Best represents the 80's: Fast Times or Valley Girl? - Valley Girl (1983) Discussion

[–] johnston.scot 10 years ago

In terms of anthropology, Fast Times is better:

- It gives a more complete overview of an entire high school, rather than just focusing on a few, rather unusual characters. The characters and situations might be a bit exaggerated, but they're based on real-world types that are pretty common.

- It's a more typical high school. A lot of Valley Girl is - very intentionally - specific to the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood.

With a bit of a qualification: Fast Times is very early '80s, and might more properly be classified as late '70s. The movie was released in 1982, but Cameron Crowe did the research that wound up being the book beginning in 1979.

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[–] boxerrebellion 9 years ago

Any John Hughes would better represent the 80s.

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[–] electrictroy 8 years ago

BOTH seem unrealistic. Fast Times is more of a 70s movie. Valley Girl is very California which is essentially a different culture from the rest of the country.

The Breakfast Club felt closest to my mid-80s experience in suburban america (especially since I spent a lot of time in the library or study hall). Also Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles for runner-ups.

Outside of movies, I would recommend the early episodes of "Family Ties" as a very typical reflection of suburban families during the 80s,

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[–] GuyOnTheLeft 10 years ago

It's a close call! On my Flickchart, they ended up bunched together because they are basically tied...but I ended up with "Fast Times" at #275 and "Valley Girl" at #276 (out of over a thousand movies, including 800+ good/great ones), so I guess it's "Fast Times" by a nose for me.

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[–] Druff 10 years ago

Valley Girl was definitely a bit "more 80s." It has the virtue of being made about a year later I think, when more typical 80s fashion, music etc. had kicked in and gotten traction. A lot about Fast Times is reminiscent of the mid/late 70s, especially Spiccoli.

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[–] Flexicon 10 years ago

They are both a time capsule view of what life was like for teens back then... a very good representation if you were living it at the time. That was my bread and butter era and those films are touchstones for me still because it's so accurate to the time. It makes my heart ache a little each time I see Jennifer Jason Leigh standing on the corner waiting for the guy in the Z to pick her up... a little graffiti in the background reads, "Wasted Youth." That's what was so interesting about that time. The '80s had all the class of the 1950s, while smashing headfirst into the decadence and rebellion of the late '70s. The party was already over (though most of us didn't know it yet) but we were hellbent on being part of it anyway. It really was the last best era to be young in America. Valley Girl represents the attitudes of youth at the time, both privileged and not, but it will always remain part of the last golden age of storied innocence in 20th century cinema. Thank goodness we have them to look back on and reminisce.

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[–] FreewayRick 10 years ago

Both are a capsule of the 80s in Southern California and both were filmed in the San Fernando Valley. You can throw Karate Kid in there too.

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[–] sean_ohlson-1 9 years ago

Both are very 80s but I think Fast Times has a slight edge when it comes to realism. Then again, Fast Times was written by a guy posing as a high school student in my home town while I was in high school. Maybe I can just relate more directly. I'd be interested in what a teenager from the actual valley in the 80s thought

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[–] jayhn1111 9 years ago

Thats' why you'd have to go with Fast times. Most of us have never spent time in the valley so that part of the 80's is sort of foreign to most people.

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[–] MaicoCPA 9 years ago

I went to high school in So. Cal. in the early eighties (Pasadena, not the Valley). Valley Girl seems like some 40 year-old Hollywood industry type's view of what 1980s high school was like. Fast Times was much more representative of the era.

Don't get me started on Nicolas Cage's "Hollywood Punk" character which was so far removed from reality that my friends and I all laughed out loud when he first appeared on screen. Again, some 40 year old director's idea of what an edgy rebel would be like. They went to see the Plimsouls! Safe New Wave but not punk. For a more realistic look at the LA/Hollywood scene see Suburbia, directed by Penelope Spheeris. Don't get it mixed up with the other film of the same name.

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[–] doug-643 9 years ago

Repo Man.

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[–] Paul_Ke 9 years ago

Fast Times

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[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] RaceBannonPence 9 years ago

I'm about to knock your f^ucking teeth out! Nobody cares about Robert.

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[–] assassinatestevebannon 9 years ago

Spoken like a true terrorist Trumphadist internet tough guy in his mama's basement.

Intolerance of intolerance is intolerance - Enickma the retard 

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[–] Zingbot_9000 9 years ago

Both are a capsule of the 80s in Southern California and both were filmed in the San Fernando Valley. You can throw Karate Kid in there too.

The Karate Kid doesn't represent the 80's. You may like that movie, I do too, but it is more a Karate Movie than anything else. I don't watch that movie and think 80's at all.

Any John Hughes would better represent the 80s.

Disagree here also. John Hughes movies were exaggerations. I really never knew people like the ones he had in his movies. I think John Hughes takes the 80's and injects steroids into them.

Both Fast Times and Valley Girl are in my opinion the best two movies to represent the 80's. I like the John Hughes movies and Karate Kid, but if I were to show someone what the 80's were about I would pick Fast Times and Valley Girl to show over any others.

...............ZING!

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