HOLLYWOOD UNDER REAGAN

The Movie President

During the era of Hollywood's megabuck resurgence, a former movie actor was in the White House. President Ronald Reagan retained his fondness for his old profession, making frequent allusions to movies during his campaigns. One of his best-known lines was "Win one for the Gipper," which he spoke while playing Notre Dame football star George Gipp in Knute Rockne, All American (1940). Reagan's political persona often resembled that of an old-fashioned Western hero. In fact, John Wayne's 1956 movie The Searchers was one of the president's favorites. So was The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954), which he mentioned when praising acts of Korean War heroism. Reagan's Teflon-like media sheen was the envy of publicists, marketers, and advertising executives, all of whom benefited from his trademark use of sound bites and quotable quips. Perhaps his most quoted line was "Go ahead, make my day," which he lifted from the Clint Eastwood hit Sudden Impact (1983) and used to great and humorous effect during a 1984 debate with Democratic challenger Walter Mondale. The line reinforced the heroic, tough-guy image he used to promote his brand of conservatism and patriotism in the Cold War against the "evil empire" of the Soviet Union. The media, in turn, picked up on Reagan's movie mindset when they nicknamed his planned expensive, high-tech Strategic Defense Initiative "Star Wars."

Patriotism

Hollywood responded to Reagan's emphasis on patriotism with jingoistic Cold War movies celebrating American heroism. In Red Dawn (1984) and Invasion U.S.A. (1985) resourceful action stars violently thwart Russian invaders. In Missing in Action (1984) an American POW returns to Vietnam to take on the Communist regime and free other prisoners. Featuring a "war room" in which military experts frantically work to avoid Armageddon, War Games (1983) was the most paranoid nuclear-arms fable since On the Beach (1959) and Dr. Strangelove (1964). An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), starring Richard Gere, exudes simple military pride, but Taps (1981) goes beyond patriotism as Tom Cruise, playing a gung-ho cadet, screams "Beautiful!" as he opens fire with a machine gun. Cruise later starred in Top Gun (1986), an old-fashioned propaganda piece in which he plays a hotshot pilot who becomes a big hero and even gets the girl—all to the beat of an MTV-style soundtrack. The success of Top Gun, the highest-grossing movie of 1986, prompted the U.S. Air Force to use it in recruiting. By contrast, The Right Stuff (1983) was ironic, mocking more than applauding the frenzy surrounding U.S. pilots and astronauts during the Soviet-American space race of the 1950s and 1960s, The media took the movie seriously, however, particularly its heroic portrayal of former astronaut John Glenn. In October 1983, after Glenn announced his intention to seek the Democratic presidential nomination, Newsweek ran a cover showing actor Ed Harris as Glenn and asking, "Can a Movie Elect a President?" Apparently it could not; Glenn's campaign folded well before the 1984 Democratic National Convention, and Reagan was reelected in 1984.

Rocky and Rambo.

Sylvester Stallone hit the box-office jackpot in 1985 with Rambo; First Blood, Part 2.and.Rocky IV, the first two sequels in movie history to do substantially better at the box office than the originals. Rocky IV tapped into a popular fantasy, allowing audiences to go into the ring against the Soviet Union and win. The movie ends on Christmas Day in Moscow with Rocky defeating his evil, doped-up Soviet opponent (in red trunks) and getting draped in the American flag. The sweet but sorrowful loser of the first Rocky movie was transformed into a symbol of American might and freedom. In Rambo the angry Vietnam veteran John Rambo from First Blood travels back to the war-scarred jungles to take revenge on old enemies. "To survive war, you have to become war," Rambo announces, and he proceeds to prove his point by becoming a one-man battalion. To an America weary of bleak realism and antiheroes, the old-fashioned heroism in Rambo represented an opportunity for audiences to refight the war in Vietnam and win. The success inspired plenty of posturing, flag waving, and muscle flexing across America from Rambo water guns to look-alike contests and Rambo theme bars to a "Ronbo" poster of Ronald Reagan, portraying the president armed and ready for revenge. The Zeitgeist Stallone so cleverly tapped in 1985 had shifted by 1988; in the wake of the 1987 stock-market crash and the Iran-Contra scandal, Reagan-inspired patriotism soured, and Rambo III was a box-office bust.

Vietnam

Rambo was the most commercial of a rash of Vietnam War movies released between 1984 and 1989, and none of the others share its jingoistic theme. The majority of them deal with the harsh realities of war and its high psychological and moral price. The Killing Fields (1984) paints a nightmarish portrait of Cambodian genocide. Gardens of Stone (1987) and In Country (1989) deal with the troubling aftereffects of the war on American veterans; 1969 (1988) depicts a group of young draftees. Hamburger Hill and Full Metal Jacket (both 1987) high-light the often horrific brutality of the war. Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), though publicized as a comedy, does not avoid the reality of its Saigon setting. Casualties of War (1989) is blunt about American atrocities committed overseas. The best-known chronicler of the Vietnam experience in the 1980s was Oliver Stone, who directed Platoon (1986) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989). Having served in the war, Stone was hailed by many other veterans, and the critics, for creating the most realistic movie depiction of the war in Platoon, a grim and uncompromising story of infighting among a company of soldiers. Born on the Fourth of July, based on a memoir by disabled veteran Ron Kovic, refights the war on the home front, as an embittered Kovic, played by Tom Cruise, rages against the "system." Stone himself generated a great deal of controversy for his open criticism, on- and offscreen, of the American government.

Real Men

With Ronald Reagan in Washington, American audiences in the 1980s once again embraced traditional masculine heroes and "regular guys." Some of these heroes—including Harrison Ford in the Indiana Jones movies and Witness (1985) or Kevin Costner in Bull Durham (1988) and Field of Dreams (1989)—were of the tough but tender variety. These actors projected integrity (like Gary Cooper) and an inner strength (like Gregory Peck) even when their characters displayed human weakness. Richard Gere excelled in playing charming but cocky hustlers in American Gigolo (1980), An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), and Breathless (1983). With his toothpaste-white grin and slick, well-groomed demeanor, Tom Cruise became the ultimate movie star in a decade of packaged film products. He was also the first young superstar whose onscreen image was more opportunist than rebellious; his characters enjoy playing the system's games, and they play to win. Cruise's teenage entrepreneur in Risky Business (1983) set the stage for the hustlers he played in The Color of Money (1986), Cocktail (1988), and Rain Man (1988). Other 1980s heroes tended to be larger than life and just as unbelievable. Paul Hogan emerged as an unlikely macho hero in the Australian movie Crocodile Dundee (1986), proving that aging Australian outbackers could be strong and sexy and sell a lot of tickets. Jack Nicholson packaged his trademark smart-guy lunacy to the point of self-parody. Audiences cheered at his leering, red-blooded, eyebrow-wiggling antics in The Shining (1980), Terms of Endearment (1983), The Witches of Eastwick (1987), and Batman (1989). By the end of the decade Nicholson had become the cinematic voice of a new "minority," the angry white American male.

Action Heroes

In Sudden Impact (1983) Clint Eastwood reprised his Dirty Harry character, perfecting the ice-cool action hero, complete with tag lines and sound bites ("Go ahead, make my day"). Suddenly action heroes, who had languished for a decade, were everywhere, tougher and more resourceful—and more quotable—than ever. Chuck Norris exploded onto screens with martial-arts fantasies such as Forced Vengeance (1982), Silent Rage (1982), Code of Silence (1985), and Delta Force (1986). Rocky IV made Dolph Lundgren a star, and he followed up with movies such as The Punisher (1989) and Red Scorpion (1989). Kick-boxer Jean-Claude Van Damme, "The Muscles from Brussels," lunged his way through Bloodsport (1987), Black Eagle (1988), Cyborg (1989) and Kickboxer (1989). Steven Seagal made macho thrillers such as Above the Law (1988) and Hard to Kill (1990). Mel Gibson, best known as the angry, postapocalyptic loner in the Australian Mad Max movies, became an action hero with a screw loose in Lethal Weapon (1987). Bruce Willis graduated from television to movie superstardom with the action romp Die Hard (1988), in which his irreverent character single-handedly defeats a group of terrorists. Perhaps the biggest action star to emerge during the 1980s was Arnold Schwarzenegger, who turned the potential liability of his Austrian accent into box-office platinum by playing a monosyllabic killer robot in The Terminator (1984). Other roles as strong but silent cyborgs and foreigners followed in Commando (1985), Predator (1987), and The Running Man (1987). By 1988 Schwarzenegger was a big enough star to attempt a comedy, Twins.

Comedies

Comedies were serious business in the 1980s, rivaling fantasy and science fiction at the box office. Bette Midler and Robin Williams, faltering comedy stars in the early 1980s, had their careers resuscitated by Disney. After Disney's Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), Midler went on to appear with Danny DeVito in Ruthless People (1986), with Shelley Long in Outrageous Fortune (1987), and with Lily Tomlin in Big Business (1988). Williams received acclaim for Good Morning, Vietnam and Dead Poets Society (1989). Steve Martin twice won the New York Film Critics Circle awards for best actor during the 1980s—for All of Me (1984) and Roxanne (1987). Among the actors who received Oscar nominations for their comedy roles were Goldie Hawn for Private Benjamin (1980), Dudley Moore for Arthur (1981), and Tom Hanks for Big (1988). Hawn and Moore both capitalized on their success by playing variations on the same characters. DeVito carved out a string of comedic supporting roles in Romancing the Stone (1984), Tin Men (1987), and The War of the Roses (1989). In the late 1970s Chevy Chase and John Belushi had opened the cinema doors to other performers from the late-night television comedy programs Saturday Night Live and SCTV, including Joe Piscopo, Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas, and Harold Ramis. Chase went on to star in several 1980s comedies, most notably National Lampoon's Vacation (1983) and its sequels. Belushi and Dan Aykroyd expanded one of their best-known sketches into the full-length romp, The Blues Brothers (1980). After Belushi's drug-related death in 1982, Aykroyd continued to make comedies, including Trading Places (1983) and Ghostbusters (1984).

Murray and Murphy

The nutty irreverence Bill Murray displayed in Meatballs (1979) translated into comedy superstardom in the early 1980s. Chevy Chase and Rodney Dangerfield were ostensibly the stars of Caddyshack (1980), but it was Bill Murray's over-the-top cameo that turned the low-budget vehicle into a cult hit. His follow-up, Stripes (1982), a goofy military comedy perfectly tailored to his wise-guy persona, became an even bigger hit. In 1984 Murray topped his previous efforts yet again in Ghostbusters, a big-budget special effects comedy that made $220 million to become the eighth highest-grossing film in history. He played a dramatic role in The Razor's Edge (1984), but audiences were not interested. After a four-year layoff, Murray returned to movies with Scrooged (1988) and Ghostbusters II (1989). After the original Saturday Night Live cast departed in 1980, Eddie Murphy emerged as the only star of the replacement cast, winning an audience with a range of sly characters. In 1982 he was paired with Nick Nolte for his big-screen debut, 48 Hrs, That film established his street-smart, take-no-prisoners comic persona, which was crystallized in Trading Places the following year. The peak of his popularity came in 1984, when he played hip detective Axel Foley in Beverly Hills Cop, the biggest comedy hit of the decade and the sixth largest moneymaker of all time. The movie is mainly a series of set pieces that enabled Murphy to do his lovable bad-boy schtick. Follow-ups—including The Golden Child (1986), Coming to America (1988), the concert movie Eddie Murphy Raw (1987), and the inevitable Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)—more or less continued the winning Murphy formula.

Dumb Comedies

The unexpected success of the supremely silly Airplane! and Caddyshack in 1980 opened the door for a slew of "dumb" comedies during the decade. Bill Murray's goofy but lovable movies stood out from the crowd, largely because of his star talent. Many others, such as Porky's (1982) and its two sequels, were leering sex comedies (complete with holes in shower-room walls) about teenage boys' obsession with losing their virginity. Bachelor Party (1984) with Tom Hanks was more of the same, as were Spring Break (1983) and Losin' It (1983). Police Academy (1984), starring Steve Guttenberg, perfected the dumb-comedy formula of bathroom humor and good-natured anarchy. It also had five sequels by 1989. The heroes of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989) are perfect examples of late-1980s "dudes," one-upping Sean Penn's dumb prototype in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) with their dazzling displays of "air guitar." In 1988 The Naked Gun resurrected the bad puns, endless sight gags, and pratfalls of Airplane! and Airplane II: The Sequel (1982) and launched the previously staid Leslie Nielsen on a new career as an aging goofball.

Stalkers and Slashers

As tasteless as the dumb comedies of the 1980s were the "slasher" movies. Jason, the hockey-masked "star" of the seven sequels to Friday the 13th, proved that low-budget "quickies" could still make piles of money at the box office. The popularity of Jason and Freddie Kruger, the knife-fingered slasher of A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and its sequels, angered as many as it delighted. Most outraged were feminists, who were weary of seeing women portrayed as the victims of predatory violence in these "stalker" or "slasher" films. Many critics felt that the glut of stalker movies in the 1980s films represented an antifeminist backlash in Hollywood. Halloween, which had launched the slasher cycle in 1978, had four sequels in the 1980s, each with its sinister "hero" stalking a terrified woman. The three long-awaited Psycho sequels (1983, 1986, 1990) offered the same queasy dynamic as the original 1960 movie, minus the original genius of Alfred Hitchcock. Other suspense movies of the decade—including The Terminator (1984), The Stepfather (1987), and Body Double (1984)—not only offered such brutal and misogynistic violence as entertainment but encouraged viewers to identify with the killers. The effect of slasher movies on children was hotly debated, especially with the release of Child's Play (1988), featuring a murderous doll, and Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), which depicted a homicidal Santa Claus. Rutger Hauer was one of the most chining of the seemingly unkillable 1980s stalkers, most notably as an android in Blade Runner (1982) and as The Hitcher (1986). Director David Cronenberg offered a sinister variation of stalking in Dead Ringers (1988), with twin gynecologists pursuing an understandably frightened woman. Cronenberg also specialized in another popular horror genre, the "splatter" movie, so named for the tendency of blood and guts to splatter during acts of violence. Scanners (1981) featured heads blowing apart.

Independents

Cronenberg was one of the few directors with a discernible personal style to emerge during the 1980s. Brian De Palma also made a career of onscreen violence, while adding a touch of arty prestige to projects such as Dressed to Kill (1980), Scarface (1983), Body Double (1984), and The Untouchables (1987). Martin Scorsese, who had earned acclaim as an "auteur" in the 1970s, contributed one of the best movies of the 1980s, the gritty, atmospheric Raging Bull (1980). He continued to experiment with style and subject in The King of Comedy (1983), After Hours (1985), and The Last Temptation of Christ (1988). The Year of Living Dangerously (1983) and Witness (1985) earned Peter Weir a reputation for moody and dreamlike vision, while Terry Gilliam became known for fusing fantasy and comedy in Time Bandits (1981) and Brazil (1985). After the cult independent-film hit Eraserhead (1978) David Lynch found mainstream success with The Elephant Man (1980) and then went on to make the misguided epic Dune (1984). The decadent and disturbing Blue Velvet (1986), one of the most talked-about movies of the decade, restored Lynch's cult appeal. The directing team of Joel and Ethan Coen also outgrew the underground status they earned with Blood Simple (1984) when they made the big comedy hit Raising Arizona (1987). Alex Cox contributed two of the biggest cult successes of the 1980s, Repo Man (1984) and Sid and Nancy (1986). Jonathan Demme became known for his versatility after Melvin and Howard (1980), Stop Making Sense (1984), Something Wild (1986), and Married to the Mob (1988). John Sayles developed a following with uncommercial movies such as the comedy The Brother from Another Planet (1984) and the drama Matewan (1987). British director Bill Forsyth won critical acclaim for his refreshing comedies Gregory's Girl(1981) and Local Hero (1983). Alan Rudolph excelled at creating unusual moods and characters in Choose Me (1984) and Trouble in Mind (1985). Jim Jarmusch elevated minimalism to humorous heights in Stranger Than Paradise (1984), Down by Law (1986), and Mystery Train (1989). Spike Lee became the best-known black filmmaker of the decade with the independent comedy hit She's Gotta Have It (1986) and the controversial interracial drama Do the Right Thing (1989). Lee was often compared to Woody Allen in his use of ensembles and urban humor. Allen himself continued to make appealing and original comedies during the decade, including Zelig (1983), Broadway Danny Rose (1984), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), and Crimes & Misdemeanors (1989). Several veteran actors had their careers revived with appearances in independent films and underground cult hits, most notably Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet and River's Edge (1987), Harry Dean Stanton in Paris, Texas (1984), and Repo Man, and Dean Stockwell in Blue Velvet and Married to the Mob.

Women

Except for top executives Sherry Lansing and Dawn Steel, producer Gale Anne Hurd, and actresses such as Sally Field and Goldie Hawn (who set up their own production companies), Hollywood remained largely a boys' club during the 1980s. Yet women directors did emerge during the decade, many to major acclaim. Barbra Streisand made a splash by producing, writing, and acting in her first directorial effort, Yentl (1983), and she made headlines when she was overlooked at Oscar time. Randa Haines was also denied a nomination for best director when her Children of a Lesser God (1986) was nominated for best picture. Veteran director Elaine May struck out with Ishtar (1987), one of the most expensive bombs, but Penny Marshall had a major comedy hit with Big (1988). Amy Heckerling won praise for adding a feminine perspective to the teen movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982); then she made the $50 million hit National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985) and Look Who's Talking (1989). Martha Coolidge also raised the level of the teen movie, with Valley Girl (1983) and Real Genius (1985). Susan Seidelman earned raves for the hip urban sensibilities of Smithereens (1982) and Desperately Seeking Susan (1985). Penelope Spheeris contributed the two-part rock documentary The Decline of Western Civilization (1981, 1988), a hilarious but chilling dissection of the punk-rock and heavy-metal scenes. Australian Gillian Armstrong directed Mrs. Soffel (1984) and High Tide (1987), and Jane Campion of New Zealand attracted critical attention with Sweetie (1989). Other new directors included Kathryn Bigelow (Near Dark, 1987), Amy Jones (Love Letters, 1983), Joyce Chopra (Smooth Talk, 1985), and Donna Deitch (Desert Hearts, 1985).

Blandness

Distinctive filmmaking styles like Spike Lee's were the cinematic exceptions in the 1980s. With Hollywood's emphasis on bigness most releases came to seem interchangeable. Stately, tasteful "prestige" movies such as Gandhi (1982), Out of Africa (1985), and Driving Miss Daisy (1989) seemed to exist only to win Oscars. Many others—such as Ordinary People (1980), The Big Chill (1983), Silkwood (1983), Terms of Endearment (1983), and Mask (1985)—seemed more like made-for-television movies than big-screen efforts. The queen of both types of movies was Meryl Streep, who was nominated six times in the 1980s for best-actress Oscars for her roles in movies that were tasteful but often lifeless. Oscar-winning "prestige" actors Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman gave excellent performances in well-received movies for "prestige" directors such as Martin Scorsese and Barry Levinson, but most of their other efforts were soggy. A few promising film actors emerged in the 1980s (including Anjelica Huston, Daniel Day-Lewis, Debra Winger, Jeremy Irons, Susan Sarandon, and Holly Hunter), but many of the most-acclaimed stars—Jessica Lange, Robert Duvall, Sally Field, Sissy Spacek—seemed committed to bland, "noble" film efforts. Directors became chameleons, reliably churning out hits without any noticeable personal stamp. After his hilarious heavy-metal parody This Is Spinal Tap (1984), Rob Reiner settled in into a yeomanlike pace with conventional comedies like The Sure Thing (1985) and When Harry Met Sally (1989). Ron Howard's efforts were similarly bland. He contributed Splash (1984), Cocoon (1985), and Parenthood (1989) like clockwork. Unlike the gritty and realistic experiments of the 1970s, more and more 1980s movies relied on happy endings, tidied-up plots, and crowd-pleasing climaxes. The Hollywood products of the Reagan years were bland, empty packages with feel-good labels.

Nostalgia

Reagan's vision of an America filled with white picket fences may have been more in line with the 1950s than the 1980s, but it worked well as a movie. Norman Rockwell-style nostalgia bloomed. A Christmas Story (1983) harkened back to home and hearth in the 1940s, as did Woody Allen's Radio Days (1987). Standby Me (1986) was a sepia-tinged flashback to boyhood innocence in the 1950s, also evoked in Dead Poets Society (1989). Diner (1982) depicted the days of President John F. Kennedy's Camelot as experienced by six male friends, while Dirty Dancing (1987) set a story of first love during the same period. Back to the Future (1985) sent a typical 1980s kid back to the 1950s to change his family's destiny, while the heroine of Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) found herself back in 1962, with a second chance at life. Though set in the present, Field of Dreams (1989) created nostalgia for a simpler time with its mid-western landscapes and baseball, mom, and apple-pie sensibility. Life magazine Americana also popped up in period pieces such as The Right Stuff (1983), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), and the romantic baseball saga The Natural (1984).

Veterans

The Hollywood nostalgia in the 1980s extended to its veteran actors, who popped up increasingly in important roles and major movies. During the 1980s nearly one quarter of the actors who won Oscars were past sixty, and six were over seventy, In 1981 fifty-six-year-old Maureen Stapleton was the youngest winner; the other winners that year were John Gielgud (seventy-seven), Katharine Hepburn (seventy-four), and Henry Fonda (seventy-six). Hepburn and Fonda were the oldest actors ever to win in the best-actor and best-actress categories until Jessica Tandy surpassed them in 1989, at eighty. The Hepburn-Fonda vehicle, On Golden Pond, was such a surprise hit that it triggered a demand for warm, fuzzy movies about folks in their sunset years. Veteran Don Ameche began a whole new career. He had major roles in Trading Places (1983) and Things Change (1989) and won an Oscar for his break-dancing and cannonball-diving performance in the retirement-horne hit Cocoon, which also featured Tandy, Hume Gronyn, Wilford Brimley, Stapleton, and other older stars. Tandy suddenly became a major movie star with her Oscar-winning turn as a feisty widow in Driving Miss Daisy (1989). Geraldine Page won for her role as a determined retiree in The Trip to Bountiful (1985), and Paul Newman proved there was life after sixty when he won an Oscar for playing the aging pool hustler Eddie Felson in The Color of Money (1986). Sean Connery, Olympia Dukakis, Shirley MacLaine, and other veterans unexpectedly found themselves in demand, while top male stars such as Glint Eastwood, Dustin Hoffman, Warren Beatty, Robert Redford, and Jack Nicholson all passed fifty without losing their leading-man appeal.

Family Values

From cuddly oldsters to newborn babies, families hit the big time in Reagan-era movies. Fatal Attraction (1987) used a strong, traditional nuclear family, including a stay-at-home mom, to nail home its conservative moral about the evils of adultery and independent, "deviant" women. Career-minded women were staples of 1980s movies, but they sacrificed romantic and family fulfillment, as in Legal Eagles (1986), Broadcast News (1987), The Big Easy (1987), House of Games (1987), and Suspect (1987). The heroine of The Good Mother (1988) is punished for her sexuality by losing custody of her child. In Baby Boom (1987) a high-powered executive has motherhood literally thrust upon her, only to find herself loving it. After the success of Kramer vs. Kramer in 1979, fatherhood, never a big subject in Hollywood movies, was celebrated as both strong and nurturing in hits such as Mr Mom (1983), Three Men and a Baby (1987), and Look Who's Talking (1989). Parenthood was almost an advertisement for the traditional nuclear family, while prospective parents in The Big Chill and Immediate Family (1989) resort to outside help to start families. Field of Dreams, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, and Back to the Future have family messages, and the comedy hit Moonstruck (1987) even ends with a toast to "la familia!"

FATAL ATTRACTION TOUCHES A NERVE

When it was released in fall 1987, the movie Fatal Attraction looked like a slick, harmless thriller about a bunch of yuppies. MacLean reviewer Lawrence O'Toole called it a movie about "a crazy woman giving a nice guy and his family a hard time." Yet within weeks, as it was racking up huge profits at box offices nationwide, Fatal Attraction became the subject of heated controversy, as some viewers, particularly women, charged that its implied message was sexist and offensive. The debate became so intense that Time magazine sent its reviewers, who had originally shrugged off the movie, back for a second look. Shortly thereafter Time declared Fatal Attraction "the Zeitgeist movie of the 1980s."

On the surface Fatal Attraction appeared to be nothing new. For almost a decade Americans had been inundated with stalker and slasher movies that outraged viewers had criticized for portraying women as victims and encouraging audience identification with their attackers. Fatal Attraction seemed to turn the tables because its stalker was a woman. In the movie Dan, a successful, married lawyer (Michael Douglas), has a weekend affair with Alex, a successful, single, book editor (Glenn Close). To avoid jeopardizing his apparently idyllic home life with his wife and young daughter he tries to break up with Alex, who attempts suicide and then begins to harass Dan and his family. In the harrowing climactic scene of the movie she attacks Dan's wife, Beth, with a knife in the family's bathroom; Dan tries unsuccessfully to drown the homicidal Alex in the bathtub, and Beth shoots and kills Alex as she is about to stab Dan.

The meaning of Fatal Attraction is open to interpretation. Is it a cautionary tale about the consequences of extramarital sex in the age of conservative "family values"? Does it attempt to compare the innocent family with the victims of worldwide terrorism? One reviewer likened the film to Velcro, since anyone's theory about it seemed to stick. Many concerned women saw the movie as a paranoid reaction to the "threat" of feminism as perceived by the Reagan Right: an implication that successful, independent career women are by nature vindictive, devouring monsters who threaten the sanctity of the traditional nuclear family. Director Adrian Lyne seemed to bear out this interpretation by openly stating his preference for "traditional," 1950s-style women like his own stay-at-home wife: "Maybe that thrusting career woman looks rather attractive for a brief fling, but you don't want to spend your life with a woman like that. It's kind of unattractive, no matter how liberated and emancipated it is. It sort of fights the whole wife role, the whole childbearing role. Sure you get your career and your success, but you are not fulfilled as a woman." According to him career women were "overcompensating for not being men."

To varying degrees other motion pictures of the mid to late 1980s portrayed independent women as unfulfilled romantic losers, power-driven manipulators, or bad mothers. Movies such as Legal Eagles (1986), Baby Boom (1987), Broadcast News (1987), The Big Easy (1987), Suspect (1987), Tie Witches of Eastwick (1987), The Good Mother (1988), and Dangerous Liaisons (1988) appeared to be symptomatic of an antifeminist backlash. In such movies strong, smart career women who did not "know their place" could not seek personal fulfillment without being punished for it.

Yuppies

The audience for family fare grew steadily during the decade with the aging of the baby boomers. Whether they were parenting, coupling, or simply reveling in singles-bar success, boomers and yuppies were everywhere, both in the culture and on movie screens. Michael Douglas, Glenn Close, and William Hurt became onscreen embodiments of yuppiedom. The Big Chill was the first movie to capture the Zeitgeist; its seven aging boomers spend a weekend trying to reconcile their rebellion and idealism in the 1960s with their newfound success in the 1980s. In Lost in America (1985) a yuppie couple confront the same issue by junking their big-salary careers in order to drive cross-country and "touch Indians," in a 1980s version of Easy Rider (1969). Later, they crawl back to their urban meal tickets. Others were not as worried about integrity: the heroine of Working Girl (1988) trounces her evil yuppie boss by stealing her high-power job. Arthur (1981), Trading Places (1983), and Big Business (1988) also had it both ways, with evil entrepreneurs being ousted in favor of the good guys, who still get to keep all their money. The heroine of Baby Boom is rewarded with the jackpot of a new romance, a new business, and new motherhood. Such movies suggested to many boomers that they could have it all: wealth, career success, and family. Gordon Gekko, the corporate-raider "hero" of Wall Street, proclaims that "greed…is good," and he has the wife, beach house, clothes, and art collection to prove it.

The Brat Pack

A decade or more younger but just as successful onscreen as Douglas and Close were the Brat Pack, all with a similar well-clothed, well-groomed, well-paid, and well-housed angst. Tom Cruise kicked off the Pack attack with Risky Business (1983), in which he plays an upper-class, North Shore brat who throws a party, hires a hooker, drives his father's expensive car into Lake Michigan, and becomes an entrepreneur. Other movies about privileged but whiny 1980s suburbanites and mall rats included Valley Girl (1983) with Nicolas Cage; Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) with Sean Penn, Phoebe Cates, Judge Reinhold, and Jennifer Jason Leigh; and Sixteen Candles (1984) with Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall. Valley Girl, echoing the character Michael J. Fox played in the television hit Family Ties, became the first movie to depict acquisitive consumerist brats rolling their eyes at the 1960s ideals of their former hippie parents. Fox translated his Reagan-supporting television persona into the yuppie roles he played in The Secret of My Success (1987) and Bright Lights, Big City (1988). Charlie Sheen played a similar role in Wall Street, while his brother Emilio Estevez starred in the two biggest Brat Pack movies: St. Elmo's Fire (1985) with Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Andrew McCarthy, Ally Sheedy, and Judd Nelson; and The Breakfast CM (1985) with Sheedy, Nelson, Ringwald, and Hall. Lowe and Moore reunited in About Last Night… (1986), while McCarthy moved on to Less Than Zero (1987), with up-and-coming brats Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Gertz, and Pretty in Pink (1986), with Ringwald. Downey portrayed another brat in The Pick-Up Artist (1987). John Hughes was the top Brat Pack director, working with Ringwald on Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Pretty in Pink. Several brat stars benefited from movie versions of best-selling novels by a new group of brat novelists who were taking the literary world by storm.

Sources:

Leonard Maltin, ed., Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide, 1995 edition (New York: Signet, 1995);

"Rocky and Rambo," Newsweek, 107 (23 December 1985); 58-62;

David Thomson, A Biographical Dictionary of Film (New York: Knopf, 1994);

John Walker, ed., Halliwell's Film Guide (New York: HarperCollins, 1994);

Mason Wiley and Damien Bona, Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards (New York: Ballantine, 1991).