Here in 2022, there is more public conversation about the nuances of human sexuality–and sexual abuse and harassment–than at any time in modern history. And yet, sex has all but disappeared from mainstream American movies, most of which would pass the sexual standard set by the strict censorship of the Production Code of the 1930s.
This season of You Must Remember This will explore the relatively brief period, beginning in the 1970s and ending around the end of the millennium, when Hollywood movies explored the sexual lives, mores and fantasies of adults with degrees of candor, realism and imagination not seen before or since. Why did genres like the erotic thriller, body horror, neo-noir and the sex comedy flourish in the 80s and 90s, what was happening culturally that made these movies possible and popular, and why did Hollywood stop taking sex seriously?
Each episode of Erotic 80s examines a single year, and one or more films that share a genre, a theme or a star, with topics ranging from the politics of porn, to the first camcorder sex tape scandal, to the sexualization of teens, to Hollywood’s lingering fear of interracial coupling. Some of the stars and filmmakers covered include Tom Cruise, Melanie Griffith, Richard Gere, Glenn Close, Rob Lowe, Mickey Rourke, Kevin Costner, Sean Young, Adrian Lyne, Amy Heckerling, Brian DePalma and much, much more.
Erotic 80s Episodes:
PORNO CHIC AND THE BRIEF HEYDAY OF X RATINGS (EROTIC 80S PART 1) : In 1968, the Production Code gave way to the ratings system, and the brief legitimacy of the X-rated movie. Today we’ll focus on two massive, X-rated hits released within a year of one another in 1972-1973: Deep Throat, the first hardcore porn movie to become a mainstream blockbuster; and the international art film sensation Last Tango in Paris. Both of these hits were products of a male-centered sexual revolution, and both of their female stars later described making these movies as equivalent to being raped. We’ll talk about how both films gave Hollywood permission to intermingle sex and violence in the name of both profits and art, and how both have been reassessed as documents of violence against women. Listen
1979: BO DEREK AND 10 (EROTIC 80S PART 2): The sleeper hit of late 1979 was Blake Edwards’s sex farce 10, a comedic vivisection of a male midlife crisis, which turned 23-year-old California girl Bo Derek into a controversial cultural phenomenon. Derek’s early fame was framed in the media through the lens of her marriage to John Derek, who was 30 years her senior and who she met when she was 16. Today we’ll talk about Derek’s reign as a sex-positive bombshell in a time of extreme double standards, 10’s strangely prescient understanding of toxic masculinity, and the problem of how to frame teenage sexuality for adult consumption. Listen
1980: RICHARD GERE AND AMERICAN GIGOLO (EROTIC 80S PART 3): One of the most aesthetically influential movies of the ‘80s, Paul Schrader’s American Gigolo sets a template for much of what we’re going to discuss this season: it’s about sex as a conduit for wealth, masks and double lives, and the role of danger in desire. Today we’ll talk about the sexual persona of Gigolo star Richard Gere in the early 1980s; the ways in which Gigolo and other films from 1980 (Dressed to Kill, Cruising) grapple with straight male anxiety over gay male visibility; and the tension between the promotion of sex-positivity for women and the anti-feminist backlash. Listen
1981: NEONOIR, BODY HEAT AND POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE (EROTIC 80S PART 4): The New Hollywood directors of the late 1960s and 70s were the first generation of Hollywood filmmakers to grow up studying Hollywood movies as art. In 1981-1982, a number of those directors made actual or virtual remakes of classic Hollywood noir films, including Lawrence Kasdan’s Body Heat, and Bob Rafelson’s The Postman Always Rings Twice; and Paul Schrader’s Cat People. What was the value of revisiting the tropes and narratives of 1940s noirs in the 80s, beyond the fact that the sexual relationships implied in the original movies could now be depicted graphically? Today we’ll talk about how these films played into the personas of stars Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner, how they challenged the standards of what could be shown in movies of the 80s – and how and why they were received extremely differently. Listen
1982: TEEN SEXPLOITATION, FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, PORKY'S AND THE BLUE LAGOON (EROTIC 80S PART 5): 1982 saw the release of three hit high school-set comedies about sex: Porky’s, The Last American Virgin and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The only one to survive as a classic, Fast Times turned Phoebe Cates – who also appeared in the Blue Lagoon rip-off Paradise the same year – into a frozen-in-time icon of adolescent sexuality. Today we’ll talk about this sudden explosion of teen sex on movie screens, and compare Cates’s public persona and attitude to on-screen sexuality to that of Blue Lagoon star Brooke Shields. Listen
1983: MTV AESTHETICS, FLASHDANCE AND RISKY BUSINESS (EROTIC 80S PART 6): While the music video was still in its infancy as a cultural phenomenon, two films were released that were accused of aping the “MTV aesthetic”: Adrian Lyne’s Flashdance, and Risky Business, which turned Tom Cruise into a major star. Today we’ll talk about what the “MTV aesthetic” was and why it was considered a big deal for movies to be influenced about it, and we’ll examine how both of these movies treated sex work and race within the context of 80s social mores and Reagan capitalism. Listen
"VIOPORN," BODY DOUBLE AND CRIMES OF PASSION (EROTIC 80S PART 7): In a time of bombastic blockbusters (and Reagan’s re-election), two auteurs defy the norms by releases violent films about sexual obsession, sparking a controversial mini-trend which one critic dubs “Vioporn.” Kathleen Turner, then also starring in a family-friendly blockbuster, plays a sex worker with a double life in Ken Russell’s Crimes of Passion. Brian DePalma, the most talked-about director of the moment, takes his tribute/critique of Hitchcock to the next level by casting Melanie Griffith – daughter of Hitchcock blonde Tippi Hedren – as a porn star in Body Double. Listen
1985: FEAR SEX. JAGGED EDGE & AIDS (EROTIC 80S PART 8) : Just as the AIDS-related death of Rock Hudson was finally forcing straight people – and Hollywood – to acknowledge that epidemic, a film was released that transposed the new climate of sexual fear onto a murder mystery. The sleeper hit of 1985, Jagged Edge turned Glenn Close from a respected actress into a star, and established the brand of screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, who would later write Basic Instinct and Showgirls. Almost a decade after radical feminists began to call for a crackdown on violent sexual imagery, Jagged Edge tried to have its cake and eat it, too: infusing its sex and violence – and its depiction of a career woman – with a fundamentally conservative point of view. Listen
1986: 9 ½ WEEKS, MICKEY ROURKE & ZALMAN KING (EROTIC 80S PART 9): Billed as the hottest Hollywood film since Last Tango, 9 ½ Weeks was considered to have missed the mark by everyone who made it – including director Adrian Lyne, stars Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger, producer/writer Zalman King and his wife, writer Patricia Knop. Today we’ll talk about why this intoxicating and troubling film is worth a second look, how to square away the arguably feminist finished product from a production process that robbed Basinger of agency, and we’ll explore the film Rourke and King re-teamed on as a re-do, Wild Orchid. We’ll also talk about Rourke’s “bad boy” persona, and his problematic relationship with his second wife and co-star, supermodel Carre Otis. Listen
1987: FATAL ATTRACTION AND DIRTY DANCING (EROTIC 80S PART 10): The erotic thriller goes commercially mainstream with Fatal Attraction, a film which starts a national conversation about whether or not women can “have it all” – “it all” meaning both careers and marriage. Is Fatal Attraction an indictment of working women as “witches” and a call to roll back women’s rights, or a snapshot of extreme toxic masculinity? Plus: Dirty Dancing — is it evil? Listen
1988: KEVIN COSTNER, SEAN YOUNG, NO WAY OUT & BULL DURHAM (EROTIC 80S PART 11) : The 1988 baseball blockbuster Bull Durham confirms Kevin Costner as the ultimate squeaky-clean, all-American hearthrob, building on a sexual persona sparked the year before with the neonoir No Way Out. Today we’ll talk about why Costner was the quintessential safe hunk for the 80s, his alchemic chemistry with co-star Sean Young in No Way Out, and her subsequent rocky road through Hollywood misogyny. Listen
1989: SEX, LIES AND VIDEOTAPE: ROB LOWE AND JAMES SPADER (EROTIC 80S PART 12): American independent film is launched into the mainstream by Steven Soderbergh’s sex, lies and videotape, starring James Spader as an impotent man who gets off on filming women talking about sex. Videotape also plays a role in a Spader film released almost simultaneously, Bad Influence, in which he plays a meek yuppie at the mercy of alpha male Rob Lowe – who was trying to rehabilitate his career after a tape leaked shot by the actor and documenting his real-life threesomes — one with a 16 year-old girl. We close the first half of this season talking about Lowe, Spader and how camcorder mediation of sex changed pop culture forever. Listen