“Well, I Like Joey Ramone Cause He’s Tall and Handsome. He Looks Like a Poem to Me”: Riff Randell, the Ultimate Fangirl

Being a fangirl takes up so much of you. You just love whatever it is so much that you can’t stop thinking about it and you feel so emotionally invested you get so proud almost like it’s your child, or else you feel hopelessly in love. And you think it must be a figment of your imagination because there is no way anyone else could have created something so perfect for you that you must have somehow made it yourself. And in the Ramones’ 1980 rock comedy Rock n’ Roll High School (which has the perfect amount of Ramones performing with minimal Ramones acting) , protagonist Riff Randell is the supreme fangirl. Riff is cool. Riff is punk. Riff is confident. Riff is a nerdy Ramones fangirl.

 The movie takes place in 1980, but everyone at the high school, except Riff, acts like it’s the 50’s. The stuffiness of the adults and the way they talk about rock is so exaggerated. Which makes it so great and funny, it’s not taking itself seriously. So it’s really funny to watch the up-tight square adults straight out the 50’s have confrontations with Riff, the super abrasive modern rocker. The film exaggerates Riff using the wildest ideas 50’s of teenage rebellion. It’s funny that Riff is seen as so rebellious, when all she is guilty of is literally listening to the Ramones. But she is proud of her punk trouble maker status and get almost excited when she gets in trouble, like it validates her as a punk. Even though she is really just a nerdy fangirl with a big ol’ crush on Joey Ramone.

She is the ultimate fangirl because she just wants to share her favorite band with the whole world. She has felt the power of The Ramones and she knows her whole school needs to feel it to. She blast Ramones over the loudspeakers, ditches school to buy her whole class concert tickets, and makes her gym class do a dance routine to “Rock n’ Roll High School” (which isn’t really a Ramones song in the movie yet, but she wrote it for them, so same dif). She is the object of the main jock’s affection but Riff can’t even pretend to even notice him because he is not Joey Ramone (who was so ugly that it reverted back to being cool and attractive). She daydreams about getting serenaded by The Ramones in her bedroom. She inspires her submissive and conservative best friend, Kate, to open up and be more assertive. She thinks the Ramones make her a better person, so she wants to make everyone else better too by sharing the Ramones.

Riff wants to be IN the band, she wants to be involved. She has a goal, she needs to give them the song she wrote for them. She is full of confidence and knows the second the Ramones read her lyrics she will become their primary songwriter. It’s cool that she wants to write for them. As much as I would want to be involved with my favorite bands, I don’t think I would want to write songs for them because I just wanna hear what they have to say. It’s kinda of intrusive of her, but in a cool way, like she feels she knows them so well that she can write music for them and her lyrics line up with what the Ramones are about. Riff wins a radio contest and gets to meet the Ramones, which is her opportunity to hand them her sheet music. She is so ready and prepared to give them the sales pitch of a lifetime, but when she gets in front of them she melts and gets giddy, like anyone would. But she still has the confidence in her lyrics to put it right in front of Joey’s face. Riff is a very determined fangirl.

Riff Randell the ultimate fangirl because she gets the ultimate fangirl fantasy in the end. At the end of the film when Riff is at school getting tortured by the evil principle, The Ramones roll up singing to tell her they liked her song. Then they roam her high school, which has gone vigilante in wake of their presence, and Riff gets deemed an honorary Ramone. Riff’s dreams came true and she got to become a Ramone.