1980s Movies That Shaped Our Humanity
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0:00 - 0:02[light piano music]
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0:04 - 0:10I often discuss the negative impacts that pop culture media can have on people's attitudes and opinions.
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0:12 - 0:19But, if entertainment can propagate harmful ideas, then it stands to reason that it can also have positive effects on our lives.
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0:22 - 0:26So in this video, I want to focus on media that fosters empathy and solidarity.
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0:27 - 0:31Now admittedly, that's a pretty broad category, so to narrow it down,
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0:31 - 0:37I'll be highlighting a handful of my favorite movies from my most formative years: the 1980s.
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0:42 - 0:46Looking at Hollywood today, it's pretty clear that the 1980s are back in a big way.
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0:47 - 0:52The current nostalgia craze is largely driven by Hollywood's obsession with remakes,
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0:52 - 0:57reboots, sequels, and loving limoges to popular 80's franchises.
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0:58 - 1:05The apex of this wave of nostalgia comes in the form of the novel turned blockbuster Ready Player One.
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1:05 - 1:07"I was born in 2025.
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1:07 - 1:10But I wish I'd grown up in the 1980s."
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1:10 - 1:13Ernest Cline's book, and by extension the film,
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1:13 - 1:18is built around a long list of superficial and rather ostentatious references
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1:18 - 1:20to geeky pop culture entertainment.
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1:21 - 1:23As a boy who grew up in the 1980s,
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1:24 - 1:28most of the media that's name-dropped in Ready Player One I remember well.
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1:29 - 1:31The Goonies, Gremlins,
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1:31 - 1:36Weird Science, Tron, Back to the Future; I watched them all.
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1:36 - 1:38But thinking back to my childhood,
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1:39 - 1:44the cinematic moments that had the most profound impact on me and my emotional development
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1:44 - 1:48weren't necessarily from the most popular or iconic movies.
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1:49 - 1:52The movie scenes that left the biggest impression on my young mind
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1:52 - 1:55were unapologetically sappy and sentimental.
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1:55 - 1:59"Goodbye Charlie. I love you."
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2:00 - 2:07They're the moments that still put a lump in my throat; the ones that make my eyes water and my heart swell.
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2:08 - 2:16"They look like big, good, strong hands, don't they?"
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2:16 - 2:21Movie critic Roger Ebert once said that movies are empathy-generating machines.
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2:22 - 2:26By which he meant that we as viewers identify with the characters on the screen,
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2:26 - 2:30and that helps us understand experiences and perspectives other than our own.
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2:33 - 2:39Movies can also affirm the human spirit by showing us examples of what empathy and solidarity look like.
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2:40 - 2:44Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings or emotions of others.
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2:45 - 2:47Now, it's important to note that empathy
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2:47 - 2:53isn't just feeling bad for the misfortunes of other people; empathy is about feeling what others are feeling.
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2:55 - 3:00Solidarity is when people from diverse backgrounds find a common cause,
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3:00 - 3:03and then work together to achieve social change.
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3:04 - 3:08You can think of solidarity as empathy put into collective action.
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3:09 - 3:14So with those two definitions in mind here's my personal list of 5
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3:14 - 3:18lesser-known movies from the 1980s that helped shape our humanity
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3:24 - 3:26The journey of natty Gann
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3:26 - 3:32chronicles the adventures of a young woman and her canine companion as they hopped freight trains from Chicago to
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3:32 - 3:34Washington State in a quest to find her father
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3:36 - 3:42Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression, this is a quiet film with beautiful cinematography
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3:42 - 3:46That shows us the world through the eyes of characters living in poverty
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3:48 - 3:54The filmmakers deliberately place us as the audience firmly on the side of the downtrodden as
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3:54 - 4:01We see police evicting impoverished families and company bosses treating workers with heartless and difference
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4:03 - 4:08But while this depression-era world is harsh, it's not defined by cynicism
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4:10 - 4:17Acts of kindness and solidarity between economically oppressed people are highlighted throughout the movie
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4:25 - 4:29The journey of natty Gann is also reminiscent of the classic a boy
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4:29 - 4:35And his dog adventure story genre except here. The boy is a girl and the dog is a wolf
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4:36 - 4:41it's especially important for young women to be represented as leads in their own adventure stories and
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4:42 - 4:48I'd argue that it's just as important for young male audiences to see these kind of representations
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4:53 - 4:55He's a wolf
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4:56 - 5:04Boys need to learn to identify with female characters and see women and girls as fully human equals with their own stories
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5:07 - 5:12Nausicaa of the valley of the wind is set 1,000 years after humans have destroyed
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5:13 - 5:16civilization and the planet in a great apocalyptic war
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5:18 - 5:21We follow the adventures of a young woman named Nausicaa
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5:21 - 5:29princess of one of the few remaining human kingdoms as she struggles to understand and heal a world that's been overrun by mutant creatures and
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5:29 - 5:31toxic forests
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5:38 - 5:41The story centers on Nausicaa struggle to restore
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5:41 - 5:48equilibrium to the environment and to end the violent conflicts between human tribes and the giant insects of the jungle
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5:48 - 5:50We are not your enemies. We mean you no harm
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5:52 - 5:59In group depictions of empathy for friends teammates and family members are relatively common in pop culture media
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6:00 - 6:07Stories, built around expressions of out-group empathy that is empathy for strangers or Outsiders to your own group are more unusual
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6:07 - 6:09and
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6:09 - 6:13Expressions of empathy for one's enemies are especially rare
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6:17 - 6:23And empathy for the enemy is really the guiding principle of this film
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6:29 - 6:31He's so badly
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6:33 - 6:39Nausicaa remains acutely aware of the danger posed by the gigantic bug like creatures, but she nonetheless
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6:40 - 6:46Extends her empathy to these mutant beasts, and it's that act of empathy that ultimately saves humanity
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6:53 - 6:56It has a range of 7,000 miles
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6:57 - 7:00And a twenty Megaton warhead
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7:01 - 7:06Amazing Grace and Chuck is about a small-town boy. Who refuses to keep playing Little League baseball
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7:06 - 7:10because of the existence of nuclear weapons and what the hell is this about
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7:12 - 7:14Just can't play
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7:14 - 7:16Can't play because there's nuclear weapons
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7:17 - 7:19SEC had to do with baseball
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7:19 - 7:22Nothing, what's my best thing? I have to give up something I
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7:23 - 7:26Feel real bad about this. You know that
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7:28 - 7:30Game
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7:31 - 7:38His protest inspires the professional basketball star amazing grace to join his strike and together they organize a global
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7:39 - 7:41movement for nuclear disarmament
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7:43 - 7:51Hollywood very rarely gets political activism right the depiction of activism in most movies is limited to raising awareness or
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7:51 - 7:53personal acts of defiance
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7:54 - 7:59Amazing grace and Chuck on the other hand manages to show how social change actually happens
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8:01 - 8:09Social change is brought about when organizers raise social costs higher and higher until it becomes more advantageous
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8:09 - 8:11for the powers-that-be
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8:11 - 8:14To give in to people's demands than to keep opposing their cause
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8:15 - 8:21In the movie we see this play out when so many athletes joined Chuck's strike that it forces all
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8:22 - 8:24professional sporting leagues to cancel their seasons
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8:26 - 8:32destroy professional sports most college athletics high school scores resume even such things as Little League
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8:33 - 8:39So far it has made a shambles of the World Cup Wimbledon and events as far away as India and mainland, China
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8:39 - 8:46These protests raise social costs to the point where the public the media and world leaders have to pay attention
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8:48 - 8:51Hello, Chuck, and then bruh grudgingly take action
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8:52 - 8:55In the end the world has radically changed
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8:56 - 8:59But unlike most Hollywood movies this social
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8:59 - 9:05Transformation is not brought about by defeating the bad guys or through the actions of benevolent leaders
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9:06 - 9:13This social change comes from the bottom up it comes from people organizing and standing in solidarity together
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9:19 - 9:26Harry and the Hendersons is about a typical white American family who accidentally hit Bigfoot with their station wagon
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9:29 - 9:31The
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9:32 - 9:38Family's relationship with this gentle giant who they named Harry ultimately changes their lives forever
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9:41 - 9:45This one really is better than a campy Bigfoot movie has any right to be
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9:47 - 9:55Over the course of the film the empathy that Harry demonstrates towards other living creatures inspires the family to rethink their worldview
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9:56 - 9:58especially in regards to hunting and guns
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9:59 - 10:03the father played by John Lithgow undergoes an especially striking
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10:04 - 10:10transformation from avid hunter and firearms dealer to someone who over the objections of his own father learns to value
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10:11 - 10:14Non-violence and embrace his creative side. Did you dress?
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10:17 - 10:19Beautiful
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10:20 - 10:28Depictions of men and boys who reject guns and violence as markers of their manhood are critically important in our current culture I
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10:29 - 10:35Wanted King Kong you brought me a god damn giant gerbil. I told you exactly what to do
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10:35 - 10:40Maybe it's right on the nose. I mean how do we know maybe it's not vicious at all
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10:40 - 10:45Maybe it's gentle even has feelings. Where'd you dream of that shit?
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10:46 - 10:53As this movie illustrates, there's no reason Hollywood can't present empathy as a defining feature of masculinity
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10:58 - 10:59Batteries not included
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10:59 - 11:06centers on the tenants of an old New York City apartment building who are resisting a real estate tycoons efforts to evict them in order
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11:06 - 11:08To build a skyscraper
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11:11 - 11:14The residents are a band of down on their luck
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11:14 - 11:21But kind-hearted misfits who find unlikely allies in a group of mechanical aliens looking for a place to recharge
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11:22 - 11:25our group of humans embrace their strange
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11:26 - 11:27extraterrestrial visitors
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11:27 - 11:34And they all work together to help their new friends by providing fuel and energy for the aliens reproductive process
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11:41 - 11:48In return the mechanical life-forms help the residents by repairing damage done to their building by the tycoons henchmen
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11:55 - 11:58This story is really built around solidarity on all sides
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11:59 - 12:05The human tenants and the alien creatures come from very different backgrounds and have very different needs
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12:05 - 12:10But they still feel for each other and work to provide mutual aid and support
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12:12 - 12:14Going back and re watching these
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12:15 - 12:20unapologetically sincere and sentimental movies feels like an antidote to the superficial or
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12:20 - 12:24Ironic appeals to nostalgia that saturates much of Hollywood today
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12:27 - 12:34Now I should say that none of the movies on my list are without their flaws like a lot of pop culture in the 1980s
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12:34 - 12:39Some include racial stereotypes and the stories mostly focus on the experiences of white people
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12:40 - 12:47Still the core themes of empathy and solidarity had a profound impact on me and my values growing up
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12:48 - 12:53My list is of course a personal one and therefore specific to my identity and my upbringing
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12:55 - 12:58Depending on your age your gender and your cultural background
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12:59 - 13:02Your own list of movies will likely look quite a bit different
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13:03 - 13:10If I were making a list like this one but for media from this decade there are a handful of excellent movies that I definitely
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13:10 - 13:18Include I have made video essay is discussing a few of them like wall-e and fantastic beasts, which you can find elsewhere on this channel
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13:19 - 13:25But entertainment, built around empathy and solidarity is still relatively uncommon in 2018
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13:27 - 13:34Which is too bad because we really need more movies that embrace their role as empathy generating machines I
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13:35 - 13:42Hope you enjoyed this look back at some of my favorite movies from the 1980s if you'd like to see more of these long form
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13:42 - 13:48video essays that examine the messages in our media then please consider going over to patreon and helping to fund this project there
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13:48 - 13:52There's also a link to PayPal in the description below next time
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13:52 - 13:56We'll be talking about a rather disturbing action movie trope called abduction as romance
- Title:
- 1980s Movies That Shaped Our Humanity
- Description:
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The 80s movies that left the biggest impression on me as a kid weren’t necessarily from the most popular or iconic films. And they aren't referenced in Ready Player One. The cinematic moments that had the most profound impact on my childhood were unapologetically sappy and sentimental. In this video, I discuss 5 of my favorite lesser known movies from the 1980s that foster empathy and solidarity.
PATREON
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Writer/Producer: Jonathan McIntosh
Motion Graphics: Jonathan McIntosh
Logo Design: Justin McIntosh
Outro music: Jonathan Mann
https://www.patreon.com/jonathanmann - Video Language:
- English
- Duration:
- 14:01
Pop Detective edited English subtitles for 1980s Movies That Shaped Our Humanity |