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Comedy and Perversity: Some American Films of the 1980S Michael Boyd Bridgewater State College

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Comedy and Perversity: Some American Films of the 1980S Michael Boyd Bridgewater State College Bridgewater Review Volume 9 | Issue 1 Article 3 Apr-1992 Comedy and Perversity: Some American Films of the 1980s Michael Boyd Bridgewater State College Recommended Citation Boyd, Michael (1992). Comedy and Perversity: Some American Films of the 1980s. Bridgewater Review, 9(1), 2A-5A. Available at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/br_rev/vol9/iss1/3 This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts. A ~ut fiftee~ years'ago I register while the clerk's back is started keepinglists of all turned. Later, after checking into the movies I saw. Although I a motel with money from the probably go to theater less now office Christmas fund (most than ever, one or twice a month, subsequent expenditures are with VCRs and cable I may be handled by plastic), Charlie gets handcuffed by Michael Boyd • Department ofEnglish watching more movies than ever before. to the bed for a session of mildly kinky sex. It's pretty depressing, but usually I can find comedies that deal satirically with various The ride could end here - Lulu is going to maybe ten movies a year that I would want features of the "me decade." The humor in visit her mother in Pennsylvania and to watch again. As I look over my list of these films is often dark, and our reactions suggests that Charlie catch a bus home ­ one hundred films from 1980-1989, two are often complex, uncertain: should we be but it's only Friday and Charlie is free until things become apparent: laughing at this or not? These are comedies Monday morning. I. There is a higher percentage of by virtue of their tone and their happy Lulu has provided Charlie with his American films on the list than in the endings, but these endings partake of a kind fantasy of transgression ("Boy, I'm going to previous two decades, roughly fifty percent. of perverse undercutting that renders them have to write this down," he gleefully says I don't think this is because I've gotten too problematic. Perverse in the sense of being to himself in the shower), and now it's his lazy to read subtitles. [Fassbinder died, and "willfully determined or disposed to go tum to act out her dream of domesticity. Bunuel and Truffaut, of course. But British counter to what is expected or desired: Lulu's real name, it turns out, is Audrey, films have become more interesting.] contrary." These films give us new ways to and for her mother and her classmates at a Mainly I think the shift is caused by more look at ourselves and our times. high school reunion, Charlie pretends to be American filmmakers doing the kind of Several comic heroes in American films her husband. Everything is kept light. quirky little movies that came from Europe of the past decade taste the joys of trans­ Charlie survives what he can only imagine in the 1960s and 1970s - thematically gression, of a walk on the wild side. as the worst catastrophe when Audrey irreverent, formally audacious works by Leaving the comforts and complacencies of produces his lost wallet. Her fantasy of a independent directors who had more or less home, they go forth to encounter the reality normal life seems to have a fair chance of complete control over what they put on of experience, which is slowly or swiftly becoming true as the two discover a real film. I recently read an article that claimed transformed into their own worst nightmare. attachment. that the 1970s were the heyday of the Yuppies are especially vulnerable. In Enter Ray (Ray Liotta), Audrey's high American art film. The writer goes on to Something Wild (Jonathan Demme, 1986), a school sweetheart, just out of prison after a claim that a film like Bob Rafelson's Five young stockbroker named Charlie (Jeff five-year stretch for armed robbery. A Easy Pieces couldn't be made today. This Daniels) meets Lulu (Melanie Griffith) jealous and impish psychopath, Ray shows is all clearly nonsense. If Barton Fink and when he attempts to leave a diner in both Charlie and Audrey that they are not My Own Private Idaho got made last year Manhattan without paying for his lunch. who they say they are: Charlie's not a and were fairly well distributed, things can't Lulu spots him as a closet rebel, offers him happily married man on a lark but is be all that bad. This kind of thinking a ride back to his office but, with his unhappily divorced, living an empty life in belongs to a nostalgia for the I960s and the reluctant cooperation, abducts him instead. an all but empty house. It is Audrey who is 1970s that is very much a part of the subject Lulu is a kook, "a wild thing," as the music married - to Ray. "You look like a TV matter for some comic films in the 1980s. on the soundtrack announces. When they couple," shreiks Ray, and the movie shifts 2. A large number of films on my list are stop at a liquor store, she cleans out the into high gear, taking along its elements of 12A Review screwball comedy but mixing them with a "Why me? What have I done?" He does concerns of the decade - the dangers of real holdup, complete with gun and Ray's well to address his question to the camera, sexuality, especially on the singles scene ­ manic violence. because it is clear that the man behind the the line appeals to our sense ofjustice even Charlie and Audrey manage to escape camera is the Jehovah responsible for his as it undercuts that appeal with its self-pity. from Ray and return to Charlie's home, but afflictions. As if to underline this point, Paul may be just a nice guy looking for a Ray follows them in a stolen station wagon, Scorsese himself appears in one scene in the good time, but his narcissism, reflected by a tired symbol of middleclass respectability. film, again from on high, directing spot­ his repeated trips to various bathrooms to As if to impress upon Charlie that he should lights on the dancers in a punk nightclub ­ stare at himself in the mirror, prevents our never leave home, Ray handcuffs him now a scene in which Paul barely escapes sympathetic identification. to the kitchen sink. Charlie breaks free and receiving a Mohawk haircut. (He had Marrieds in the 1980s aren't immune to inadvertently kills Ray with his own knife. gained admittance to the club with some the dangers of deviation. Lost in America It's as if we are suddenly thrown into difficulty only after listening to the features a couple of dinks (dual-income-no­ another movie, but then there is a switch bouncer/doorman quote from Kafka's kids: remember?) who give up their jobs back at the end, when Audrey returns to the parable "Before the Law." Paul might have and their California "lifestyles" and hit the diner where it all began, dressed in "re­ expected this immersion in a Kafkaesque open road in a Winnebago. David Howard spectable" clothes and comes to fetch world because he had learned earlier that (Albert Brooks, who also wrote and Charlie in a station wagon, wood-panelled "different rules apply when it gets late. It's directed) quits his $100,OOO-a-year job in no less. like, after hours.) advertising in a fit of pique after he fails to A cautionary tale about the dangers of Most of the film is taken up with Paul get an anticipated promotion and is told he leaving the straight and narrow? It would simply trying to get home. His frustration will be transferred to New York. His wife, seem so, and yet certainly nothing about peaks when he finally Linda (Julie Hagerty), somewhat bored by Charlie's life is made to seem very desir­ finds someone _ who will the direction their lives seemed to be taking, able. When asked by a colleague what give him sub- 7\1111 way fare follows his lead, and after liquidating their makes someone like Ray tick, Charlie tries only to dis- cover that considerable assets, they go forth to to sum up his experience with a formula: this stranger's girlfriend encounter America, to "touch Indians," as "Better a live dog than a dead lion." We has just com- mitted David tells their friends. As they leave the can't help but think that Charlie really suicide. It's pretty clear city in their newly acquired mobile home wants it both ways. that the girlfriend is Marcy, and Paul's - "Born to be Wild" on the soundtrack ­ David affirms his kinship with a passing Martin Scorsese's After Hours and Albert rudeness to her is at least indirectly the cause of her death. The coincidences keep bearded motorcyclist with a thumbs up Brooks' Lost in America, both from 1985, piling up, producing some pretty strange sign. The biker responds with his middle get my vote as the flat out funniest films of locutions: As Paul says, if the two women finger. the decade, and both direct their comic sound similar, " that's because they're the energies toward punishing their yuppie Heading east, their first stop is Las Vegas, same person and they're both dead!" This heroes for attempting to escape everyday where they plan to renew their marriage death, as the one in Something Wild, comes life. In After Hours a word processor, Paul vows to commemorate the beginnings of a as a shock because we have been respond­ (Griffm Dunne), meets Marcy (Rosanna new life.
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