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John Hughes Films Of The 1980s: Do Their Meaningful Messages Override Their Exclusion Of Diversity

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John Hughes movies of the 1980s: do their meaningful messages override their exclusion of diversity?

John Hughes' most famous actress Molly Ringwald used some interesting words to describe him. A few of them were racist, misogynistic, and homophobic. Molly Ringwald was in his most popular movies. For example, she starred in Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, and The Breakfast Club. After Ringwald's big break in Sixteen Candles, she started to become John Hughes's muse for his future movies. Hughes even wrote the script for You Couldn’t Ignore Me If You Tried around Ringwald. Ringwald herself found these movies to be quite disturbing. She found they had a lot of sexism, racism, and homophobia. Even though she found problems with diversity and …show more content…

Television has been a popular American pastime since the late 1940s. According to University of Arizona scholar Stephanie Trautman Robbins, it was also "a primary source of racial education in America.” Television entertains, educates us and helps shape the way we see the world. So many videos, so little time. This idea really applies to the video versions of the 80's and his 90's movies. This era was the film's greatest achievement and the time when cinema embraced the most diverse cultures. Early television actually reflected a very narrow representation of non-white characters. And many of the previous characters were in many ways caricatures and racist depictions. And as time goes on, the more we start to see black people and we see them move from peripheral or secondary characters to the main focus. But for a while on TV, you had extremes. On the one hand you had the black criminal stereotype and all the negative tropes associated with being black, and on the other you had good, relatable, respectable black characters. “Audiences cared about diversity, but only if the diversity matched with their preconceived notions of characters of color. When modern movies do wavy with these stereotypes, they are seen as trying too hard because they are trying to make people from different backgrounds good characters, not walking stereotypes. These diverse casts were also sanctioned mostly to action movies, whereas …show more content…

“The evolution of Black representation on television.” University of Arizona News, 21 February 2022, https://news.arizona.edu/story/evolution-black-representation-television. Accessed 23 February 2023.
“The Importance of Diversity and Representation in the Film Industry.” KeepEarth, 15 November 2020, https://www.keepxearth.com/post/the-importance-of-diversity-and-representation-in-the-film-industry. Accessed 23 February 2023.
Madruga, Isabella. “Are Modern Ways Of Introducing Diversity Forced? • The Daily Fandom.” The Daily Fandom, 15 December 2021, https://thedailyfandom.org/are-modern-ways-of-introducing-diversity-forced/. Accessed 23 February 2023.
Miller, Halie, and Jala Davis. “The Evolution of Film: Where it Started and Where it is Now.” The East Carolinian, 6 October 2021, http://www.piratemedia1.com/thehook/article_bd548658-2704-11ec-ae3a-8b26bed19300.html. Accessed 23 February 2023. mittelstaedt, sean, and Daniel Thoen. “Themes Explained: What They Are, How to Use Them, & Why They're Important.” No Film School, 15 January 2016, https://nofilmschool.com/2016/01/themes-explained-what-are-how-use-why-important. Accessed 23 February

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