From The Breakfast Club I learnt that detention could be cool. From The Princess Bride I learnt that fairytale princesses can be tough AND feminine. From The Goonies I learnt that with a good group of friends you can do anything. From Dirty Dancing I learnt that you never put Baby in a corner (of course).
In her new book, Life Moves Pretty Fast: The Lessons We Learned From Eighties Movies (And Why We Don't Learn Them From Movies Any More), journalist Hadley Freeman sets out the lessons she learnt from eighties' films (obviously), in much greater detail and with a lot more thought than I ever could. Split into 10 chapters, Freeman focuses on a different film in each, from Dirty Dancing and what it said about abortion, sex and women, to Pretty in Pink's lessons on makeovers to how Back to the Future is really about the importance of parents.
This is, hands down, one of my favourite non-fiction books ever. It reads like a collection of scholarly essays injected with a massive dose of fun. Freeman's analysis is smart, insightful and considered, as well as being witty, funny and gossipy. There are plenty of footnotes in each chapter, like on an essay you wrote for university. But don't ignore the footnotes, they're full of absolute gems, like the fact that the guy who played Robbie in Dirty Dancing went on to be a journalist and got addicted to drugs while trying to do a story on a cannibalistic cult, and then died. Seriously.
