With the benefit of hindsight, actress Molly Ringwald finds herself startled now by the sexism, racism and homophobia in the series of John Hughes coming-of-age movies she starred in more than 30 years ago.

She praises the late director and writer for crafting stories featuring a female lead (Ringwald) in 1984s Sixteen Candles, 1985s The Breakfast Club and 1986s Pretty in Pink (1986), and for his keen understanding of teenage angst.

But the films were blazingly white, had no characters from the LGBTQ community and featured a grotesque stereotype of an Asian exchange student , she notes in an article she penned for The New Yorker published online Friday.

The words fag and faggot are tossed around with abandon, and the depiction of women in Hughes films and other movies in the 1980s were demeaning, Ringwald says.

She watched The Breakfast Club earlier this year with her 10-year-old daughter and was haunted by the sexism of some of the scenes. It shouldnt have shocked her, she writes.

If attitudes toward female subjugation are systemic, and I believe that they are, it stands to reason that the art we consume and sanction plays some part in reinforcing those same attitudes, she adds.

Ringwald complains about her characters relationship with bad boy John Bender, played by Judd Nelson in The Breakfast Club. He sexually harasses her, taunts her and ends up being her boyfriend by the end of the film.

In Sixteen Candles, a very drunk high school classmate (played by Haviland Morris) is traded by her boyfriend to another guy in exchange for a pair of underwear from another girl. The implication is that the unconscious girl will be the new guys sex partner for the night.

Depictions of teens were worse in teen horror flicks, where pretty, sexually active teens were most likely to be killed, notes Ringwald. Popular teen comedies then, such as Animal House, were written by men for boys; the few women in them were either nymphomaniacs or battleaxes, she adds.

As for Hughes, Ringwald puzzles how he could write with so much sensitivity, and also have such a glaring blind spot.

But Ringwald has met fans of the films over the years, including minorities and members of the LGBTQ community, who saw themselves in the struggles Hughes characters faced. These kids were also finding themselves and being other even though it was in a very traditional, white, heteronormative environment, one of the fans explained to Ringwald.

Whether thats enough to make up for the impropriety of the films is hard to say, Ringwald concludes.

She described in another New Yorker article last year the sexual harassment she experienced working in Hollywood. I could go on about other instances ... but I fear it would get very repetitive. Then again, thats part of the point .... Stories like these have never been taken seriously .