I’ve been dying to get in here and do some posting, but I’ve also been totally doing stuff. Like moving and working at a job where they pay me and everything. But I have been writing, I really have–I have the first four parts of a five-part series on Labyrinth mostly sketched out, for instance. That’s going to be epic–in the true sense of the word, involving quests and to-be-continueds and codpieces, not in the internet meme sense of the word.
I was hoping to get around to starting my Labyrinth series this weekend, but fate intervened. I took the girls* to lunch today at a local spot called Gullifty’s–nondescript from the inside, but family-friend (read: high chairs and crayons) and with surprisingly delicious food, including a homemade applesauce that my newly minted one-year-old nearly gagged herself on, in the good kind of toddler way. One of the reasons I love Gullifty’s is that they’re always playing an 80s XM station–probably 80s on 8 or something. Last time I was there, I heard “The Glamorous Life” while I was washing my hands in the ladies’. Today, as we entered, they were playing “Puttin’ on the Ritz” by Taco.
Halfway through our chicken fingers and cobb salad, this song kicked in.
To say I plotzed would be an understatement. The nice families eating their Friday fish were treated to a full-on chair dance, and Gillian even highchair-danced a little. I explained to my two-and-half-year old that Janie and Jeff won the dance-off to this song, even though they totally didn’t deserve it, except they did, and I realized that I had no choice but to blog about “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” the greatest 80s teen movie ever.
It is not the greatest movie, mind you. It’s not even the greatest slumber party movie. But it is the greatest 80s teen movie, because it manages to build in all of the requisites of an 80s movie, but it also includes Helen Hunt, a Solid Gold knockoff, and the guys from the “Total Eclipse of the Heart” video.
I know you’re wondering, so here’s a list of 10 80s Teen Movie Prerequisites. (Add your own in the comments.)
A climax contest
A rich teenager with a rich daddy and rich toys
Practical joke(s)
Punk rockers
A poor kid
One understanding parent and one strict parent
Dance break(s)
Wacky friend(s)
Aerobics
Sarah Jessica Parker
Brass tacks: Girls Just Want to Have Fun has it all, including a title ripped off from Cyndi Lauper’s biggest hit, and a cover of said song in the movie, probably because she’d already sold music rights to The Goonies and didn’t want to do it again. Let’s break it down, item-by-item.
1. A Climax Contest
You cannot, cannot, cannot have an 80s Teen Movie without one. Basketball games, football games, ski races, footraces, sail races, Battle of the Bands, dance contests: it is a must.
(OK, Footloose doesn’t have one, but it does have the tractor chicken scene, and it has a dance.) And the protagonist wins, beating…
2. A rich teenager with a rich daddy and rich toys In “One Crazy Summer,” it was a Ferrari; in “Pretty in Pink,” it was James Spader, who, in the 80s, actually WAS a rich toy; in this one, it’s a remote control closet and an answering machine. She totally had her own answering machine IN HER OWN ROOM. Mind-boggling. She was even a debutante, for cripes’ sake. Which brings us to:
3. Practical joke(s)
In Lovelines, they did the classic replace-the-science-film-with-boobies trick, but here, it was far more awesome. Handing out invitations to BrattyDeb’s coming out party to schlubs on the street? BRILLIANT. And why did the practical joke work? Because it involved…
4. Punk rocker(s)
Sometimes the punk was combined with the wacky friend (“Pretty in Pink”) or aliens (“Weird Science”), but in this case, they stormed the bloody castle to the tune of one of my favorite songs in any 80s movie, ever: “Wake Up the Neighborhood” by Holland. Mostly because it starts with the line “You bring the Jack/I’ll bring the Coke/We’re gonna rock until this place goes up in smoke/Neighborhood, Wake up the neighborhood!” Then it goes on to say “The only way we’re gonna get back home is crawl.”
How was this song not a hit?
5. A poor kid.
Poor Jeffy, big brother to Shannon Doherty and BFF to Jonathan Silverman. Do I know his real name? No. But he was all John Cougary. John Cougar Mellencampy. John Campy. And he was hella poor, and his dad worked for BrattyDeb’s dad. Le sigh. (Ref: “Some Kind of Wonderful” and “Pretty in Pink”)
6. One understanding parent and one strict one
Daddy was a Marine; Mom is a silent-but-strong type who doesn’t support anyone until way too late in the movie. Is it Footloose? Close enough.
7. Dance break(s)
I don’t need to qualify this, do I? But in case I do:
I know the judge is not Kevin Spacey. But it should be.
8. Wacky friend(s)
BOTH protagonists have wacky friends in this case, but please, let’s us focus on Helen Hunt, who would go on to win an Oscar for a movie in which, as far as I could tell, she didn’t do anything but a bad Brooklyn accent. But in GJWTHF, she sang “The Banana Boat” song during choir practice, and Velcro’d her plaid uniform skirt inside out so it was all furry-mini. Don’t worry about how damned hot that skirt would be if she actually wore it; the important thing is, she did. To babysitting.
9. Aerobics
See “Private School” for reference. In GJWTHF, it was giant bull-dyke aerobics instructors lifting a car.
10. Sarah Jessica Parker
See “Square Pegs,” “Flight of the Navigator, “Footloose,” and every other movie in the 80s for reference. But this is the only one where we get to see her body double to a front handspring.
The most important thing, though, is that they get into dance contest on time, and they win it in a dance-off (tied with the BrattyDeb, of course). The mystifyer here, though, is how they managed to win. They’re terrible. They tumble some, sure, but they’re really, really terrible. Watch the first video again if you don’t believe me. And then get happy, anyway, when BrattyDeb’s Silver-Haired Daddy totally disses BrattyDeb just because she loses. With parents like that, who wouldn’t turn out well?
Honorable mentions for 80s movies that this movie also includes: Identical twins; Velcro; private school; and climbing out a window.
Proudly Resents recently dedicated a podcast to one of the best slumber party movies ever: Purple Rain (1984). Host* Adam Spiegelman and his guests Michelle Buteau and Ryan Sickler and just spent the whole time talking about how awesome the movie is in every way, and how Prince is the exception that proves so many rules (such as that tiny, greased-up, meatball-chest-haired men who dress like grannies can’t be sexy). One topic not addressed was the biggest plot hole in the whole movie, the source of the urgency of The Kid’s last stand: the club promoter having to choose whether to fire The Time or The Revolution to make room for Apollonia 6.
It was odd enough that anyone, no matter how desperate to see hot chicks in their underwear, would subject human ears to “Sex Shooter” in lieu of Morris Day’s magnificent “The Bird” or even Prince’s “Computer Blue.” But the real head-scratcher is that there’s another bandleader nearly begging to be cut: Dez Dickerson.**
You might not even remember this from the movie. You might have blocked it from your memory, lest it tarnish an otherwise perfect movie. But once you notice that the guy singing here is clearly the second guitarist from The Revolution, keeping the stage warm while Morris Day and Prince are off acting, you can’t unsee it. Why the club owner didn’t catch that, though, is a mystery to me.
The lesson: Sometimes people don’t see the obvious, and if you change your headband, you might just benefit from their blind spot.
* And my brother-in-law.
** One of the best things about the above video is the retro technology used to capture the scene. Holding a camera up to a TV reminds me of my sister and I holding a tape recorder up to the TV to tape REO Speedwagon off MTV.
I’ve been struggling with what to write for International Women’s Day. The theme is “Connecting Girls, Inspiring Futures,” which is just so lofty. I don’t really know what we can do to connect girls even across the city, let alone across the world. Then I realized, what I do know about is connecting across time.
What a girl wants when she’s 6 is different from what she wants when she’s 26, and it’s different from what lots of other 6-year-old girls want. As an adult, all I see in Flashdance is the stripping and the sexual harassment. When I was a teenager, all I saw was the dancing, and the awesomeness of being a female welder. I knew I’d never be a dancer, but I did think welding was within my reach. However imperfect, and sometimes even reprehensible, that movie and others like it are, I read in them the possibilities of a life very different from the ones I saw around me.
This picture shows me and my maternal grandmother posing with our Christmas presents (I think). I got a little blonde cheerleader doll. My grandmother, on the other hand, got a car repair kit. Depending on where you are in your own life, one of those presents might seem obviously better than the other, but we each got exactly what we needed.
The lesson: You don’t have to understand someone else to respect their desires, different though they might be from your own.
On a related and more serious note, we at Slumber Party Movies are participating in Blog for International Women’s Day on Thursday, March 8. The theme is “Connecting Girls, Inspiring Futures,” which is close to our hearts: between us, the ladies at SPM have five young daughters. I want them to grow up in a world that’s at least as good as the one I grew up in, and right now, that is in peril.
I’m lucky enough to be home on a Saturday night with a sleeping child and all of my work done, and the best possible movie just came on TV36 (KICU): 9 to 5 (1980).
Booze helps any situation, right?
Now, all three leads are legendary – Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and the always adorable Dolly Parton – but it’s a strong ensemble cast. My favorite person in the whole movie is Margaret Foster, the office drunk played by Peggy Pope. One of the things about 9 to 5 that lift it above a standard revenge fantasy or office comedy is its ability to treat pathos with humor and compassion. Margaret starts off so depressed about her terrible job that she keeps a flask – and drinks from it in view of her coworkers. She could have just been a standard drunkie played for laughs, but, while Pope is hilarious, her innate sadness is left exposed and raw. Her resuscitation while bossman Dabney Coleman is incapacitated still touches my heart.
There. I may be a jaded old whore, but I’m one of those hookers with a heart of gold.
As I said in my previous post, Showgirls (1995) is full of career development advice. Fifteen years ago, when I was the young woman fighting my way up the corporate ladder, it was important for me to learn from Nomi’s actions that you sometimes have to push an old whore down the stairs to get ahead. But I am older and more fragile in the hip area these days. Can I still learn from Nomi and Cristal?
The answer is absolutely YES. Now that I am the old whore blocking the advancement of other, younger working women, I can look to Cristal’s example. The lesson is a little more subtle, though. What you must do is get the young hookers on your side, so that even if they do end up pushing you down the stairs, they will at least feel bad about it. Cristal tried to bond with Nomi over their shared love of booze and dog food, but got way too honest.
The lesson is: You cannot tell a young whore that she is a whore. She thinks she’s a dancer, or a sex worker, or a contractor. Honor that distinction or you might have your next bonding session in a hospital bed.
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