26 Very Weird Things You Realize Watching Romy and Michele's High School Reunion Now

Updated on 4/29/2017 at 1:30 PM

It's been 20 years since the 10-year reunion at the heart of Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, and it shows. Rewatching the movie now isn't just opening up a Pandora's box of '90s nostalgia; it's a burst of realizations that some weird sh*t happens in this movie . . . or at least, some weird sh*t happened in the '90s. To mark the anniversary of the movie — and let me say again, damn, it came out 20 years ago (which means Romy and Michele graduated 30 years ago), I rewatched it, and I have some thoughts. Please check out my brainwaves if at any time you also loved this movie.

Romy and Michele live in the greatest apartment in Venice Beach. Is this when Venice was affordable? Because Michele doesn't even have a job.
They're watching Pretty Woman. This holds up. Still the best movie to watch with your best friend while you're both in bed.

Lisa Kudrow is totally just being Venice Beach Phoebe, whereas Mira Sorvino's Romy voice is pretty bizarre. Why didn't I think it was so weird before?
Romy is kind of homophobic: "Just the thought of having sex with another woman creeps me out."
. . . "But if we're not married by the time we're 30, ask me again!" And she also pushes the idea that being over 30 meant you were damaged goods.
Hey, what's Romy's job? She works at Jaguar, yeah, and seems to reunite people with their cars after service, but like, that's her whole job? K.
This prompts a side-Google: how old were Kudrow and Sorvino when they shot this? Answer: Kudrow was 33 and Sorvino was pretty close to her character's age: 29.
Janeane Garofalo: still a comic genius.
THE SMOKING COWBOY IS JUSTIN THEROUX. Who married Jennifer Aniston 18 years after this movie. And was starring in a movie with Aniston's Friends costar, even though he wouldn't meet his future wife until years later. And! Kudrow and Theroux starred in their second movie together in 2016, 19 years after this: The Girl on the Train.
And if that didn't blow your mind, this will: the guy who plays Romy's crush Billy, Vincent Ventresca, is also Fun Bobby from Friends!
The flashback scenes to the '80s are still hilarious, but Michele being called "back brace girl" is so much ruder now somehow. Also, Romy's fat suit is . . . interesting. Are those fat suit tights?!
Christy Masters steals Romy's hamburger. This is supposed to be more hurtful because Romy loves hamburgers (because she's fat, you know?!), but dude, everyone loves hamburgers. And Christy is a b*tch for taking that hamburger.

How is the prom on the last night of school too? Is that a thing that happened in the olden days? Because I've never heard of this.
I always sort of remembered that one of the members of the A group was Elaine Hendrix, aka The Parent Trip villain, but so never knew that another one is Kristin Bauer van Straten — Pam from True Blood!
Romy and Michele's Madonna dresses have come back into style.

It's still really sad that Billy stands Romy up for the last dance. Why are movie proms so heartbreaking? Jesus.
In that scene where the girls are having a breakdown that their lives aren't as "impressive" as they thought, I totally remember being in high school and being like "LOL yeah." Now I remember where I was at 28 and wonder why they were so hard on themselves.
OK the subplot of Romy and Michele needing to lose weigh legitimately kills me now. They are both perfect looking. What the hell, '90s.

Romy borrowing the car from Ramon is 50 shades of creepy, sexual harassment. First, he wants to trade sex for it, but he settles for her pretending to have sex with him in his office. While all his co-workers listen in. Gross.
Perhaps the most dated thing in this movie is the line, "I'm the Mary and you're the Rhoda." Does anyone under the age of 30 have any idea what that means? I only sort of got it when I saw this in 1997 and that was my time.
Because of this movie, I will never forget who did invent Post-its: Art Fry. Somehow I have never been able to unlearn that.
Romy tries to impress people by having "a flip phone." It meant you were rich!
Lisa Luder is an editor at Vogue. That was a mind-blowingly impressive job to me.
The A-group is already working on their third (!) kid at 28. Were these really our '90s standards?!
Lisa gets called a "ball-busting, dried-up career woman" because she is single and 28 and working at Vogue.
"You're a bad person with an ugly heart, and we don't give a flying f*ck what you think" is one of the best comebacks ever. Using it this weekend.