cinematic crimes of the eighties

yeah, i know. the eighties were "awesome".

right away we have an issue. the issue is we need a translator. or, to put it in a format you'll understand, "i don't think that word means what you think it means". see what i did there? right away we need to establish the difference between "i remember this fondly because it reminds me of a time when my happiness was looked after" and "i think this is a thing of quality". mainstream eighties culture, which is what most people mean when they refer to the time period, was a wasteland. i was there, i saw it. i think we're going to be waiting a long time before we see another decade that we should be as ashamed of. but, as gale snoats said in 1987, i'd rather light a candle than curse your darkness, so here i am in your little domicile to help shed light on the cinematic crimes of the eighties in hopes that this recurring feature can help us acknowledge them and, once our work is done here, leave them behind. forever.

the cineplexes did us no favors in those days, filling everyone's mushy brains with images of a hughesian utopia populated by geeks, sportos, motorheads, dweebs, dorks, sluts and buttheads. one character, though, worked overtime to single themselves out as the object of my scorn - the best friend.

one of the worst things that eighties cinema ever tried to teach us is that we should find the loudest, most obnoxious, attention-whore jackass in school that never shut up and align ourselves with them. in the eighties this was known as a "best friend" as opposed to a "total asshole". hey, you never know when you're going to need a tuxedo t-shirt, right? in the real world, this is the kid that got himself and you thrown in dumpsters. if it had stopped there it would be bad enough but our little wisecracker wasn't content to sit on the sidelines. anyone with a light like that is doing the world an injustice by letting it languish under the bushel of best friend status. like all of us, the character grew up, in this case maturing into the loudest, most obnoxious, attention-whore leading man that never shuts up.

nice work if you can get it. and if you're a douche.

you wouldn't let these characters in your house. if they worked with you, you would do anything to make sure your lunch hours didn't coincide, lest you were stuck with them in the break room, so why give them your ticket money or waste time remembering them fondly, letting nostalgia make a sap out of you all over again? you can let go. it will be alright. you can admit the eighties might not be quite as "awesome" as you remember. either that or walk the walk. and i don't see a whole lot of you lining up to buy fluorescent colored, knee-length sweatshirts.