80’s Movie Review: Mannequin

comicscorner (53)in #steempress • 6 years ago (edited)

80’s Movie Review: Mannequin

So recently me and my husband Vaughn decided to sit down and watch some 80’s classics. While I do love comics, movies from that decade are a huge guilty pleasure for me because of a lot of their tropes. So while he decided to do an in depth discussion on the history of gay characters in 1987 cinema, check out that article here, I decided to just put in some of my own general comments and reviews. Oh and maybe steal one or two of his gifs!

Don’t worry, this Saturday I’ll still be coming out with regularly scheduled issues!

(Seriously, the movie was much better than this makes it seem!)

Overview

For those of you wondering, Mannequin is a movie where an “Egyptian” named Ema Hershier, played by Kim Cattrall, is swept through time and ends up helping a struggling artist get his life together. Said artist, Jonathan Switcher, Andrew McCarthy, just can’t seem to hold a job until he saves the heiress of a failing department store and is offered a job as a stock boy. Finding a Mannequin he built earlier at a previous job, he finds it coming to life and he and Ema move on to save the company through their unique and creative displays! Yeah. pure 80’s cheese here.

Pygmalion in the 80’s

This is a dumb movie. There’s no question about that, but it’s a FUN dumb movie. It has almost every 80’s trope you can think of but it revels in it’s inane glory. Hell, it even has one of the most positive portrayal of any gay character of the decade, and while he’s shown as overly effeminate and campy, well, watch Ru Paul’s Drag Race to see that he’s not quite as out there as previously envisioned.Who is he?

(First stolen gif! Muahahah!)

But honestly, this was just another retelling of the Greek myth of Pygmalion. Who or what’s Pygmalion? Well, he was a Greek sculptor who fell in love with his ivory statue of the perfect women. So moved by his love, Aphrodite granted life to the creation and the two happily wed, even having a daughter.

In My Wildest Dreams

The soundtrack is pure 80’s gold. They even have Starship on the bad boy! (Nothing’s Going to Stop Us Now!) That doesn’t even mention the whole music video sequence in the movie that became a semi 80’s trope in such other movies like The Breakfast Club.

Of course my favorite has to be the opening animated sequence done by the famed artist Sally Cruikshank who was well known for a lot of Sesame Street’s most iconic shorts.

Seriously, this animated scene was just so essentially 80’s that I wouldn’t change a thing. I just wish I could get you guys a link for it!

Fun Fact, you were never able to get the opening song, In My Wildest Dreams by Belinda Carlisle, until recently because the studio recording was never released.

(But listen to the song anyways!)

But yeah, that’s my little review of this hit 80’s movie, which had a sequel but we won’t talk about THAT travesty. Remember to join me on Saturday for the next issue of Comics Corner!