Appendix 1: Family Paradigms The
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Appendix 1: Family Paradigms Metaphorical Family Absent Present Foregrounded Utopic Dystopic Utopic Dystopic Utopic Dystopic Utopic .,c. .E ~ Absent <:i a Out of Africa Condorman** Pretty Woman** Total Recall** <.> -.:: '10'* Airplane** Top Gun** Indiana Jones & the Ghost Raiders of the Lost Who Framed Roger Temple of Doom** The Fox and the Ark** Rabbit** Good Morning, Vietnam Dystopic Hound Star Trek** Beverly Hills Cop Trading Places Ghostbusters** Sudden Impact** Supennan IV The Naked Gun** Police Academy I-IV** Rambo II - Metaphorical Family Absent Present Foregrounded Utopic Dystopic Utopic Dystopic Utopic Dystopic Rocky Ill* Rocky IV* I Utopic i Present Staying Alive Lethal Weapon 2 The Untouchables* Dystopic Beetlejuice* Any Which Way You Can** ..Q ·e Beverly Hills Cop II ~ -aa Three Men and a Honey, I Shrunk The Golden Child** ... Baby** the Kids** "<: Utopic Coming To Look Who's America** Talking** Annie** Foregrounded Gremlins Indiana Jones & The Jazz Singer** Arthur** the Last Crusade Tootsie Back to the Future* E.T. An Officer and a Dystopic Terms of Rain Man Gentleman** Endearment** Fatal Attraction* Return of the Jedi** The Blue Lagoon** Kramer versus Private Benjamin Kramer The Empire Strikes Back ·- * closes on Final Romance which was represented at the beginning (7 films) ** closes on Final Romance which was not represented at the beginning (29 films) Appendix 2: Synopses of Selected Top Box-Office Hollywood Films, 1980-90 The films are organised by their box-office popularity within the year of their UK release. The date in the credits refers to their US release date. The production company is preceded by the distributor in the brackets. The main stars and central characters are shown below. A very brief elucidation of the paradigmatic assign ment follows the narrative synopsis. e.g. Film Title Director (Distributor/Production Company) US release date Actor (Character) 1980 The Empire Strikes Back Irvin Kershner (20th Century Fox/Lucasfilm for 20th Century Fox) 1980 Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker)!Harrison Ford (Han Solo)/Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia Organa)/Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian) A further sequel in the Star Wars series. Darth Vadar, the evil Lord of the Imperial Starfleet, is intent on tracking down Luke Skywalker and his band of freedom fighters. After escaping from the iceworld of Hoth where they were ambushed, Luke sets off to train as a Jedi, tutored by Yoda. Meanwhile, her spurned suitor, Solo, rescues Princess Leia from the Starfleet but unwittingly leads her into a trap set up by his old adversary, Lando Calrissian. On learning of their plight, Luke leaves his training to rescue them. During a fight with Vadar, Luke learns that his opponent is in reality his treacherous father. Solo has been frozen and taken hos tage and Leia is left to rescue Luke from Vadar. Wishing to make amends for his own treachery, Lando sets off to look for Solo. Foregrounded dystopian, foregrounded metadystopian. The film represents a family broken by a treacherous father which is unresolvable in the text; no actual nuclear family is represented as a solution to the dystopian metaphorical family (the Starjleet/Freedom Fighters) in which the key meta familial protagonists share the same textual space as the actual family; Vadar (father) Luke (son). Kramer versus Kramer Robert Benton (Columbia-EMI-Warner/Stanley Jaffe Productions) 1979 Meryl Streep (Joanna Kramer) Dustin Hoffman (Ted Kramer) After being neglected by her husband, Ted, who is pursuing a high-flying adver tising career, Joanna abandons him and her son to 'find herself' in California. Ted learns to care for his son but increasingly neglects his work and is forced to seek 194 Appendix 2 195 a lower-paid, lower-status job. Having established her own very successful career, Joanna returns and sues for custody which she is awarded. Realising Ted's pain at losing the child, she relinquishes them both at the end of the film. Foregrounded dystopian, present metadystopian. The family is represented as broken as a result of parental neglect and there is no positive nuclear model offered as an alternative- Ted's eligible neighbour, the similarly abandoned Margaret Phelps, also being rejected. The metaphor ical world of advertising is similarly dystopian - Ted's patriarchal boss, Jim, quickly jettisoning him as his protege once he assumes his childcare respons ibilities. Star Trek-The Motion Picture Robert Wise (CIC/Paramount) 1979 William Shatner (Admiral James T. Kirk)/Leonard Nimoy (Mr Spock)IDeForest Kelly (Dr Leonard 'Bones' McCoy )IJames Doolan (Engineering Officer Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott)/Stephen Collins (Commander Willard Decker) 23rd Century. Kirk returns to Starship Enterprise to wrest control from the young, dynamic Decker in order to lead a mission to save the Earth from a mystery cloud. He jeopardises the mission by his age and lack of recent experience while Decker constantly proves himself the better commander. Their rivalry is resolved at the end of the film when, having discovered that the origin of the cloud was the ancient lost Voyager VI ship trying to discover its Creator, Decker and Ilea unite to create 'a new life form', liquidating the V'ger cloud and leaving the Enterprise to the original crew. Absent dystopian, foregrounded meta-utopian. Although the Enterprise is now led by a failing father (Kirk) who continually falls short in his actions and decisions, a utopian alternative is represented through the union of Ilea and Decker. This is represented purely in metaphor ical terms, however, the generative process being a new life form rather than a familial form of reproduction and the only closure on the actual family is the Final Romance. The familialisation of the Starship is consolidated by the gen erative nature of their opponent: the alien. However, the creative impulse of the space mission has been soured by the corruption of V' ger which has unwittingly turned on its own creator. In an inverse parable of the Oedipus narrative, the ship threatens its patriarchal makers, only to be liquidated by its sons. The time loop and generative dysfunction prefigure those of Total Recall and Back to the Future. Airplane! Jim Abrahams, David Zucker & Jerry Zucker (Walt Disney/Walt Disney) 1980 Robert Hays (Ted Striker)!Julie Hagerty (Elaine Dickinson)!Dr Rumack (Leslie Nielsen)!Rex Kramer (Robert Stack) Surreal comedy in which Ted, an ex-fighter pilot who lost his nerve after a disas trous mission in the Far East that he believes was his fault, chases air-hostess Elaine (his ex-lover) aboard a plane. When the cabin staff collapse from food poisoning, Ted has to take control aided and abetted by Dr Rumack, on the plane, and by his old commander, Rex Kramer, from the Control Tower. On learning from the doctor that he made the right decision on his mission, Ted saves the plane 196 Appendix 2 and is reunited with Elaine who is prepared to accept him now he has apparently matured. Absent dystopian, present metadystopian. None of the main characters' families are represented and the professional family of the flying world is so anarchic that it cannot represent a solution to the absence of the actual family. Even the Final Romance is undercut by its comic duplication in the form of the inflatable couple. '10' Blake Edwards (Columbia-EMI-Wamer/Orion Pictures) 1979 Dudley Moore (George Webber)/Julie Andrews (Samantha 'Sam' Taylor)/Bo Derek (Jenny) Composer George is 42 and unhappy at the prospect of middle age. Jealous of a swinger he spies on over the road, he abandons his girlfriend Sam and pursues Jenny, a newly-wed on her honeymoon, engaging in an orgy and coldhearted one night stand en route. He is granted sex with the object of his desire when he saves her husband from drowning but, sickened by it, is impotent. Disappointed, he returns to Sam. The title refers to his penchant for rating girls he sees on Califor nian beaches and the original score he first awarded Jenny. Absent dystopian, absent metadystopian. No primary or metaphorical families are represented and the general familial sensibility (represented mainly through Jenny's unpleasant father and George's unrequited lust) is dystopian. 1981 Any Which Way You Can Buddy Van Hom (Columbia-EMI-Wamer/Wamer Brothers) 1980 Clint Eastwood (Philo Beddoe)!Sondra Locke (Lynn Halsey-Taylor)/Geoffrey Lewis (Orville Boggs)/James Beekman (Jack Wilson) Philo decides to give up prizefighting but is forced back into a final fight with Wilson when the Mob kidnap his girlfriend, Lynn, with whom he has just been reconciled. On learning of the terms under which he is to fight, Wilson and Philo join forces to rescue Lynn and cancel the contest. In their own private fight 'to see if they're even', Philo knocks Wilson down, despite a broken arm. Philo is accom panied throughout the film by his eccentric mother, Xenobia, and close buddy, Orville, and Clive, an orang-utan, who each slowly and reluctantly adapt to his relationship with Lynn. Alongside this subplot, his progress is dogged by the Black Widows, an incompetent gang of bikers whom he also wins over by his particular brand of laconic courage. Present dystopian, foregrounded metadystopian. Philo's relationship with Xenobia provides a background, dystopian timbre to the text - she is constantly meddling, dishonest and promiscuous, needing to be 'tamed'. The meta{amily that Philo creates (the close bonding with Orville and Clive) and which is counterpointed by the brutal but incompetent Mob (a highly familialised criminal organisation) and the hopeless bikers, is inadequate to present a metaphorical alternative resolution to this dystopia. Appendix 2 197 Private Benjamin Howard Zieff (Columbia-EMI-Warner/Warner Brothers) 1980 Judy Benjamin (Goldie Hawn)/Eileen Brennan (Capt. Doreen Lewis)/Armand Assente (Henri Tremont)!Robert Webber (Col. Clay Thombush) Judy is persuaded to join the army when her second husband dies in flagrante, having already been rescued from the first by her domineering father.