“Whatever happened to chivalry? Does it only exist in 80's movies? I want John Cusack holding a boombox outside my window. I wanna ride off on a lawnmower with Patrick Dempsey. I want Jake from Sixteen Candles waiting outside the church for me. I want Judd Nelson thrusting his fist into the air because he knows he got me. Just once I want my life to be like an 80's movie, preferably one with a really awesome musical number for no apparent reason. But no, no, John Hughes did not direct my life.” –Easy A
Anyone who knows me knows I am in love with the 80’s. The music was wild, the fashion was vibrant, and my naturally thick, curly hair was made to be lived in that decade. There were no cell phones or social media, and dating was more romantic than a “right swipe” on Tinder. If you wanted to talk to someone, you picked up the phone instead of contacting them through the dozens of different media sites we have now. You would give your crush mix tapes of artists like Madonna and Michael Jackson, and you’d come home from school and instantly turn on MTV without having to watch an over-dramatic reality show. And of course, you’d have your bedroom walls plastered with posters of hotties like River Phoenix, Michael J. Fox, and undoubtedly Patrick Swayze.
Not to mention, the movies were grounded in a sense of innocence and romance. Movies like the Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, The Goonies, even Dirty Dancing had you tearing up regardless of how many times you’ve seen it. You watch movies like Stand By Me, When Harry Met Sally, Top Gun, Back to the Future, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and can’t help but feel incredibly nostalgic even though you were born a whole decade after most of those movies came out. Acts of love and admiration were seen as guys standing outside of your window with a boombox over their head or ditching a day of school to take you on an adventure around Chicago, not the constant mind games and casual hookups you see in this generation of romance films.The plots were original and showed that even turning sixteen years old or sitting in detention for an afternoon can be a monumental event in your life. It seemed like every 80s movie had a hidden life lesson that the audience could take away from it. They proved that even the popular socialite can fall for the school’s geek and that going on a crazy adventure with your best friends is better than being caught up in whatever is trending on social media. Lastly, the 80s provided us with the ultimate relationship goals regardless of how cheesy and sappy it was. It’s hard not to want a love like Keith and Watts or Samantha and Jake Ryan or want to be loved like a Journey song.
I know you can’t base a generation solely off of what you see in movies or on TV but life just seemed simpler in the 80s. However, I guess it’ll just have to be the era that I live vicariously through old movies, songs, and the occasional “decades day” where I have an excuse to break out my leg warmers and hair scrunchies.
