Home Alone: Why Buzz’s Girlfriend Cameo Is So Strange

There is something strange about Buzz’s girlfriend’s cameo in Home Alone. The film has become a Christmas classic since it was made in 1990 but began as an underfunded pipe-dream for director director Christopher Columbus who had to call in many favors to get the film made. Few thought Home Alone would become the highest-grossing live-action comedy for two decades (until The Hangover Part II stole the title in 2011), and now Buzz’s girlfriend has been memorialized as the girl Kevin thinks looks like a dog.

Home Alone begins with the buzz of the holiday in a home full of family. Set in Chicago, there is snow and cheer as everyone prepares to leave for a family vacation in Paris. Eight-year-old Kevin (played by Macaulay Culkin) gets into trouble, is sent to the room in the attic, and is left behind the following morning as everyone rushes to make their flight. To complicate matters, two bumbling burglars (played by Goodfellas Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern) attempt a robbery on the house with only Kevin left to defend it. Kevin proves a worthy opponent, outsmarting the thieves in hilarious (and extremely far-fetched) ways, and saves Christmas.

Following Kevin’s realization that he has been left behind, he enjoys having the whole house to himself. He eats copious amounts of junk food while watching shows too old for him, jumps on the bed while eating popcorn, uses his father’s aftershave (in one of the most iconic movie scenes ever made), and rummages through the room of his older brother, Buzz (played by actor Devin Ratray who reprises his role in the even more beloved, Home Alone 2 and the recent Home Sweet Home Alone). While scavenging, Kevin finds a picture of Buzz’s girlfriend, makes a disgusted face, and slams the picture back down, saying, “Buzz… your girlfriend. Woof!” insinuating that the girl in the photo is an ugly dog. Home Alone has become so popular; this could be a tragic legacy for any girl…except it’s not a girl in the photo—it’s the art director’s son in costume.

According to Devin Ratray (via Yahoo Entertainment), “the producers decided it would be unkind to put a girl in that role of just being funny-looking.” The art director’s son gladly volunteered to fill in for the comedic part. However, he and his father had no idea the Christmas movie would become as popular as it did. Ratray predicted the son would probably have second thoughts about agreeing to the cameo if he had known it would grow to be one of the funniest moments of the 1990 movie.

Knowing that Home Alone producers (one of which was the 80s-movie legend John Hughes) considered the legacy of the subject of the photo, it still seems a poor choice to have the disgusting “girl” in the photo be a boy dressed as a girl. The scene, which played as hilarious in 1990, would likely be received very differently now (especially considering this set secret) and sheds light on popular culture’s evolution over the past three decades. It is also interesting to wonder how the scene would have played out if Buzz’s girlfriend had been a total babe.

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