The 1990 Hollywood summer season revealed something interesting - if not new - about American popular taste. By and large, the moviegoers of this country really turn out for films that support traditional values, even if only subliminally. Studio executives, stars, and producers who neglect this fact end up paying dearly for it at the box office.
In the past two years, Hollywood executives - many of them children of the sixties - bet heavily that a new post-Reagan sensibility of environmentalism, "social awareness," and détente (viewing the Russians positively while focusing on the Pentagon and the CIA as the heavies) would find favor with the public.
The movie industry's heavy hitters for the peak summer season of 1990 indicate that if they haven't learned their lesson, they're certainly hedging their bets. Sequels to the hits Gremlins, Back to the Future, Die Hard, Robocop, and 48 Hours were released in June and July with a combined production cost of $195 million.
Vicious Villains
Die Hard 2, Robocop 2, and Another 48 Hours are all fairly conventional policiers, with hard bitten cop heroes up against vicious villains in unambivalent, morally straightforward situations. No "situational ethics" for them.
These new blockbusters, along with Days of Thunder (some call it "Top Gun at the Racetrack"), Air America (Mel Gibson, the CIA and Vietnam), Dick Tracy (Batman redux minus Jack Nicholson), as well as the latest remarkably violent Arnold Schwarzenegger, Total Recall, follow a spectacular successful winter/spring season. Four movies, The Hunt for Red October, Pretty Woman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Driving Miss Daisy, all grossed more than $100 million of business each in commercial U.S. distribution alone, an unheard-of achievement in traditionally the slowest season of the year.
Three of these four movies unabashedly emphasized traditional and patriotic values. Hunt for Red October portrays the U.S. Navy and even the CIA - Hollywood's bete noir -in competent, humane terms, while being relentlessly hostile in its portrayal of Soviet values and institutions. The low-key Academy Award winning Driving Miss Daisy painted an affectionate portrait of the 1940s through 1960s and described the end of new mutual understanding and respect between the races. Pretty Woman suggested that even prostitutes and - still more radically - businessmen, can find true love and commitment, although a few obligatory swipes are taken at the ways of corporate America. (This film which clearly touches some special nerve was the number one film until biggies of the summer went on release.)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles suggested that even the most bizarre outcasts of society could find self-respect, socially redeeming roles, widespread popular acceptance, and - even more unusually - a sense of family in the depressing and noxious underworld of a modern major city. Such a message, subliminally cast within a humorous, action packed movie of enormous technical skill, proved astonishingly popular. The movie netted $51 million in its first two weeks and had the third most impressive three-day opening on record. Only Batman and Ghostbusters II-both popular movies aimed at a family audience and emphasizing family values, and clear, unambiguous, moral
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