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Let’s Decorate Cindy Mancini’s Walls

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Welcome to Film & Frame, in which we dare to imagine what could happen if we insert ourselves into one of our favorite movies and decorate a character’s walls.

Up first is “Can’t Buy Me Love,” the 1987 film starring Ronald Miller (Patrick Dempsey) as a geek who solves a financial crisis for popular girl Cindy Mancini (Amanda Petersen). His stipulation? She has to pretend to date him for one month to elevate his social status at their high school.

Of course they both eventually fall for each other, but the process is fraught with teen drama, betrayals and lessons along the way.

We see Cindy’s room a handful of times in the film, but it always made an impression on me because I loved the “Outrageous” sign on the wall that looks like a patch you’d put on your letterman’s jacket. Too bad I couldn’t replace that piece for her 2024 bedroom walls, but I did find some other items that vibe with Cindy’s personality and match up with plot points from the movie.

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Film & Frame: Can’t Buy Me Love (1987)

Let's Decorate Cindy Mancini's Walls • Film & Frame: Can't Buy Me Love • Little Gold Pixel

Let’s decorate Cindy Mancini’s walls in 2024!

I struggled with the idea of making the wall more cohesive color-wise, but in the end I let sentimentality win out because she’s a teenager. Remember how your walls were decorated when you were a teen? Most likely with a mish-mash of things you loved mixed with things other people gave to you, plus pics of friends everywhere. Of course it shouldn’t be perfectly curated!

About the Art: The movie takes place in Tucson, Ariz., and Cindy’s house has some bad-ass 1980s Southwest vibes, so I made a nod toward it with a more modern Arizona cartoon.

Her original room featured a butterfly, so we have to bring this back with some handpainted butterflies. The Cool pennant is a reference to the plot, plus Cindy’s sporting status as head cheerleader.

The cheeky Always Screamin’ art refers to those disappointing date nights at Scoops, where she dumps a not-thick-enough milkshake over the College Boy’s head to “check the consistency.”

Now for the “deep” art — the abstract mask-esque pieces hint at the toll that playing the part of the Cool Girl does to Cindy, who admits to Ronald that she has to work at being popular: “Popularity isn’t perfect. I mean, it almost feels like a job sometimes.”

The moon references Ronald and Cindy’s last date at the airplane graveyard, where he shares his love of astronomy by bringing a telescope along and showing Cindy the moon.

Cindy Mancini:
The moon looks different now, it’s not as mysterious or romantic as before.
Ronald Miller:
I’m sorry I ruined it for you.
Cindy Mancini:
You didn’t ruin it, you just changed it I guess.

And, last but not least, the My Love print of two lovers embracing in the sea is directly linked to Cindy’s secret poetry: “someday my wish is for him to hold me in his arms, in a sea of deep blue, together at last, together us two.”

Let’s just forget about the fact that Ronald totally betrays Cindy by reciting her poetry to someone else at the New Year’s Eve party — we will forgive him because he’s Patrick Dempsey, and he grovels till he wins Cindy over in the end.