The Legend of Billie Jean (1985)

The Legend of Billie Jean (1985)

Director: Matthew Robbins

Cast: Helen Slater, Christian Slater, Keith Gordon, Peter Coyote, Dean Stockwell, Richard Bradford, Martha Gehman, Yeardley Smith

So according to IMDB, Pat Benatar, the singer behind 'Invincible’, the theme song for The Legend of Billie Jean, supposedly introduces this song by saying “this song comes from the worst movie ever made”; a statement that I am strongly against! I mean, sure, nobody is saying that The Legend of Billie Jean is the best movie of all time or anything, but worst movie ever made? Come on!  This movie is one of the most quintessentially 80’s movies ever made! That’s what it is! And it’s got spirit and spunk! The soundtrack is awesome, and no matter how much Pat Benatar might hate this movie, her song gels to perfection with the film! “We will be Invincible!” It’s that spirit of us vs. them, the oppressed vs. the oppressor, the rebels vs. the system that gives The Legend of Billie Jean its cult status; it’s the reason why it’s gone on as long as it has. We the people identify with the heroically stoic figure of Billie Jean; she will not stand the abuse! She fights back! And she’s a woman! And she will take it no longer!

The films premise is an interesting one. Billie Jean and her brother Binx (Christian Slater in his first role) are two teenagers who enjoy the simple things in life: vanilla shakes, riding their scooter to the lake and basking in the sun as they muse about their possible futures. Their peace is disrupted when a group of rich bullies (read: total assholes) start disrespectfully hitting on Billy Jean. When she refuses their advances and Binx throws a strawberry shake in their faces, the bullies steal Binx’s scooter and take off with it. They later trash it, and give Binx a beating which leaves him all bruised and disfigured. That’s when Billie Jean decides to take matters into her own hands! She goes to the rich kid’s father and asks for the 608 dollars that its going to cost to  fix the bike, the rich bastard says he’ll give her the money little by little, in exchange for sex every time she comes. Billie Jean of course refuses! One thing leads to another and Binx ends up accidentally shooting the rich guy in the shoulder, so Billie Jean, Binx and their two friends run off together, avoiding the law and surviving in abandoned buildings and empty houses, becoming legends along the way. Will they get Binx’s scooter back? Will the rich asshole pay the money he owes? And can Billie Jean and company live on the run for long?

The Legend of Billie Jean is one of these movies in which adults don’t pay attention to the kids and their situations, which is kind of like a staple of movies from the eighties. Billie Jean actually goes to the police, who brush off her story as nonsense. They think it’s just a silly squabble amongst teenagers, but the teenagers are sick of being ignored by the adults, so they take matters into their own hands. The film has that spirity of young people wanting to change the world they are living in, they want to revolt and make things better. But the powers that be don’t want to let them do that, they don’t want teenagers revolting and saying what they think or feel. Billie Jean represents that voice, she’s the voice of her generation. And this particular generation she represents is the generation that was living through the Regan era, a time when capitalism/consumerism was rampant and money was king, it was a generation known as the ‘me’ generation. That selfishness, powered by greed is represented perfectly here.  The whole film is one big message against consumerism. Billie Jean becomes a hero to the people, so suddenly she becomes marketable, so suddenly everyone is selling Billie Jean T-shirts, hats, posters, bumper stickers, you name it. The ending of the film speaks loudly about what the filmmakers think of consumerism. Here’s a hint: they despise it. They see it as something that’s devouring humanity, spreading like a cancer, as we all know, they were absolutely right, consumerism has grown way out of control, it’s stronger and uglier than ever. If you don’t believe me, go to a Wal-Mart on Black Friday and watch people die. Billie Jean hates this money based society, she wants her 608 dollars, but at the end of the day, she hates the fact that this is all about money.

This film is b-movie stuff for many, and in many ways I’d say they are right, but in other ways, the film has a lot to say. Billie Jean identifies with Joan of Arc, she sees herself as a strong woman with a voice, she wants to be heard and treated with respect,  she’s standing up for herself. She wants her brothers scooter back and wants to make sure we are all treated fairly, its Billie Jean vs. the abused, in this case, her little brother and herself. I mean, it’s not just about getting the scooter or the money back, Billie Jean is also angry that she was almost raped by the rich greedy bad guy. At heart, this is a film about a woman standing up for herself and not taking the abuse anymore and that my friends, is something I applaud, even through all the cheesiness. Which by the way I find is one of the many charms this film has, it exudes a certain naiveté, a certain idealism and a passion to set things right. I love this kind of film, where the teens stand up to ‘buck the system’, yelling at the ones running the planet letting them know they are wrong. The Legend of Billy Jean can stand proudly next to films like Turk 182! (1985), Wisdom (1986), Footloose (1984), Heathers (1988) and Pump Up the Volume (1990), all movies where young people give the finger to adults and want to do things their way, which is usually fueled by heart, passion and justice; which is why I like The Legend of Billie Jean so much. It's about being fair with everybody, especially the poor. So the film also addresses classist issues, it's the rich vs. the poor here and the poor want to be treated with some respect. That's all, they want to be treated with dignity.  

Helen Slater nails it as Billie Jean, giving a rebel yell, screaming for all the kids, becoming their hero. Love that whole idea about kids helping each other, like a secret society of youngsters all backing each other up. Like youth existing on a whole other level that adults don’t even know about, it kind of makes me wanna be a teenager again! Watching this movie takes me back to my teenage years. Yeah, I was a kid when this film first came out, I was about ten, so Billie Jean in many ways became a voice for me, I was right there following her with all those other kids. Of course, now the film seems a bit cheesy to me, but I can see past its flaws because to me, it’s more about the feeling, the passion and the ideas that the film projects, it’s that idealistic way of seeing the world, it’s about the way we’d like things to be. What I wouldn't give for everybody to collectively want to produce a significant change in society, to change the status quo of things, or at the very least give it a try. Is it all that idealistic of an idea?    

Rating: 4 out of 5

            

The Secret of My Success (1987)

Title: The Secret of My Success (1987)

Director: Herbert Ross

Cast: Michael J. Fox, Helen Slater, Richard Jordan

Review:

The Secret of My Success was a huge hit in the 80’s because it came out during Michael J. Fox’s peak of fame. He’d done extensive television work on Family Ties, and just gotten off releasing Back to the Future (1985) and Teen Wolf (1985), both of which were huge hits for him. The Secret of My Success, proved to be one of Michael J. Fox’s most successful films outside of the Back to the Future trilogy. Actually, at that time, anything that Michael J. Fox did made money, because his popularity and career where just starting to take off! I mean look at Teen Wolf a teen comedy that was a huge money maker. It only cost 1.4 million and made 80 million! So yeah, Michael J. Fox was riding hi on the fame train, question is, where any of the films he was making worth a damn? Is The Secret of My Success a good one?

I’d say that yeah, it was a good one, I laughed, I giggled and generally had a good time. I wanted to see something really 80’s for the 80’s Blog-a Thon thing, and I have to say this one is really, really 80’s! I mean, the clothes, the hair, the music…it took me back, which is what I love about watching movies from a certain decade, I love it when films take a snapshot of a certain moment in time. And in this particular moment in time, films about poor people suddenly becoming rich were extremely popular. a.k.a. 'rags to riches' stories.  For example films like Trading Places (1983), Protocol (1984) and Brewster’s Millions (1985) were all films about poor dopes suddenly becoming filthy rich because of a twist of fate, or pure luck. The difference with The Secret of My Success is that it’s main character, college graduate Bradley Foster doesn’t make it because lady luck suddenly smiled on him, nope, Bradley Foster makes it to the big time because of his own wits, his own smarts. I mean, yeah, true, he has an uncle that’s a CEO of a big company, and his uncle gives him a job, but he ends up working in the Mail Room, with very low pay. He makes it to the big time because of his enthusiasm, his energy and his ideas.

So basically, this is a coming of age story. It’s a film about a kid whose just gotten out of college and wants to leave his mom and dad’s farm house in Kansas to make it big in New York City's business world. He’s taken it upon himself to beat New York, to not go back home crying to mama. He wants to make it big, to have a meaningful relationship with a beautiful girl, a car, a private jet, basically, he wants it all and he wants to do it on his own, without having to screw anybody to get to the top. But of course, he’s a kid from Kansas, and now he’s in NYC, so it can also be seen as a fish out of water story, David vs. Goliath. The thing about Michael J. Fox’s character in The Secret of My Success is that he adapts very well to living amongst sky scrapers and working amongst “the suits”. This is also one of those films where the main character adopts a second personality so he can achieve his goals, and has to later, by the end of the film tell everyone the truth.

The Secret of My Success is one of the many films that came out during the 80’s that dealt with the corporate business lifestyle and its effects on society. It’s no secret that the 80’s were known as the decade of decadence, excess and self centered individuals making tons of money and spending it, the quintessential ’yuppies’ that were later so perfectly depicted in Mary Harron’s American Psycho (2000). It was a decade of economic abundance, a decade in which Reaganomics brought unemployment rates and poverty  down. Economy wise, United States was doing good. The flood gates to big business were opened wide. Back then films depicted greed as being…"for lack of a better word…good" to quote Michael Douglas’s character in Wall Street (1987) a film that mirrors perfectly the kind of mentality that permeated during this decade, in fact, Wall Street can be see as a more dramatic and serious version of The Secret of My Success. Other films of the 80’s that explored the corporate lifestyle were Baby Boom (1987) and Working Girl (1988). In the case of Baby Boom we get a film that tries to humanize the selfish yuppie by having the yuppie (played by Diane Keaton) inherit a baby from a distant recently deceased relative, she has to learn to accomodate her life, learn that what really matters in life is not money. Working Girl can be seen as a female version of The Secret of My Success, it’s also about a working class woman who pretends to be someone she isn’t in order to get ahead in the corporate world. So as we can see, these types of films were proliferating during the 80’s because they are a reflection of the era.

The Secret of My Success has survived this long because it’s what I call a “quintessential 80’s film” and because it stars Michael J. Fox who exploited his sweet natured, good boy persona. The film also gets surprisingly romantic, Michael J. Fox’s character, Bradley Foster falls in love with this working girl played by none other than the ultra beautiful Helen Slater. I kept cracking my head trying to figure out where I’d seen her before, then it dawned on me, it’s Supergirl (1984)! It’s really funny how in some scenes (especially those where they kiss) Helen Slater looks like a towering sky scraper next to Fox! The soundtrack is extremely 80’s, it has tunes from many 80’s staples such as Pat Benatar, Bananarama and Night Ranger, who by the way sing the theme song “The Secret of My Success”, which I remember sounded quite a bit on the airwaves.  At the end of the day, The Secret of My Success is a fun film, most of the fun comes from Michael J. Fox’s character leading a double life, trying to hide the fact that he is passing himself off as one of “the suits” when he is really just an employee from the mailing room; the idea being that if you believe yourself to be something, you can eventually become that thing which you want to become, an idea I’ve experienced to be true. Plus the film has something of an innocense to it, even if it can also be categorized as an 80's sex comedy. When we get down to it, The Secret of My Success is a multilayered film that spans quite a few genres, it's a comedy, it's a romantic film, it's a drama, it's a sex comedy, a coming of age story, a fish out of water story and it is also a truly 80's film, so if you're feeling nostalgic about the decade, this one comes highly recommended. 

Rating:  4 out of 5