, who plays baseball. Most, if not all, governing bodies would force South Glen South to forfeit the games in which he played, as players over 18 are a big no-no a high school sports.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Seeing James Franco as one of the popular jerks and Leelee Sobieski as a bully-target becomes almost karmic when you see the ending to The Wicker Man (2006).
  • Harry Osborn, Rhomann Dey and Susan Storm are in the same film.
• Hollywood Homely:
  • Leelee Sobieski as the nerdy girl, especially when she strips down to that spandex blue cat suit at the prom.
  • Also Josie Geller — she's supposed to be a bookish, nerdy girl as well... but she's Drew Barrymore. That said, they do manage to make Drew look pretty bad in her prom flashback. More than the majority of these examples, anyway.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Hey, who's that guy getting hit in the face with a purse? That wretched James Franco, of course!
  • And Jessica Alba is totally Disco Barbie!
  • Octavia Spencer also has a minor role.
  • John C. Reilly as the newspaper editor.
• Squick: It's rather creepy how Rob pretends he dated Josie, and when his friends ask how she was in bed he replies, "She's amazing", and then they lean in and want details which he then has to describe.
• Tear Jerker: Josie's flashback to the night of her first prom. Her younger self has gotten ready much to her families delight, and she giddily rushes to her front porch to meet her date... only for him and his real date to cruelly pelt her with eggs and drive off, leaving young Josie sobbing. The, her mother hears and walks out, but Josie can’t face telling her what happened and runs off. Also a bit of realistic Nightmare Fuel to those who were picked on in high school.
• Unintentional Period Piece: The entire plot may become extremely flimsy had it been made in the age of social media. While pretending to be a teen, Josie could always say her parents wouldn’t let her have social media until she turned 16 or something to work around that. She could theoretically scrub her accounts and change her hair color to confuse anyone who might see her image online.
• Values Dissonance:
  • The "dunce sombrero" that Josie sports for being late to class doubles as both cultural appropriation and an archaic form of punishment during the time of movie setting.
  • Nowadays, teacher student romances are seen in a much more imbalanced, exploitative light, which can make this movie harder to watch.
• The Woobie: Some of the flashback scenes of Josie in her real high school years are rather cruel.

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