the film’s transitional character. The freshman has
lost her virginity, maintains a part-time job at the
mall, and is close friends with coworker and self-
proclaimed sexual expert Linda. Stacy’s attempt to
have fun and be promiscuous brings difficult conse-
quences. After being courted by the shy Mark Ratner
(Brian Backer), Stacy becomes infatuated with ticket-
scalper Mike Damone (Robert Romanus). After an
awkward fling, Stacy becomes pregnant, and with
no support from Mike, she decides to have an abor-
tion. At the same time, Linda becomes engaged to
her college boyfriend and questions her own life
choices.
The film’s other characters are by turns equally
dramatic, engrossing, and humorous. Sean Penn’s
performance as surfer Jeff Spicoli set the standard
for depicting California stoner culture. Forest
Whitaker played Charles Jefferson, the school’s Afri-
can American football star who allegedly “only flew
in for games.” Notable tertiary roles include An-
thony Edwards and Eric Stoltz as Spicoli’s stoner
friends and the seventeen-year-old Nicholas Cop-
pola (later Nicolas Cage) as Brad Hamilton’s friend.
A short-lived television show followed, but it could
not equal the power of the film.
Impact With a careful balance of humor and real-
ity,Fast Times at Ridgemont Highexamined the atti-
tudes of 1980’s adolescents. The film introduced
middle America to West Coast culture, while reveal-
ing the national youth trends of socialization at the
shopping mall, promiscuous sex, drug use, and a re-
laxed attitude toward education. More sophisticated
than many of the decade’s teen films,Fast Times at
Ridgemont Highwas still entertaining; it was a modest
success at the box office, and it put both Heckerling
and Crowe on the map as talents to watch.
Further Reading
Crowe, Cameron.Fast Times at Ridgemont High. New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1981.
Kepnes, Caroline. “Higher Learning.”Entertainment
Weekly, nos. 612/613 (September 7, 2001): 168.
Maslin, Janet. “The Screen: ‘Ridgemont High.’”The
New York Times, September 3, 1982, p. C6.
Aaron D. Purcell
See also Abortion; Education in the United States;
Film in the United States; Generation X; Teen films;
Valley girls.
Fatal Attraction
Identification American film
Director Adrian Lyne (1941- )
Date Released September 18, 1987
Fatal Attractionwas the second highest grossing film re-
leased in 1987. A psychological thriller about the conse-
quences of infidelity, the film led to much discussion both of
fidelity in marriage and of the representation of femininity
in motion pictures.
Fatal Attractionbegins with a married man (Dan, por-
trayed by Michael Douglas) having a brief fling with
a business associate (Alex, played by Glenn Close)
while his wife Beth (Anne Archer) is out of town.
The affair turns dangerous when Alex both wants to
continue the relationship and proves to be mentally
unstable. Alex seems to have many types of psycho-
logical disorders, including impulsive actions, sui-
cidal tendencies, and extreme mood swings between
intense anger and adoration. While Dan thinks the
relationship is over, Alex begins to stalk him; she
comes to his office but is rebuffed. Alex then begins
calling Dan’s office, and when Dan stops taking her
calls there, she begins calling his home.
In one of the film’s most memorable moments,
Alex kills the pet rabbit belonging to Dan’s daughter
and leaves it boiling in a pot on the kitchen stove for
the family to find. She kidnaps the daughter from
school but returns her home after Beth is injured in
a car wreck. Eventually, the scorned woman decides
to eliminate her competition—the wife. Alex sneaks
into the house and tries to kill Beth with a knife.
Dan hears the screaming and comes to his wife’s aid.
Dan fights Alex in the bathtub until she seemingly
drowns. As Dan and the audience relax after the
struggle, Alex emerges from the tub, still swinging
the knife. Beth had gone to get a gun and arrives just
in time to save her husband by shooting Alex. This
time, Alex stays dead.
The film received six Academy Award nomina-
tions, including Best Actress (Close), Best Supporting
Actress (Archer), Best Director, Best Film Editing,
Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Picture. Cultural
discussions of the film referred often to its gender
politics.Fatal Attractionis a classic example of a film
that turns a potential villain (the cheating husband)
into a victim. Moreover, the representation of out-of-
control female desire clearly exploited cultural fears
of aggressive and sexually frank women. This wasThe Eighties in America Fatal Attraction 361