Tools of Characterization

Characterization in Sixteen Candles

Direct Characterization

Our characters are almost entirely defined by direct characterization as soon as they're introduced. Sam tells us all about herself when she talks to her reflection:

SAM: Chronologically you're sixteen today. Physically you're still 15. Hopeless. Nope, I look exactly the same as I have since summer, utterly forgettable.

Randy reminds Sam about Jake Ryan, even though Sam knows everything Randy is saying. Randy is saying it more for our benefit than for Sam's.

RANDY: He's a Senior, and he's taken. I mean really taken.

Randy describes Caroline:

RANDY: Practically impossible to cut up. She's supposedly real sweet, her brother's deaf, and everybody in the world worships her.

And by "cut up" she means to insult or disrespect, not to cut up into little pieces and bury in the basement.

And finally, we can't forget that there's a character simply known as the Geek. 

Actions

Considering how direct characterization sets us up on how to perceive all our characters, their actual actions sometimes run counter to what we're told about them.

Jake isn't really "really taken" because he drops Caroline in a heartbeat. Caroline shows us that not everybody worships her. Well, her own boyfriend doesn't, because she has a habit of throwing parties at his parents' house without asking him. And considering Jake passes off Caroline's unconscious body to the Geek, he could cut her up literally without her even suspecting a thing.

The Geek at least doesn't murder her, but he does have sex with her without her consent, changing how we feel about him too. He comes across as sleazy early on, but that behavior proves it, even if he does show a nicer side to Sam during the school dance.

Go back to acting that way, Geek. We liked you better then.

Props

The Geek may be called the Geek, but his friends are the true geeks. They're always shown with some sort of weird prop. They wear binocular goggles at the dance to spy on other students. They talk to each other via walkie-talkies. And they wear headlamps for some inexplicable reason to the party at Jake's house.

Maybe they hope it will illuminate human behavior that they just don't understand.