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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 1985)
Baby heroes by Eleanor Matin Lots of movies for kids over the summer. Many of them portray young or youngish persons in the roles of hero. In The Legend of Billie Jean, the young blonde heroine owes the success of her quest for fairness to her sucess as a media personage. Helen Slater (who played Supergirl earlier this year), plays young Billie Jean, who pre sents herself in a punk mode a la “S t Joan", having just been inspired by a TV (rerun) of the movie starring Jean Seaberg. Billie Jean duplicates the boyish look as best she can, in a slashed synthetic jum psuit closely cropped hair and both earrings in one ear. In the earlier stages of her flight from trou ble, she is aided and abetted by neighbor hood kids, who help out with groceries and give Billie Jean and her little band a lot of moral support Billie Jean’s troubles have developed from the attention she draws with her good looks and bad luck, and she confronts it success fully because of good looks and good luck. Adults are stupid, greedy, lustful, sadistic. Just like in real life. In Rambo II, Sylvester Stallone plays another lone young male avenger. Gone to get the MIA’s. Same premise as those Chuck Norris movies. Same great gear. Same great jungle. Rambo, the hero, is so pure, the only girl he kisses dies on the spot Not a teen anymore, still Rambo is the epitome of the young male hero — scars, a keen knife, great tan — un dervalued by the no-good brass — cunning, lucky, able to take a beating. In The Emerald Forest, an engineer’s son is kidnapped (or rescued, depending on your point of view), by the “invisible people,’’ and raised as a member of the Amazonian tribe. He adapts wonderfully well, memories of his family fading until he thinks of them as “M om m ee” and “Daddee” from his dreams. “Daddee” spends all his spare time search ing for the boy. Imagine his surprise, ten years later, to find the boy fully acculturated into the primitive community, and not willing to re turn to civilization. In Midnight on Elm Street, the teenage heroine is left to protect herself and her mother from a terribly powerful, malevolent spirit Her dad, a police chief, who should have known better, ignores the data she gives him and the first ending of this movie finds her having to do everything herself. Her father has completely locked the house from the outside, and her mother has collapsed in a drunken stupor. Yes, I know, these movies are all quite diffe ren t aiming at different minicommunities, but several elements they share. The concept that parents or other authority figures are either weak and ineffectual or criminally negligent is much more prevelant today in m edia aimed at young people than it was a few decades ago. Tommee is kidnapped be cause his father didn’t believe him about the people in the jungle. Billie Jean might never have had any troubles if her mother had pre sented the bill for bike repairs to Hubie’s father, or if the police officer had tended to the problem as though it were valid. Rambo is abandoned by the government the big authority. Michael J. Fox, as Marty in Back to the Future, sees his parents for the nerds they are, and in a trip to the time where it began for them , he's able to keep the crucial events directing his own destiny intact while giving suggestions that keep his mother from be coming an alcoholic, his father from remain ing a nerd, and sparking enough electricity to make his parents’ marriage more interesting than it was the first go-round. Except for Back to the Future, which is a very funny morality play (you are what you JusfO ui August. 1985 make of yourself), the young people must finally tuck in, band together for support or act on their own if there isn't any, be creative with resources, decide what they think is fair and go for it In the close interacting of the teen peer group, authority of adults and in stitutions is rejected, and a new authority is constructed in its place. This always must differ from whatever is going on now, as we can’t make “improvements” without making “changes.” But the irony of it is, the authority thus constructed by young persons is gener ally more tyrannical than the authority wielded by tradition, which has generally been corrupted to some degree, and cannot always be enforced. In the case of movies such as Billie Jean kids are looking for enfranchisement They wish to function as legitimate persons and get their full rights. Much of what we see reflected in the media (that's not the news), shows persons being granted what’s due them. They figure to ask for it or friends help them find the starch to do what they should, or by great good luck, Clint Eastwood shows up and gives them a hand. Even the little raccoon on Lome Greene 's blew Wilderness, finds his way back from the inadvertent pick up truck ride, finds his little sister in the trap he found a way out of last night frees her, and they get safely home to mom. Flash on a group of real mean guys beat ing up on Vietnam vets in wheelchairs. W ho shows up? Mr. T. The media has created the feeling, how ever false it may be, that we should expect and get fairness. It always has, actually, fairy tales being ways of helping little kids over the fact that they were being abused. And in a sense, the way each person approaches life in terms of communication with other persons, affects their success on every level. Billie Jean gets so much support so quickly because she can transform herself, with very little effort, to a media master and symbol of kid power. She is made a fugitive because of the media, she becomes instantly popular with the kids because of the media, and gets her point across because of the media (luckily one of her helpers has a VCR, and she comes «»cross well on screen). That’s what you need to be a modem hero. Because modem heroes are always poster- ized, interviewed, exploited and consumed. You have to look good on a poster, sound good in the interview, and have a good catch phrase. Like “Fair’s fair!” Gay Men and Lesbians dealing with Chemical Dependency Saturday, Septem ber 14th. 9 a.m .-4:30 p.m. 4 0 8 S. W. S econd, S uite 4 0 7 p re s e n te d b y Medical Center Hospital an d Phoenix Rising Foundation Call 223-8299 for information and registration present $ F o r in fo rm atio n re g a rd in g a d v e rtis in g c a ll 2 3 6 -1 2 5 2 S w S *' S<otelrontTf«3Ke 1 ftix S N N 3 r d A Mystery cRçnee ^Aiujrain,^A t. ed. n d y W e s te rn 1 RS, FBI, & - root Theatre pmthubs . fb ».* ,T storefront n AT 2235 N\N savier ix SW 3 rd C O U N S E L IN G FOR W O M EN A N D FR IEN D S O F W O M EN FHVATAQNS 224-40<ri — 777-6653 1903 S E ANKENY PORTLAND. OR 97214 13
