The Eighties in America - Salem Press (2009)

piece ofSaturday Night Fever, a slice ofUrban Cowboy,a
quart ofMartyand a 2-pound box ofArchie Bunker’s
Place.” This negative assessment did not harm the
movie at the box office: It took in almost $95 million.
Among the films of 1983, only the juggernautStar
WarssequelThe Return of the Jedisurpassed it.

Impact For many aspiring dancers in their teens,
however,Flashdance was the movie that changed
their lives. It also affected fashion, beginning the
trend of wearing off-the-shoulder sweatshirts and
leg warmers, which soon flooded the market. Most
significant, the movie became a stepping-stone for a
number of filmmakers in the 1980’s. Director Adrian
Lyne would later directFatal Attraction(1987) and

Indecent Proposal(1993). The producers, Don Simp-

son and Jerry Bruckheimer, went on to produceTo p

Gun(1986) andBeverly Hills Cop(1984), and the

screenwriter, Joe Eszterhas, would later write one of

Hollywood’s most famous spec scripts, the screen-

play forBasic Instinct(1992).

Further Reading

Ebert, Roger. “Flashdance.”Chicago Sun-Times, April

19, 1983.

Grugg, Kevin. “Broadway and Beyond.”Dance Maga-

zine57 (July, 1983): 104.

McRobbie, Angela. “Fame,Flashdance, and Fantasies

of Achievement.” InFabrications: Costume and the

Female Body, edited by Jane Gaines and Charlotte

Herzog. New York: Routledge, 1990.

Sylvia P. Baeza

See also Ballet; Dance, popular; Fashions and

clothing;Fatal Attraction; Film in the United States;

Leg warmers; MTV; Music; Music videos; Pop music;

Special effects.

Flynt, Larry

Identification American pornographer and First

Amendment advocate

Born November 1, 1942; Magoffin County,

Kentucky

Flynt outraged religious leaders and critics of pornography

because he featured in his magazine,Hustler,more sexu-

ally explicit photographs than other mainstream porno-

graphic magazines at that time. Feminists criticized Flynt

for including in his magazine graphic acts of violence and

demeaning depictions of women.

By the 1980’s, Larry Flynt had transformed the

monthly newsletter he used to promote his chain of

go-go clubs in Ohio into the nationally known por-

nographic magazineHustler. During the decade, how-

ever, Flynt suffered from a variety of personal set-

backs. A 1976 assassination attempt had left him in a

wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down. He had

become addicted to the prescription pain medica-

tion he took to control the chronic pain he suffered

from his bullet wounds. In 1987, his wife Althea died.

As an unwavering—but outrageous—defender of

the First Amendment, Flynt went to extreme lengths

to show his contempt for any effort to infringe on his

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Flynt, Larry The Eighties in America

Jennifer Beals inFlashdance. In addition to leg warmers, the
film helped popularize the off-the-shoulder sweater fashion mod-
eled here.(dpa/Landov)