1. Class and gender in the 1980s
FMS 394:
Lesson 10

2. Guiding questions
How is the U.S. socio-economic landscape changing in the 1980s? How do these shifts relate to young people?
How are discourses of gender, particularly of femininity, a site and source of cultural anxieties in the 1980s?
How do we see the intersections of class and gender anxieties playing out in films like Pretty In Pink?
What are the ideological ramifications (for discourses of gender and of class) of John Hughes’ choice to situate discussions about class conflict within romance narratives?

3. Class and economics in the 1980s
Individualism
Intensification of older ideals
Privileges the privileged
Acquisition
Emphasis on luxury
Transformation
Consumption now moral

4. “Backlash” and Postfeminism: gender in the 1980s
“Backlash” (Faludi)
The Big Lie
Postfeminism
Feminism is “taken into account”
Femininity in Advertising
Individualism, Acquisition, and Transformation

5. Class and Gender in Pretty in pink
Wealth, Work, and Worth
Anxieties presented in relationships
Andi and The Richies
Andi and Ducky
Andi and Iona
Andy and Blaine

6. Romance, Class Struggles, and Hughes’ Teen Angst Movies
Molly Ringwald as Postfeminist Heroine?
What is the solution to class struggle?
If love conquers all, what does that say about economic inequality?

7. Next Time on FMS 394
Teens, Race,and Masculinity in the 1990s