By Kat Trout-Baron

At 6PM daily, the storm clouds roll in over the humid Virginia sky, promising a tumultuous burst of rain. I watch alongside my stepmom from our kitchen table– despite the chaos of the summer, our schedules, and the weather, this is the most docile time for us. During our hour together, she offers me stories about what is most precious to me– cinema. 

Hearing about her history of moviegoing is a treasure– it allows me to contextualize films that for my generation are notorious, blown out of proportion from their original standings. She invites me into the past, and I eagerly learn from her, curious about how the hopefuls of her generation became legends for me. For the past few months, many of her stories have been about Tom Cruise– she has been part of my journey in examining his career, and she has requested several titles from his filmography to watch with me. After our viewings, we sit at this table underneath the warm glow of a star-shaped lamp, and she provides me with her memories. 

The most prevalent screening I had with her was of Paul Brickman’s Risky Business, which celebrates its 40th anniversary on August 5th. While Risky Business is not the first feature film Tom Cruise appeared in, (he had four credits by the time it hit theaters), it is the first one that made people turn their heads and recognize him as a movie star. When I first saw Risky Business, I watched knowing what came next for him– the Oscar nominations, the billion dollar box-office, and the years of partnerships with auteurs. When she first saw Risky Business, she did not know who Tom Cruise was– he was the new shiny toy in the claws of the machine, jeering towards the prize drop-off with danger of slipping. I viewed it having grown up on John Hughes movies, believing as a child that they were the pinnacle of eighties film. She never had seen a John Hughes movie when Risky Business came out– she couldn’t of– his first film Sixteen Candles didn’t hit theaters until 1984. I have experienced the decade retrospectively, its highs and lows laid out like a worn road map. For her, the road map was blank, the path being forged in real time. When she emphasizes these points to me, I watch her with a faraway glint in my eyes, struggling to describe how miniscule I feel in the vastness of time. Forty years separate her as a twenty-something and me as a twenty-something, and yet we both resonate with the emotions this film projects onto its young audience. Forty years separate Tom Cruise as a twenty-something and me as a twenty-something, and yet I feel as if his heart is beating in my chest, that wild desperation to stick the landing and be something in a country that demands excellence or nothing. Risky Business is timeless– after forty years, it has remained prevalent as a representation of the anxieties of young Americans, and as the most honest of the eighties teen comedies in its dissection of culture. 

In the final moments of the film, the naive and unsure Joel Goodsen stares at his better-half and business partner Lana across a ritzy table. The two have just successfully run a brothel, raking in thousands of dollars– they now sit in a high-rise in the midst of Chicago’s business sector, one of the epicenters for American capitalism. Joel, the textbook example of a privileged suburban export, has secured his spot at Princeton through the ordeal. He will become the next product on the conveyor belt of middling success, another man with a briefcase in a cubicle. Lana, a sex worker and a young woman providing herself, has no position from an Ivy League. Despite her orchestrations and management, she will go unnoticed. Joel, with a frantic look in his eyes, tells her they won’t see each other for a while. He then says “I was wondering where we might be in ten years”-- Lana leans in, an equally unsure look in her eye– “You know what I think? I think we’re both going to make it big. I am very optimistic”. Their words are deflection from the doubt in their eyes, balm to try and soothe an equally frightened person. Neither of them is sure of the future, but they have been taught to believe that the system will uplift them. Like Lana and Joel, my stepmom in 1983 had no clue what her future meant– she was an art student outside of New York City, and there was no promise of riches. She never could be indulgent in the way this era demanded– it terrified her. When I asked her what she felt like after seeing this movie, she told me felt seen. Risky Business did not treat its adolescent audience as foolish– it did not attempt to appease them with zany dialogue or caricatures. Instead, it took their issues seriously, delving into the concerns of performance in private and public life. For example, Joel has multiple nightmares about sex in the film– they are not laughing at sex, making the desire for it feel shameful. Instead, they are questioning our lack of knowledge– we naturally desire this connection, but we are taught to feel disdain for our needs. We have made everything in our lives a competition, and now the most intimate act feels like a performance in front of an audience. There is pressure to be good everywhere, to be perfect, and it completely dismantles any room for self-discovery. This connects into the concerns of the public– Joel’s nervousness behind closed doors is born from the rigid standards of society. He is a student at an affluent school in Chicago, his future decided by his parents. As he takes them to the airport, bidding them goodbye for their vacation, they detail to him what he must say to Princeton, when he should retake his SATs, and how his resume should appear. At seventeen, his life is not his own– it is a product of his parents, who deem achievement as a trophy on a shelf or a second car in the driveway. If he is imperfect for a second, a teenager for a blip– such as when he turns the stereo up a notch too loud– he is disappointing. It is a crushing expectation for the youth, one that was standard in the eighties. We must become adults before we ever enter the world– we must have our lives figured out before we’ve ever lived. I feel seen too– the cramping expectations of the Reagan era have seeped into the soil, becoming a staple of America. I keep myself awake at night agonizing over how people perceive my accomplishments instead of focusing on myself. In film, my profession, I am meant to collaborate– instead, I am always comparing myself to others, berating myself over my inadequacies. I think about the next ten years, just as Joel, Lana, and my stepmom did, and I try to remain hopeful about the possibilities– how can I, though, when the world cannot support what it preaches? 

 It is no surprise that people want to focus on the overindulgent part of the eighties, the movies coated in excess. I am appreciative, however, that in my living room, we believe there is no substitution for Risky Business. It is incredible to me that a film can remain vibrant after four decades, connecting multiple generations together and making them see each other clearly. A film is preserved forever like amber, a capsule of a time that will never pass again. It grows old alongside its audience, but never changes appearance. It is beautiful that I can bond with my stepmom over a film from her youth, getting to know many versions of her in the process. It is mesmerizing to witness the progression of a star, to see him at the same stage of life as me. It makes me feel less alone in this chaotic world, that there can be a chance of figuring it out. Who knows– maybe that’s me talking like Lana and Joel, convincing myself of a dream that has been instilled in my head. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t– but hey, “isn’t life grand?”