So I told you my reading of Ghostbusters as an ‘80s backlash “take back the city” fantasy. Just now making tea Also Me pitched another concept: Gremlins (1984) as reactionary fable about neighborhood integration.
Start from the beginning. Gizmo’s nature is vaguely foreign, his origin vaguely urban, but more than that is the generation gap - the wise old man doesn’t care how much money he forgoes, that thing is not to be released from its cage. His son, though…
And why not, it’s cute, it’s vulnerable, it’s harmless, it’s loveable. And unless you completely deny it access to basic resources, more show up. Ones less friendly, less humble. And they demand things they shouldn’t, and if you give in – and even if you mean to hold the line they’re tricky, they’ll disguise it as reasonable requests – even just once, they’ll turn into violent hoodlums.
They’ll attack people in public, make the streets unsafe, kill little old ladies. Violence in the schools, housewives attacked in their own homes. Buildings vandalized, houses collapsing, attacks on the cops. Public recreational facilities overrun with the little monsters. They leave the theater alone but they sitthere, in their pimp jackets and caps, smoking joints, and they won’t shut up while the movie’s playing.
And how’re the Gremlins ultimately defeated? Through the solidarity of the Rust Belt white working class in the face of recession, continuing family structures by forming heterosexual mated pairs; combined with the aid of one of “the good ones” against its erstwhile brethren (the 80s were also the interracial buddy cop era).
The 1990 sequel was not about the fear that this danger would spill out from the cities but rather that it would inhibit yuppie-driven urban revitalization, though those pompous fucks kinda have it coming tho
This has been another installment of Reactionary Readings of Beloved ‘80s Movies
