The Reagan Era

Extension of NEW OPTIMISM –Reagan’s conservative ideology/ “traditional values” of nationalism, winning, solidarity, militarism, and money

• (The natl. debt exceeded all previous administrations combined, and now had to be calculated in trillions of dollars.)

Usual Republican movement away from the social concerns–exhausted by nearly twenty years of civil, social, and political strife begun by the assassination of John Kennedy and eventually encompassing Vietnam, the antiwar movement, the civil rights struggle, rampaging inflation, the Watergate scandal, and the loss of national prestige abroad, simply decided that they didn’t want to hear about it anymore.

American audiences fascinated by lives of rich: Dynasty, Lifestyles of Rich and Famous, Wall Street. Social welfare spending radically slashed–results are 1-3 million homeless.  Richest 1/5 accounted for 44 percent of the income.

Military (images &) Films

Top Gun, Rambo, Red Dawn

The Rambo movies replayed the Vietnam War, with Stallone’s humorless, absurdly indestructible killing machine, John Rambo, tapping into the depths of his character’s–and the American public’s– inchoate, underlying anger about America’s defeat in Southeast Asia.  Macho stars (Clint Eastwood, Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Norris)

WATCH: clip from Red Dawn

With closed captions

• (Top ten stars: Harrison Ford, Dan Ackroyd, Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray, Tom Cruise, Sylvester Stallone, Jack Nicholson, John Candy, Steve Guttenberg, and Danny DeVito. Kim Basinger placed 15th)

Slasher Films

Slasher Films — Halloween (1978) and Friday the 13th (1980) –began flood of films involving the serial murder of teens by a ruthless, unstoppable psychotic, with plenty of gratuitous sex and mayhem, and with realistic gore by high-tech makeup and special effects artists like Rob Bottin and Tom Savini.

VARIETY reported 25 slasher films among the fifty top grossing films of 1981, a year in which slashers accounted for nearly 60 % of all domestic releases.

WATCH: Friday the 13th Trailer

Friday the 13th trailer – CC

WATCH: Friday the 13th Ending

With closed captions

Sci/Fi and Fantasy

SCI/FI and FANTASY— Ghostbusters, Raiders of the Lost Ark with predatory alien monsters of Alien (1979) AND the friendly alien of E.T. which became a parable about growing up or coming of age; teaches younger audience that it is not enough to gain knowledge, they must also convince the adult world to take them seriously.

1984 – “PG-13 with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

WATCH: The Abyss scene

The Abyss scene – CC

Film Noir

Film Noir (“NEO-NOIR”): Body Heat (1981), Black Widow (1986), Fatal Attraction (1987)

WATCH: Body Heat boardwalk scene

With closed captions

Teenpix

TEENPIX:  inspired by the financial success of the R-rated Risky Business in 1983, filmmakers produced a glut of teen and preteen comedies with sexual/social themes over the next several years.

John Hughes/ “Brat Pack” films –re: the social anxieties created by the rigid class stratifications of American high schools

• (Estevez, Lowe, Sheedy, Demi Moore, Andrew McCarthy, Judd Nelson)
• category of films created to exploit the ‘PG-13’ rating when it was instituted in 1984.

AND

Ex. Some Kind of Wonderful (1987) prod. by John Hughes with fine grasp of the social anxieties 

WATCH: clip Some Kind of Wonderful

With closed captions