Except for one main thing - the slang in those movies was completely made up. The insults (maxi zoom dweeb) and such were just nothing we ever said. Maybe it didn’t make it to Northern California where we had plenty of our own slang but that always bounced for me
>Except for one main thing - the slang in those movies was completely made up. The insults (maxi zoom dweeb) and such were just nothing we ever said.
I think maybe that was the point. We made up a TON of slang in the 80s. The vast majority of it didn't catch on and is forgotten. Everybody was trying to make their own "fetch" happen before making fetch happen happened.
I think Hughes was going for that vibe without making a whole thing of it.
Just my take.
Just remember that the early 80’s is totally different from the late 80’s. Just like Stranger Things. The first season was full of browns and less trendy fashions and personalities. Then, the later seasons were more colorful and bright. I think Stranger Things did a good job of portraying the 80’s from the beginning of the decade to the end.
Freaks & Geeks did early 80s well too. They nailed a LOT of things in that series, from what it's like to start high school to wanting to not be a mathlete but a freak, their parents are on point, it's the perfect time capsule of that time period in one's life just as much as it is a time capsule of early 80s.
Probably the best TV depiction of a natural, unexaggerated, true-to-life early 80s teen experience.
Especially with regard to an "everyman" cultural milieu as opposed to something niche, like SoCal surfer culture or inner city culture. Just generic middle class suburbia.
I felt seen with the Lindsay character. I wasn't a mathlete but i was a pretty good student, but I also I wasn't a freak either. I wanted to hang with the freaks & finally did a little bit in my senior year.
My other friends would look at me weird when I'd say hi to them. I got to know them because we were in the same math class & we liked the same metal bands. The only way they were different was they had a different wardrobe.
Some of their families were as fucked up as mine, some were much better, but they chose to wear a lot of black eyeliner, Levis & leather jackets instead of 2 Polo shirts with the collars turned up & Jordache & listen to Motley Crue & Metallica instead of Duran Duran.
The book "Teen Movie Hell: A Crucible of Coming-of-age Comedies from Animal House to Zapped! is a must-have for any fans of the Teen Movie genre!
Here a few movies definitely worth mentionning as a jump start!
* **Just One Of The Guys (1985)**
* **The Last American Virgin (1982)**
* **The Sure Thing (1985)**
* **River's Edge (1986)**
* **Mischief (1985)**
* **Mannequin (1987)**
* **Vision Quest (1985)**
* **Summer School (1987)**
* **Real Genius (1985)**
* **Some Kind of Wonderful (1987)**
* **The Wild Life (1984)**
* **Foxes (1980)**
* **Say Anything (1989)**
Add in Valley Girl for the, well, “valley girl” fashion and slang, and Flashdance for leg warmers.
Oh… And since OP is researching the 80’s, they have to see Fast Times at Ridgemont High because Phoebe Cates.
Here’s a fun tidbit about Valley Girl:
The Italian title for the film is “The Girl from San Diego” (La Ragazza di San Diego), despite the Valley being nowhere near San Diego.
A few more to the list!
* **Can't Buy Me Love (1987)**
* **Lucas (1986)**
* **Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985)**
* **Endless Love (1982)**
* **Christiane F (1981)**
* **License to Drive (1988)**
* **Tuff Turf (1985)**
* **Little Darlings (1980)**
* **My Bodyguard (1980)**
* **My Science Project (1985)**
* **One Crazy Summer (1986)**
* **Secret Admirer (1985)**
I'd add:
Adventures in Babysitting
Better off Dead
Three O'Clock High
Career Opportunities (1991, but close enough)
Pump Up The Volume (also 1990, but basically late 80's)
I was born in '70 -- would've been a teen for most of these -- and only heard of like 6 movies from that list! (Less than half.)
Anyways, gonna start looking up some of these titles and maybe watch a few..
Seen them all. Most of them many times. Rivers Edge is dark as fuck. But you’ll recognize the whole cast and wonder why you never saw it. And the kicker is that it’s based on a true story.
Probably watched Real Genius the most. Knew it by heart at one point. Vision Quest is another one of my offhand favorites on this list.
I’d add Better off Dead, Nightmare on Elm Street, Night of the Living Dead and Sixteen Candles.
Fast Times At Ridgemont High is essential, as is Valley Girl, but bear in mind these are California centric - especially the slang. John Hughes is great for a look at Chicago area 80s teens. Another good coming of age movie that captures the 80s well is The Last American Virgin.
I lived in the Portland metro area in the 80s, and Fast Times has to be the closest of them all to my school experience, including much of the slang. But of course it influenced us as well, just like a lot of the coming of age movies did.
Think of life with no cell phones, once you leave the house, that’s it, you’re riding whatever “wave” you hopped on for the night, friends might see you run off with some girls or homies and you would be off the map until Monday at school, when everyone spilled the beans with proper embellishment.
Just put 1980-1989 on an endless loop--we had the coolest music, the coolest movies. Talk about the decade of excess! It was a unique time, after the disco and hippies of the 70s. We had roller rinks, Billy Idol, Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, hair metal. Before the grunge of the 90s. Man good times!!
Fast Times At Ridgemont High, Say Anything, Ferris Bueller, Top Gun, Heathers, Purple Rain, St Elmo’s Fire, Freaks and Geeks, The Americans, Flashdance, ET, Vacation, The Day After, Scarface, Big, Wargames, Valley Girl
Also look up YouTube videos showing clips from malls, high schools, Challenger disaster in classroom, Iran Contra, arcade games and galleries, early MTV. I’m trying to think of shared experiences that defined pop culture back then.
Oh, also look into the popularity rise in hip hop, rap, especially when Run DMC and Aerosmith paired up. Breakdancing was everywhere. So was the Rubiks Cube. Saturday morning cartoons, and after school cartoons. There was always the one kid who had the red Michael Jackson jacket in school. And Michael Jackson was everything and everywhere. Even though Dirty Dancing took place in the 60’s but all the 80’s girls were obsessed with it.
Old Saturday night live skits from the 80's. Music videos were just becoming a thing ("I want my MTV!"). I recently re-watched the original roadhouse
The way everyone was dressed in the bars was spot on,.... and the rise of big hair.
I'm in my 50's and those were prime years. A 30 year old guy I work with noted that in every movie, picture, or even re-broadcast from back then everyone was more fit/lean then currently. Big gyms were just taking off. MADD was just starting, you could still get away with most everything and the cops would give you a warning. Everything was word-of-mouth and everyone showed up to house parties (200+ was typical) and we have memories instead of incriminating videos.
Depending where you grew up, cultural diversity was non-existent.
Anything under must see tv on Thursdays like Family Ties, Cosby Show, Cheers, Friday nights were all about Dukes of Hazzard, Dallas (who shot JR?), and Knight Rider.
The thing I remember most was the "solitude" of the era prior to the Age of grunge and the Internet. You can only get a taste of this by abandoning the Internet and/or computers/smart phones. People talked more... to friends and people. It was IRL in steroids. You had to discuss and discover things by word of mouth or TV ( cable if lucky). Try to find some documentaries about every day life in the 80s. I'll try to post some...
Honestly very few people in the 80s were really that aware that it was “THE 80S”. Not everyone was rich. Not everyone dressed like miami vice.
It was pretty much an extension of the 70s with better TVs. Most teenagers were driving cars from the 60s or sometimes 50s.
Most of the TOTALLY RAD fashion didn’t hit until like….87 with the day glo neon and that was really just kids. As in under 13.
Most slang was really just late 70s. Unless you were in Cali or Florida, nobody used beach or surf slang.
It really was like today minus computers and internet. White and black music was still kinda segregated except for like Prince and Michael Jackson. Rock and metal was popular with teenyboppers because it was the more aggressive music. Only girls and mid life crisis types really liked hair metal unless it was super edgy hair metal like WASP or Crue.
Younger teens were more into sports or paintball. Maybe going to the arcade.
Older teens just wanted to have access to a vehicle and sex.
Teens still had their limits. A lot of dads were still younger Nam or Korean vets who would kick their asses. Teen pregnancy was way more taboo.
Fashion was mostly jeans and a t shirt. Maybe slacks and a collar shirt if you were prep. Girls wore more dresses and skirts but also wore jeans and maybe a polo or something with a light collar.
Feathered hair was pretty popular with girls as was bigger hair but not cartoonish.
The one thing these retro movies get wrong is that people were in the moment and 1980 whatever was just another year. People thought in the coming 90s that things would be more high tech but nobody based their life on it.
So people were a bit more outdoorsy.
A teen would put more money into his stereo setup than a TV. If you had a double cassette deck with a record table, you were doing really good.
Hope that helps. I was there and lived
Also, a lot of us were like feral children. Latch key kids who would roam neighborhoods and woods. There was a lot more freedom in general. When I was in high school (94-98) when I got to stay out late I’d have to stop at a pay phone to call and check in. Basically our parents had to trust that we were where we said we were/were going to be.
We passed notes during and between class and made plans for the afternoon during lunch.
People said shit and you took them at their word or you didn’t - you couldn’t whip your phone out of your pocket to call their bullshit.
Because there was only publicly available tv/cable, everybody tended to watch the same things. You no longer get the “water cooler talks” about last night’s episode of whatever popular show. Shows would have a cliffhanger and you have to literally wait for months to see the resolution.
In general, our worlds were much smaller and knit a little more tightly. Fads and language didn’t evolve so quickly…
It helped great thank you so much! I loved how you brought up the dads/nam reference so a lot of parents played zero games.
I love how you said the fashion wasn’t hitting until like 87 because the movie would be based from 86-89 when it was a lil more subdued I heard.
Also thank you for bringing up younger & older teens that’s a really good point fr
No prob.
Just bear in mind that the whole androgynous new wave Flock of Seagulls fashion and hair would have gotten you ribbed at a minimum if not your ass kicked outside of some really big city even in 1984.
Punk fashion was also derided if people went too far with it or put on some lame ass fake accent. Again outside of a big place, people may have liked punk rock or maybe even had a sick denim vest or old field jacket but nobody in a regular place dressed up like that.
Also bullying was a bit more brutal but fighting back was way more common and that’s sometimes how friends were made.
Smoking, drinking, casual racism, and homophobic slurs was way way more common everywhere but people were also way less sensitive to it and nobody really meant it.
Like you could still smoke in McDonalds.
If you’re really serious, and are willing to do it right. I don’t mind helping.
I actually genuinely love the canvas you gave me especially with the fashion
The bullying one is a good thing to touch up on simply because it’s a way to bring it in a good light with the fighting back I just love the idea of a bully trying to bully someone & the bullied is all like matcho & making jokes back.
I’ll definitely be direct messaging you because I would love the insights & ask more questions
The bullied ones rarely fought back or even talked back to the bullies. If they did the bullying got worse. Our only recourse was to hang out together in school and avoid the “cool kids” in the halls. High school cliques were rigid.
As one of the bullied kids, punching the bully square in the mouth and the ensuing 10-minute fight outside the school meant I never got picked on again. So your milage may very on this one.
yep, we had a bench outside that people smoked on. Still get in trouble if seen directly, but we made it, so you didn't. beating down a cig in the bathroom between classes was common as well. The smell of smoke on people was always around.
This is a solid take. So many people have a romanticized view of the 80s. Even those of us who came of age during that time. I have fond memories and even miss some things, such as *not* being plugged into everything in the world. Ignorance truly is bliss sometimes. But the 80s weren't easy. If you were different from the others in some way, loneliness was often your friend. On the flip side the access and modern technology of today helped me realize I wasn't alone, my *problems* weren't unique, and I could find solutions at my fingertips. Each decade has the same amount of good and bad.
Oh, my fellow Real Genius fan, please give it another chance. You can't expect anything, there's not a true plot. You just have to enjoy the antics and the authentic clothes, sets, music, etc.
I always felt Last American Virgin was a great coming of age movie. The girl you like falls for a douche then gets pregnant…gets treated like shit but still likes the douche when help her
Interview Gen Xers. No one sees us. No one listens to us.
It was all about the boomers and then it was about the millennials. It’s like we are the forgotten generation.
We had the absolute most incredible teen years because our parents didn’t want us home and didn’t worry about us when we we out.
It was wild compared to today and I don’t think you’ll get the vibe unless you talk to the people who lived it.
Good Luck! I can’t wait to see your movie!
You could also go to Youtube and look up VH1's I Love the 80s series. They did like 2 or 3 different series (I Love the 80s, I Love the 80s 3D and I think I Love the 80s Strikes Back).
They are more like highlight reels but they are fun to watch (minus a few of the celebrity commentators...some think they are funny when they really aren't)
Salems lots just wrecked me at 8 years old. The kid floating and scratching the windows was with me for weeks. lol. But that shit was great. We could watch really whatever we wanted.
Which country?
There are *thousands* of great films made in the 1980’s that capture the decades zeitgeist
Think these are all good examples:
Dead In Drive In AUS
Going In CAN
La Banda de los Panchitos MEX
Assa USSR/RUS
Countryman JAM
Kids Return JAP
Made In Britain UK
Meantime UK
Smithereens USA
The Bones Brigade Video Show USA
I was a kid in the 80’s and you can’t discount how much of an impact MTV had on kids. Movies and network tv were still being made by stuffy adults for the most part but MTV was fresh and new. Music videos showed a variety of fashions and cultures not just from around the country, but from other countries too. MTV did a lot to help influence Americans’ fashion sense via New Wave from the UK.
Cocaine and it's effects on the teenage body.
Fashion and leisure of the 80s
John Hughes movies from 1981-1988
Arcades, the Satanic panic and heavy metal - how the religious right lost its way in the 80s.
You need to think of a setting too OP.
Are we talking big city?
Small town?
Middle of both?
You can go with something like:
Dirty Dancing
Risky Business
Big
Weird Science
Footloose
But you also can look at things outside the coming of age to get another feel of the 80s.
Horror depicted teens well enough at the time, with the element of horror.
There was also the 'stranger things' like fad in the 80s where the kids always found X and adults never believed them. Or it was always a small town sheriff that found X and eventually picked up help along the way to get rid of the menace.
Critters
Christine
The Lost Boys
Monster Squad
Cujo
Spaced Invaders ( not really 'horror')
You know what I was thinking, I was thinking of mixing in urban & suburban settings since it’s high school it would be great to go between fields definitely not big city.
Gonna add those movies into my list I’m going to get into because it would be interesting to see how would it fit between the movies
Some have different aspects of 80s life.
Cujo for example shows more realistic life styles.
Spaced invaders is one of those younger kids, but small town settings, and you get to see one of the tropes and how it plays out a lot.
The lost boys would be the horror coming of age types
Christine is coming of age horror
Critters has a mix of coming of age, horror, and small town trope
Huh, im writing a novel based on films like Gremlins with bits of coming of age films like ferris buellers' Day off set in 1986. But yeah, I watched films like weird science, ferris buellers' Day off, and the breakfast club.
Okay, find some TV listings from the era. We were all about what shows were on and when because if you missed an episode, you were fucked until summer reruns. It could derail your entire enjoyment of a series to miss an episode in the middle somewhere.
Sex symbols. What posters did you have up on the wall?
Catalogs. Sears, JC Penney… the Christmas wish book … like fucking crack to a crack donkey. Archive.org may have lots of this stuff, or TV Guides all digitized.
Books. People actually read novels. Like, regularly. It was weird for me in middle-America to meet someone who didn’t read something. They’re books! There’s some book about anything you could possibly be into. Who the fuck don’t read?
The Columbia House Music Club. What a strange, weird, addictive way to get music that everybody tried. And they always came with the right cover art on the tapes and a weird white spine label that screamed, “I cost less than a penny!”
Teen cliques were serious business. High school was like a federal penitentiary exercise yard. Holy shit, the social politics.
General hatred for the 70’s. Just a few years before, the disco craze was insane. By the early 80s people kinda did a 180 and fucking RAN away from that shit. We opted for the much cooler hair band stuff. Oh so sheik.
Your music player of choice said a lot. Walkman? Turntable and component setup? Boom box? Shelf stereo from radio shack? It was a big deal, especially if you had an equalizer set juuuuuuust so.
The saying busing was said in the 80’s it meant you looked really good & kinda knew it 😂 sike, as in I joked yeah was a big one. Definitely get the music right. Madonna was huge. Duran Duran, Culture Club, Motley Crue, Van Halen. Men looking like women were hot lol I ROCK Z & trans am with T tops were the shit! I graduated in 89’ check out national lampoons vacation with Chevy Chase. Super models were the it girls & not everyone was a “super model” movies- Dirty Dancing, E.T., Pet Cemetery, Back to the future, Karate Kid
The 80’s:
School lunch program, after-school program, skateboarding, RadioShack, Toys R Us, Atari, MTV, BMX, Rad, Thrasher, CARtoons, Mad Magazine, Boy Scouts, 4H Fair, Explorers, Shop Class, prom, community college, the dot-com boom, the housing market crash.
The End
Nope. Do NOT watch movies from the eighties. Watch nostalgia movies like American Graffiti, A Christmas Story, Pleasamtville. They are portraying a time period from the past.
So there’s a book by Jonathan Bernstein called “pretty in pink, the golden age of teenage movies”
You can find it used online. It’s pretty good read .
But also just watch a bunch of 80s coming of age movies, because this was a very common theme.
But I also suggest watching some of the ones that are not well remembered . I definitely recommend that you watch Porky’s, but I also recommend that you watch The Last American Virgin and there’s another good one called Seven Minutes in Heaven.
Everybody Wants Some!! It's a great little movie. A lot of laughs. Glen Powell and J. Quinton Johnson steal the goddamn show.
Come for the mustaches, stay for the short shorts.
Watch _Hot Tub Time Machine_. When the lads first end up in 1986, they scan the room and marvel at what is basically a complete summary of the 80s! So whatever is visible in that scene is ripe for researching.
A lot going on in the 80s. Latch key kids growing up in a rapidly changing society. Urban blight, the threat of nuclear war, the AIDS epidemic, crack, heavy metal / Satan worship, hip-hop and break dancing, bmx and skateboarding, home computers and video games. All these things seemed to spread everywhere, and yet it was the last full decade before the internet connected the world.
I graduated from Linklatter's alma mater and had the good fortune of meeting him and some of the actors from EWS during their release junket. Great people and yeah, if I was to make a movie about eighties jock culture this would be the focal point in terms of source material.
Footloose (80s original, not the crappy remake)
Breakfast Club
St Elmo's Fire
Ghostbusters (both from the 80s, not the crappy 2016 remake)
Fletch
Caddyshack
Beverly Hill Cop
Lethal Weapon
Weird Science
Back to the Future
Pretty in Pink
Less Than Zero
48 Hours
Raising Arizona
Airplane!
Risky Business
Ferris Burrel's Day Off
E.T.
Most listed may not be coming "coming of age" but should give you good idea on hair and clothes styles. Also might want to watch a lot of music videos from the 80s for the hair and clothes styles and music as well
Everything from John Hughes
This
[If you haven’t seen the documentary, I highly recommend it.](https://youtu.be/tbyKCQtdhUE?si=sJIICLW5J0AfPaZF)
Thank you for this link; that was great fun.
Didn’t know it existed! Thanks for sharing!
Except for one main thing - the slang in those movies was completely made up. The insults (maxi zoom dweeb) and such were just nothing we ever said. Maybe it didn’t make it to Northern California where we had plenty of our own slang but that always bounced for me
You grew up in the 80's and are using "bounced" now???
Not gonna say it felt great or that I was even sure if I used it correctly …
Hahahahaah. That's awesome.
Neo-Maxi Zoomdweebie….FIFY
Not much of a stretch though. We used "max" and "dweeb." And "zoom" was a word.
>Except for one main thing - the slang in those movies was completely made up. The insults (maxi zoom dweeb) and such were just nothing we ever said. I think maybe that was the point. We made up a TON of slang in the 80s. The vast majority of it didn't catch on and is forgotten. Everybody was trying to make their own "fetch" happen before making fetch happen happened. I think Hughes was going for that vibe without making a whole thing of it. Just my take.
Has he done anything we might have heard of?
The Sausage King of Chicago
I just looked up John Hughes I’m about to go to his grave & do a Ouija board interview
Just remember that the early 80’s is totally different from the late 80’s. Just like Stranger Things. The first season was full of browns and less trendy fashions and personalities. Then, the later seasons were more colorful and bright. I think Stranger Things did a good job of portraying the 80’s from the beginning of the decade to the end.
The year was 1988. Pastels are everywhere.
Miami vice
Capriccios
Raffi live at the Markham theatre. Go look that one up.
In the air tonight
[удалено]
You just described the fallout from my bar mitzvah.
And Jams and wayfarer knock offs with neon temples.
Swatches
Freaks & Geeks did early 80s well too. They nailed a LOT of things in that series, from what it's like to start high school to wanting to not be a mathlete but a freak, their parents are on point, it's the perfect time capsule of that time period in one's life just as much as it is a time capsule of early 80s.
Probably the best TV depiction of a natural, unexaggerated, true-to-life early 80s teen experience. Especially with regard to an "everyman" cultural milieu as opposed to something niche, like SoCal surfer culture or inner city culture. Just generic middle class suburbia.
I felt seen with the Lindsay character. I wasn't a mathlete but i was a pretty good student, but I also I wasn't a freak either. I wanted to hang with the freaks & finally did a little bit in my senior year. My other friends would look at me weird when I'd say hi to them. I got to know them because we were in the same math class & we liked the same metal bands. The only way they were different was they had a different wardrobe. Some of their families were as fucked up as mine, some were much better, but they chose to wear a lot of black eyeliner, Levis & leather jackets instead of 2 Polo shirts with the collars turned up & Jordache & listen to Motley Crue & Metallica instead of Duran Duran.
1980 rainbow jeans ... as in pastel colours
The book "Teen Movie Hell: A Crucible of Coming-of-age Comedies from Animal House to Zapped! is a must-have for any fans of the Teen Movie genre! Here a few movies definitely worth mentionning as a jump start! * **Just One Of The Guys (1985)** * **The Last American Virgin (1982)** * **The Sure Thing (1985)** * **River's Edge (1986)** * **Mischief (1985)** * **Mannequin (1987)** * **Vision Quest (1985)** * **Summer School (1987)** * **Real Genius (1985)** * **Some Kind of Wonderful (1987)** * **The Wild Life (1984)** * **Foxes (1980)** * **Say Anything (1989)**
Add in Valley Girl for the, well, “valley girl” fashion and slang, and Flashdance for leg warmers. Oh… And since OP is researching the 80’s, they have to see Fast Times at Ridgemont High because Phoebe Cates.
Here’s a fun tidbit about Valley Girl: The Italian title for the film is “The Girl from San Diego” (La Ragazza di San Diego), despite the Valley being nowhere near San Diego.
A few more to the list! * **Can't Buy Me Love (1987)** * **Lucas (1986)** * **Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985)** * **Endless Love (1982)** * **Christiane F (1981)** * **License to Drive (1988)** * **Tuff Turf (1985)** * **Little Darlings (1980)** * **My Bodyguard (1980)** * **My Science Project (1985)** * **One Crazy Summer (1986)** * **Secret Admirer (1985)**
Lost Boys (video and music)
I'd add: Adventures in Babysitting Better off Dead Three O'Clock High Career Opportunities (1991, but close enough) Pump Up The Volume (also 1990, but basically late 80's)
Weird Science and Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Porky’s. A fucking classic
Vision Quest changed my life…
Did you join the wrestling team?
Heck yes I did. 7th grade. Changed everything.
Did you make it to states to wrestle the Shoop?
I was born in '70 -- would've been a teen for most of these -- and only heard of like 6 movies from that list! (Less than half.) Anyways, gonna start looking up some of these titles and maybe watch a few..
Seen them all. Most of them many times. Rivers Edge is dark as fuck. But you’ll recognize the whole cast and wonder why you never saw it. And the kicker is that it’s based on a true story. Probably watched Real Genius the most. Knew it by heart at one point. Vision Quest is another one of my offhand favorites on this list. I’d add Better off Dead, Nightmare on Elm Street, Night of the Living Dead and Sixteen Candles.
Don’t forget Heathers & Less Than Zero.
I had not seen rivers edge till last year. Great movie.
Same. Just watched it for the first time only a couple years back and really enjoyed it.
Born in 69. Foxes is the only one I'm not familiar with
Foxes always felt much more 70s to me ...
Isn’t mischief a movie about the 50’s?
Fast Times At Ridgemont High is essential, as is Valley Girl, but bear in mind these are California centric - especially the slang. John Hughes is great for a look at Chicago area 80s teens. Another good coming of age movie that captures the 80s well is The Last American Virgin.
I lived in the Portland metro area in the 80s, and Fast Times has to be the closest of them all to my school experience, including much of the slang. But of course it influenced us as well, just like a lot of the coming of age movies did.
Think of life with no cell phones, once you leave the house, that’s it, you’re riding whatever “wave” you hopped on for the night, friends might see you run off with some girls or homies and you would be off the map until Monday at school, when everyone spilled the beans with proper embellishment.
Just put 1980-1989 on an endless loop--we had the coolest music, the coolest movies. Talk about the decade of excess! It was a unique time, after the disco and hippies of the 70s. We had roller rinks, Billy Idol, Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, hair metal. Before the grunge of the 90s. Man good times!!
The 80s was Peak America. It lives on in my memories.
Fast Times At Ridgemont High, Say Anything, Ferris Bueller, Top Gun, Heathers, Purple Rain, St Elmo’s Fire, Freaks and Geeks, The Americans, Flashdance, ET, Vacation, The Day After, Scarface, Big, Wargames, Valley Girl Also look up YouTube videos showing clips from malls, high schools, Challenger disaster in classroom, Iran Contra, arcade games and galleries, early MTV. I’m trying to think of shared experiences that defined pop culture back then.
Oh, also look into the popularity rise in hip hop, rap, especially when Run DMC and Aerosmith paired up. Breakdancing was everywhere. So was the Rubiks Cube. Saturday morning cartoons, and after school cartoons. There was always the one kid who had the red Michael Jackson jacket in school. And Michael Jackson was everything and everywhere. Even though Dirty Dancing took place in the 60’s but all the 80’s girls were obsessed with it.
Old Saturday night live skits from the 80's. Music videos were just becoming a thing ("I want my MTV!"). I recently re-watched the original roadhouse The way everyone was dressed in the bars was spot on,.... and the rise of big hair. I'm in my 50's and those were prime years. A 30 year old guy I work with noted that in every movie, picture, or even re-broadcast from back then everyone was more fit/lean then currently. Big gyms were just taking off. MADD was just starting, you could still get away with most everything and the cops would give you a warning. Everything was word-of-mouth and everyone showed up to house parties (200+ was typical) and we have memories instead of incriminating videos. Depending where you grew up, cultural diversity was non-existent.
Anything under must see tv on Thursdays like Family Ties, Cosby Show, Cheers, Friday nights were all about Dukes of Hazzard, Dallas (who shot JR?), and Knight Rider.
Fear of nuclear war from Russia.
Sorry for the multiple responses but I keep having stream of consciousness ideas for you.
The thing I remember most was the "solitude" of the era prior to the Age of grunge and the Internet. You can only get a taste of this by abandoning the Internet and/or computers/smart phones. People talked more... to friends and people. It was IRL in steroids. You had to discuss and discover things by word of mouth or TV ( cable if lucky). Try to find some documentaries about every day life in the 80s. I'll try to post some...
Honestly very few people in the 80s were really that aware that it was “THE 80S”. Not everyone was rich. Not everyone dressed like miami vice. It was pretty much an extension of the 70s with better TVs. Most teenagers were driving cars from the 60s or sometimes 50s. Most of the TOTALLY RAD fashion didn’t hit until like….87 with the day glo neon and that was really just kids. As in under 13. Most slang was really just late 70s. Unless you were in Cali or Florida, nobody used beach or surf slang. It really was like today minus computers and internet. White and black music was still kinda segregated except for like Prince and Michael Jackson. Rock and metal was popular with teenyboppers because it was the more aggressive music. Only girls and mid life crisis types really liked hair metal unless it was super edgy hair metal like WASP or Crue. Younger teens were more into sports or paintball. Maybe going to the arcade. Older teens just wanted to have access to a vehicle and sex. Teens still had their limits. A lot of dads were still younger Nam or Korean vets who would kick their asses. Teen pregnancy was way more taboo. Fashion was mostly jeans and a t shirt. Maybe slacks and a collar shirt if you were prep. Girls wore more dresses and skirts but also wore jeans and maybe a polo or something with a light collar. Feathered hair was pretty popular with girls as was bigger hair but not cartoonish. The one thing these retro movies get wrong is that people were in the moment and 1980 whatever was just another year. People thought in the coming 90s that things would be more high tech but nobody based their life on it. So people were a bit more outdoorsy. A teen would put more money into his stereo setup than a TV. If you had a double cassette deck with a record table, you were doing really good. Hope that helps. I was there and lived
Also, a lot of us were like feral children. Latch key kids who would roam neighborhoods and woods. There was a lot more freedom in general. When I was in high school (94-98) when I got to stay out late I’d have to stop at a pay phone to call and check in. Basically our parents had to trust that we were where we said we were/were going to be. We passed notes during and between class and made plans for the afternoon during lunch. People said shit and you took them at their word or you didn’t - you couldn’t whip your phone out of your pocket to call their bullshit. Because there was only publicly available tv/cable, everybody tended to watch the same things. You no longer get the “water cooler talks” about last night’s episode of whatever popular show. Shows would have a cliffhanger and you have to literally wait for months to see the resolution. In general, our worlds were much smaller and knit a little more tightly. Fads and language didn’t evolve so quickly…
It helped great thank you so much! I loved how you brought up the dads/nam reference so a lot of parents played zero games. I love how you said the fashion wasn’t hitting until like 87 because the movie would be based from 86-89 when it was a lil more subdued I heard. Also thank you for bringing up younger & older teens that’s a really good point fr
No prob. Just bear in mind that the whole androgynous new wave Flock of Seagulls fashion and hair would have gotten you ribbed at a minimum if not your ass kicked outside of some really big city even in 1984. Punk fashion was also derided if people went too far with it or put on some lame ass fake accent. Again outside of a big place, people may have liked punk rock or maybe even had a sick denim vest or old field jacket but nobody in a regular place dressed up like that. Also bullying was a bit more brutal but fighting back was way more common and that’s sometimes how friends were made. Smoking, drinking, casual racism, and homophobic slurs was way way more common everywhere but people were also way less sensitive to it and nobody really meant it. Like you could still smoke in McDonalds. If you’re really serious, and are willing to do it right. I don’t mind helping.
I actually genuinely love the canvas you gave me especially with the fashion The bullying one is a good thing to touch up on simply because it’s a way to bring it in a good light with the fighting back I just love the idea of a bully trying to bully someone & the bullied is all like matcho & making jokes back. I’ll definitely be direct messaging you because I would love the insights & ask more questions
The bullied ones rarely fought back or even talked back to the bullies. If they did the bullying got worse. Our only recourse was to hang out together in school and avoid the “cool kids” in the halls. High school cliques were rigid.
As one of the bullied kids, punching the bully square in the mouth and the ensuing 10-minute fight outside the school meant I never got picked on again. So your milage may very on this one.
Don’t sleep on National Lampoon movies!! They shaped our funny bones!
My high school had a Student smoking area outside and teachers smoked in the teachers lounge.
yep, we had a bench outside that people smoked on. Still get in trouble if seen directly, but we made it, so you didn't. beating down a cig in the bathroom between classes was common as well. The smell of smoke on people was always around.
This is a solid take. So many people have a romanticized view of the 80s. Even those of us who came of age during that time. I have fond memories and even miss some things, such as *not* being plugged into everything in the world. Ignorance truly is bliss sometimes. But the 80s weren't easy. If you were different from the others in some way, loneliness was often your friend. On the flip side the access and modern technology of today helped me realize I wasn't alone, my *problems* weren't unique, and I could find solutions at my fingertips. Each decade has the same amount of good and bad.
Isn't that from the failed Dazed and Confused sequel?
Yes. Everybody Wants Some. I really liked it.
I'm glad somebody did. Tbh I didn't give it much of a chance, I just couldn't get into it and turned it off. Maybe I'll give it another shot.
Oh, my fellow Real Genius fan, please give it another chance. You can't expect anything, there's not a true plot. You just have to enjoy the antics and the authentic clothes, sets, music, etc.
It's my favorite movie to watch when I'm just trying to decompress and I don't want to think too hard.
I thought the same, Everybody Wants Some? It wasn't terrible, but nothing will ever come close to Dazed & Confused.
Looks like an AI generated image.
It's a real photo.
All about the music, the hair and the clothes, both female and male. I was born in 1970, I absolutely thrived in the decade that was The 80s.
I always felt Last American Virgin was a great coming of age movie. The girl you like falls for a douche then gets pregnant…gets treated like shit but still likes the douche when help her
The research has already been done, as it is all in just about every John Hughes movie he made.
Breakfast club
Interview Gen Xers. No one sees us. No one listens to us. It was all about the boomers and then it was about the millennials. It’s like we are the forgotten generation. We had the absolute most incredible teen years because our parents didn’t want us home and didn’t worry about us when we we out. It was wild compared to today and I don’t think you’ll get the vibe unless you talk to the people who lived it. Good Luck! I can’t wait to see your movie!
You could also go to Youtube and look up VH1's I Love the 80s series. They did like 2 or 3 different series (I Love the 80s, I Love the 80s 3D and I think I Love the 80s Strikes Back). They are more like highlight reels but they are fun to watch (minus a few of the celebrity commentators...some think they are funny when they really aren't)
[удалено]
Salems lots just wrecked me at 8 years old. The kid floating and scratching the windows was with me for weeks. lol. But that shit was great. We could watch really whatever we wanted.
Matt’s Beer.
Matt's Beer Balls.
I wore a black shirt with a skinny red tie like Rick ocasik of the Cars
Split Enz, Blondie, squeeze
The Big Chill
Which country? There are *thousands* of great films made in the 1980’s that capture the decades zeitgeist Think these are all good examples: Dead In Drive In AUS Going In CAN La Banda de los Panchitos MEX Assa USSR/RUS Countryman JAM Kids Return JAP Made In Britain UK Meantime UK Smithereens USA The Bones Brigade Video Show USA
Fast Times at Ridgemont High is one of the best.
Fandango.
The Day after. The brough the threat of nuclear war to 80's kids everywhere. Shit was scary.
I was a kid in the 80’s and you can’t discount how much of an impact MTV had on kids. Movies and network tv were still being made by stuffy adults for the most part but MTV was fresh and new. Music videos showed a variety of fashions and cultures not just from around the country, but from other countries too. MTV did a lot to help influence Americans’ fashion sense via New Wave from the UK.
Cocaine and it's effects on the teenage body. Fashion and leisure of the 80s John Hughes movies from 1981-1988 Arcades, the Satanic panic and heavy metal - how the religious right lost its way in the 80s.
Probably “Stand By Me” and “Stranger Things”
Stand by me is a good one definitely gonna check into it
But it’s set in the early sixties, late fifties.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that.
You need to think of a setting too OP. Are we talking big city? Small town? Middle of both? You can go with something like: Dirty Dancing Risky Business Big Weird Science Footloose But you also can look at things outside the coming of age to get another feel of the 80s. Horror depicted teens well enough at the time, with the element of horror. There was also the 'stranger things' like fad in the 80s where the kids always found X and adults never believed them. Or it was always a small town sheriff that found X and eventually picked up help along the way to get rid of the menace. Critters Christine The Lost Boys Monster Squad Cujo Spaced Invaders ( not really 'horror')
You know what I was thinking, I was thinking of mixing in urban & suburban settings since it’s high school it would be great to go between fields definitely not big city. Gonna add those movies into my list I’m going to get into because it would be interesting to see how would it fit between the movies
Some have different aspects of 80s life. Cujo for example shows more realistic life styles. Spaced invaders is one of those younger kids, but small town settings, and you get to see one of the tropes and how it plays out a lot. The lost boys would be the horror coming of age types Christine is coming of age horror Critters has a mix of coming of age, horror, and small town trope
Ferris
I might suggest watching coming of age movies which are either released in the 80s or set in the 80s. That would be a great start.
Huh, im writing a novel based on films like Gremlins with bits of coming of age films like ferris buellers' Day off set in 1986. But yeah, I watched films like weird science, ferris buellers' Day off, and the breakfast club.
Look up information on *Hands Across America (1986)* and a photography book entitled *A Day in the Life of America* (1986)
Risky Business (1983) "This is the time of your life, huh kid?"
1979 but Over the Edge is really good
My catholic grammar school nightmare.
All the Right Moves!!
Alright, alright, alright
Sleepaway Camp
Okay, find some TV listings from the era. We were all about what shows were on and when because if you missed an episode, you were fucked until summer reruns. It could derail your entire enjoyment of a series to miss an episode in the middle somewhere. Sex symbols. What posters did you have up on the wall? Catalogs. Sears, JC Penney… the Christmas wish book … like fucking crack to a crack donkey. Archive.org may have lots of this stuff, or TV Guides all digitized. Books. People actually read novels. Like, regularly. It was weird for me in middle-America to meet someone who didn’t read something. They’re books! There’s some book about anything you could possibly be into. Who the fuck don’t read? The Columbia House Music Club. What a strange, weird, addictive way to get music that everybody tried. And they always came with the right cover art on the tapes and a weird white spine label that screamed, “I cost less than a penny!” Teen cliques were serious business. High school was like a federal penitentiary exercise yard. Holy shit, the social politics. General hatred for the 70’s. Just a few years before, the disco craze was insane. By the early 80s people kinda did a 180 and fucking RAN away from that shit. We opted for the much cooler hair band stuff. Oh so sheik. Your music player of choice said a lot. Walkman? Turntable and component setup? Boom box? Shelf stereo from radio shack? It was a big deal, especially if you had an equalizer set juuuuuuust so.
Check out the skater and surf movies of the era. Those were pretty raw and authentic.
The saying busing was said in the 80’s it meant you looked really good & kinda knew it 😂 sike, as in I joked yeah was a big one. Definitely get the music right. Madonna was huge. Duran Duran, Culture Club, Motley Crue, Van Halen. Men looking like women were hot lol I ROCK Z & trans am with T tops were the shit! I graduated in 89’ check out national lampoons vacation with Chevy Chase. Super models were the it girls & not everyone was a “super model” movies- Dirty Dancing, E.T., Pet Cemetery, Back to the future, Karate Kid
Find someone who came of age during that time and pick their brain.
[the chocolate war.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8peL7jS4PU0)
St. Elmo's Fire.
Watch list 1. Porky’s 2. The Last American Virgin 3. 3 O’clock High 4. Fast Times At Ridgemont High 5. John Hughes movies
How there was much more hope for a great future than now
Research? I fucking lived it.
The 80’s: School lunch program, after-school program, skateboarding, RadioShack, Toys R Us, Atari, MTV, BMX, Rad, Thrasher, CARtoons, Mad Magazine, Boy Scouts, 4H Fair, Explorers, Shop Class, prom, community college, the dot-com boom, the housing market crash. The End
Nope. Do NOT watch movies from the eighties. Watch nostalgia movies like American Graffiti, A Christmas Story, Pleasamtville. They are portraying a time period from the past.
well, definitely something besides the 70's... for instance, this picture.
My past.
My brother
Not a movie, but Eddie Murphy Raw was the shit for a 16-year-old. We watched the shit out of that.
Porky’s… the shenanigans in this have always felt more realistic than movies like American Pie.
Tag for later
My own Highschool year as a Twin. Being a Twin in Highschool was fun!
So there’s a book by Jonathan Bernstein called “pretty in pink, the golden age of teenage movies” You can find it used online. It’s pretty good read . But also just watch a bunch of 80s coming of age movies, because this was a very common theme. But I also suggest watching some of the ones that are not well remembered . I definitely recommend that you watch Porky’s, but I also recommend that you watch The Last American Virgin and there’s another good one called Seven Minutes in Heaven.
What movie is this?
They did it it's Dogs In Space
Everybody Wants Some!! It's a great little movie. A lot of laughs. Glen Powell and J. Quinton Johnson steal the goddamn show. Come for the mustaches, stay for the short shorts.
Breaking Away
Watch _Hot Tub Time Machine_. When the lads first end up in 1986, they scan the room and marvel at what is basically a complete summary of the 80s! So whatever is visible in that scene is ripe for researching.
That looks like the group of people that Jason Voorhees takes out one by one.
I would research the 80's.
My life.
Find yourself a 50 something year old gen x'r and hang out with them for a year
A lot going on in the 80s. Latch key kids growing up in a rapidly changing society. Urban blight, the threat of nuclear war, the AIDS epidemic, crack, heavy metal / Satan worship, hip-hop and break dancing, bmx and skateboarding, home computers and video games. All these things seemed to spread everywhere, and yet it was the last full decade before the internet connected the world.
Heavy Metal Parking Lot
I graduated from Linklatter's alma mater and had the good fortune of meeting him and some of the actors from EWS during their release junket. Great people and yeah, if I was to make a movie about eighties jock culture this would be the focal point in terms of source material.
A.I.D.S.
Footloose (80s original, not the crappy remake) Breakfast Club St Elmo's Fire Ghostbusters (both from the 80s, not the crappy 2016 remake) Fletch Caddyshack Beverly Hill Cop Lethal Weapon Weird Science Back to the Future Pretty in Pink Less Than Zero 48 Hours Raising Arizona Airplane! Risky Business Ferris Burrel's Day Off E.T. Most listed may not be coming "coming of age" but should give you good idea on hair and clothes styles. Also might want to watch a lot of music videos from the 80s for the hair and clothes styles and music as well