Crazy Eighties: Teenage Stereotypes In The United States

The Crazy Eighties The eighties were a decade of boisterous events and occurrences. Michael Jackson released “Thriller”, MTV was launched, gas was only $1.25 per gallon, and Ryan White was expelled from middle school. Many people declare that the eighties were the best years of their lives. The 1980s were ‘totally tubular’ because of their memorable music, insane teenage stereotypes, and cheesy blockbuster movies. There were several new genres that materialized in the eighties including hip-hop, pop, new wave, and hair metal, all which have heavily influenced music today. (Music Played In) There were only two records by black artists that topped the charts in 1981 - Diana Ross and Lionel Richie. (Epstein 11) The rock n’ roll industry, also

Some of the stereotypes that existed in the eighties do not really exist anymore, but we have new ones that did not exist in the eighties. We do not have very many stereotypes in Frankton other than the popular kids, the nerds, the chill kids, and the weird ones. Stereotypes are mostly used in high schools to decide what group of friends you will have. In the eighties, there were the new romantics, goths, flat tops, b-boys, teddy boys, rockabillies, mods and rudies, skinheads, punks, heavy metallers, and psychedelics. (Grey 30-32) The new romantics were a clan that was usually into theatre and performing. They wore very theatrical outfits, but usually only in full costume at clubs. The new romantics avoided wearing their preferred clothing in public due to the impracticalities of the outfits. (Grey 30-) The goth stereotype was generally feared by most adults because of the intense style of clothing such as wearing all black, jet black dyed hair, black lipstick, emphasized pale white faces, and even crucifixes may be worn. (Grey 30) People think that they are impolite and disrespectful, but in reality, they are some of the most polite people. They just happen to like different things than most people. Then, there are the flat tops. The flat tops had a distinctive flat top haircut, hence the name. They wore fashionable clothing mainly consisting of black jerseys. They also listened to music

Little did you know that all of these movies were produced and released in the eighties. Movies started to gain popularity, causing them to have better production and more quantities of them. The special effects were still pretty poor quality with the fake animations and cringey explosions. Stephen King’s The Shining (100 80s Movies) was released in 1980 and became one of the most memorable and terrifying horror movies of all time. Right under that was Nightmare On Elm Street (100 80s Movies), another horror/thriller movie released in 1984 under the direction of Wes Craven. We cannot forget about the famous movie The Princess Bride (100 80s Movies). That movie is one of the best cheesy comedies that I have ever seen. I cannot even begin to explain the movie so you will just have to see it for yourself. Beetlejuice, E.T., and Gremlins were also a couple other movies released in the eighties. (100 80s Movies) The eighties were a good time for movies, but I would not want to trade it for all of the amazing production we have