I was asked to audition for an interactive prom(mainly because they want my car in it) and I got the role of a football player named "Beef." The Prom is set in 1989 and being that I was in 1989 for all of 11 months, I have a couple questions to help build my character.
What music would the jocks have listened to?
What stuff would I be in to?
What was it like to be in highschool in the 80's?
Things like that. I see stuff in movies, but I don't think that's how it really was. Google search didn't really help me and most adults I know, went to smaller schools without much diversity. Any help would be appreciated.
If you have any cool cheap ideas to make my car look somewhat like a Time Machine, as that's what the director wants, that would be cool too.
I graduated in '89, so I feel I'm fairly qualified to answer this. Just some memories here...
A lot of the jocks in my school listened to 2 Live Crew, the first Beastie Boys album, Bob Marley, and "classic rock" of the era (Zep, Floyd, Hendrix, etc.)
I think your character would have been into a lot of the same things jocks of any era are into; professional sports, bedding cheerleaders, hassling those that weren't "cool". You would have a mullet. Izod shirts. Acid-washed jeans. Also, everyone would go to The Mall to hang out. And you'd be into either throwing or attending weekend parties; you would very likely have a hookup for alcohol.
My school actually had a student smoking lounge. That's more where I hung out, with that crowd. But there was almost none of the stigma against smoking that exists today.
No cell phones meant that people generally went places to see if anyone else was hanging out there. Call waiting and three-way calling was a thing. Only nerds used computers. The only way to see a movie not in the theater was to rent it on VHS or wait for the TV-release.
All said, I think I would rather be a teenager today than in the 80s; I did not particularly enjoy my high school experiences.
Well, I guess I can tell you a few things about MN HS at that time. I can tell you that 1989 Minneapolis high school would scare the crap out of any kid today. It was also not 'PC' at all, and no cameras to worry about. Watch SNL episodes from the time to know what was fun for 17-18 year olds at the time.
I think Prom is normally in May. '89 was a transitional year for music with a pull from hair bands (Warrent, Poison, Bon Jovi) to rap for many. Metalica and GnR was still huge too. I guess this all depends on if you are in the city or 'burbs. In the North-East Twin Cities area there in 1989 the graduating class in Fridley had zero ethnicity. Blaine was the country back then. The government just started shipping Cambodians and Laotians into the schools, but they mostly landed in Columbia Heights and Brooklyn Park.
The political pressure to get "bad and violent music" banned from Tipper Gore...yeah the wife of that guy, VP at the time. This is what made 2-Live's "Nasty As They Want to Be" album sell like crazy. That set up ICE-T with their "Iceberg" (Freedom of Speech...Just Watch What You Say). The TV was pushing a new style with The Cosby Show, Family Matters, Arsenio Hall, and the other "Nat-X'n". Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" was a popular movie with urban HS kids too.
Subway was the favorite fast food, it went crazy with franchises in MN at that time. Special Export was the favorite beer. It was the favorite because it had more alcohol in it. Cheep kids drank Keystone because it came in a 15-pack for the same price as 12.
Kids going in the military were freaking out over Clinton and the gun control with the favorite guns in the city (think Lake and Hennepin) being the Street-Sweeper and the Mac-10. Lots of kids had guns in school then, strangely no one really cared. Drugs were only for burn-outs then too. You might see weed show up at parties.
Also, the popular jock cars would be the I-ROC and Grand National. Never saw a kid with a D, not even in Edina. Totino-Grace did have 2 kids with Ferraris.
I think someone had a thread here called "$500 non-destructive time machine mods"...I can't ever find things...he took pictures and put them into the rear side glass.
I was not in high school yet in 89 but I recall it being a transition time in terms of music and culture. What others have said already should get you what you need. I'd suggest watching "The '80s: The Decade That Made Us". It debuted a few years ago on National Geographic. I takes you through the entire decade, hitting on most of the important events, music, culture, fashion, entertainment, politics, and so on.
In some ways, the same as now. Not the clothing or the accessories, but the stuff that's important to kids. Fitting in, finding out who you are, where you're going, having your whole life ahead of you and the whole world in front of you and optimistically dreaming about what you'll do with it all. You'll have a lot of your firsts... with friends, dating, drinking, cars, trips, sports, interests, music... and each of those you remember because of what the details were surrounding it. We all remember our favourites songs or movies or cars because they were there in the background when something important happened for you the first time. Rich hit the nail on the head with cliques. Lots of them, mostly by class, money, interests, appearances. Hey, same as now!!
What was it like?
Watch the John Hughes films. The guy's trilogy is considered to be The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Weird Science. The girl's trilogy is Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink and Somekind of Wonderful (also a good one for BTTF fans if you haven't realized who the actors were in that film).
Here's the Reader's Digest version of many of those films, in an Oscar's tribute done for John Hughes in 2010:
MTV (there was music on it back then,) Jenny McCarthy, recreational drug use, and Hair Metal (if you were cool like me.)
It was fun and there was a lot less whiners than you see these days, but there were more cliques -lol!
+1
I just got a reality check; in '89 I was 4 years out of high school and finishing an enlistment in the US Army so I don't know WTH I'm talking about with my post -lol.
Moneypenny & Flicky got it right, and I do remember the late 80's was a transitional time for music.
I was in High School in the early 80's, not '89: there was a lot of recreational drug use but I was [too] anti-drug, the music was about having a good time, and there was a lot of awesome big hair....I loved it.
Now that I think of it, 1989 was the beginning of the end....
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Originally Posted by davidc89
