Post on 26-Jan-2017
transcript
America in the 1980s
Lesson Goals: To understand the social context of Batman
1989 and consider the impact this had on the film
The decade of Me!Me!Me!
• The 1980s became the Me!Me!Me! generation of status seekers
• Catch phrases ‘If you’ve got it, flaunt it’, ‘You can have it all!’, ‘Shop til you drop’.
• According to Tom Wolfe the baby-boomer generation became the ‘splurge generation’
• Binge buying (labels) and credit became the new way of life
The Business world• Wall Street – ‘Greed is Good’.• Hostile Takeovers, Leveraged buyouts and mega mergers
spawned a new breed of billionaires (Donald Trump) at the expense of ‘mom and pop’ trader
• Insider trading scandals were common (Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken)
• A study by UCLA and the American Council on Education indicated that college freshmen were more interested in status, power and money than at any time during the last 15 years
• Business Management was the most popular Major
Fads, Fashion and Lifestyle
• As incomes climbed by more than 20% consumerism dominated –’Keeping up with the Jones’
• Opulent clothing styles (designers like Calvin Klein and Donna Karan) based on Princess Di and Nancy Reagan (power dressing). Madonna was influential on the young.
• Image became extremely important – tanning salons, plastic surgery, and cosmetic products boomed like never before
• Vogue - Madonna
Literature
• The most popular genre was legal thrillers (Tom Clancy)
• But George Orwell's 1984 was also penned at this time
• Best selling non fiction books: The Beverly Hills Diet, Richard Simmons’ Never Say Diet Book, Trump – Surviving at the Top, Iacocca – An autobiography
Art and Architecture
• The 80’s were a huge decade for the Arts.• Artist were experimenting with new forms and
pushing traditional boundaries• Art work became status symbols and fetched
record prices (eg Sunflowers by Van Gogh $39.9m)
Crime
• Prisons over flowed and violent crime rates tripled.
• Crack cocaine appeared in 1985 and the growth in crime was seen as clearly linked to this
• Cocaine addiction rose by 35% between 1985 – 1990.
Batman is a reaction and a mirror for American society at this time
• How?
How?
• The Joker comes from big business – the greatest evil of the time
• He attacks the beauty industry – he is a psychotic plastic surgeon, chooses to attack people via beauty products, makes a mockery of the beauty ideal (Jerry Hall)
• Uses money to con the people of Gotham• Destroys art work • Drug addicts scare people in the city• Crime is everywhere (think about the death of The
Wayne’s) – they need Batman.• Even the police are corrupt, driven by money and wealth
What makes a good essay?
• Read the two past answers. One scored 27/40 and the other got 36/40
• What makes a good essay?
Essay Question
• How useful have your wider contextual studies been in understanding similarities and differences in the American films you have studied for this topic?
• Plan using Batman ( you will cover Dark Knight later with Miss T)