Ryan McNeil
Hey, remember these?
Once upon a time, I had the great idea to get my friends to look at some landmarks of pop culture to see how they were holding up. My thought was that some of these unassailable titles wouldn’t fare so well now that time has passed…and that these so-called “classics” maybe…well…weren’t.
Well the series petered out a bit in the last year: partially thanks to a slight lack of participants, but more thanks to me running out of 80’s and 90’s titles that I believed would stand the test of time. That’s what brings us to an interesting place today:
Today brings upon the first entry in the series that I believed from the outset would not hold up. If you’ve seen it, you could probably guess, and if you haven;t, I’ll just say that I believe RISKY BUSINESS is very much a touchstone of its time.
So the willing participant for this forecasted failure was Nik from Being Norma Jean. Would two hours with Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay be as torturous as I predicted?
Read on to see how things went…
Ryan McNeil: This film is sort of iconic, albeit not so much to your generation as the one(s) before you. Was there any reason you hadn’t seen RISKY BUSINESS until now?
Nikhat Zahra: I suppose it just wasn’t in my radar. I had obviously heard of it, but I had never come across anyone who was especially passionate about it and so it never really piqued my interest. The only reason anyone ever really talks about it is in regards to Tom Cruise’s career’s starting point, as it were.
RM: I suppose that spared you any sort of preconceptions on the film.
NZ: I did expect it to be silly since I had seen parts of the infamous “underwear dance”.I had no clue about what the story was or anything. While we are on the topic, that dance was actually freaking awesome!
RM: Well that’s a good sign. So in a broad sense, how did you like RISKY BUSINESS?
NZ: I really liked it!
It is a very interesting coming-of-age movie, even though I don’t think anyone except maybe Gordon Gekko had a similar experience. I originally thought it was very 80s, especially when it came to those incredibly cheesy sex scenes, but in retrospect, I believe it can still hold true – the whole idea of losing one’s innocence and coming into a world of greed and lust and getting away with it all if you are smart enough. Cruise’s character was very likeable in all his blunders and cockiness.
However, my favourite character in it was Rebecca De Mornay’s Lana. She was so unlike anything I had expected, particularly after the whole ordeal with Jackie. I recently did a group presentation in my college about fallen women and prostitutes, and me being me, talked about how they were represented in cinema, and I regret not having watched this movie before that because Lana would have been quite a unique case because she is so business-minded and calculating. She is no victim even though she did have a checkered past. Honestly, I would have liked an entire movie just about her.
So yes, I liked it a lot and mostly because of the character of Lana, which is something I did not see coming.
RM: Wow – I did not expect that! There’s something in your response I was going to let fly, but I feel like it’s a sign of the film’s era.
I remember when I was younger thinking that the sex scenes – especially the later one on the train – were sorta hot, and I’d wager that stemmed (at least in part) from sex being a little less omni-present in the 80’s. Now while we should preface this by saying that “sexiness is relative”, I wouldn’t go to bat for the film’s sex scenes the way I would some other films whose more erotic moments have aged better.
Do you think that the way sex is depicted in media now – not to mention its virtual omnipresence – plays into your reaction to those two scenes?
Now do remember that I come from a Bollywood background and still find scenes where the characters don’t even kiss extremely sexy. This may be because of the kind of connection such characters are shown to have. But I think with the music and whatnot, the Risky Business scenes felt ridiculous.
RM: Fourteen-year-old me might disagree with you, but he’s too busy saving up for a pair of Reebok Pumps.
You mentioned your love for Lana; isn’t she the prototypical “hooker with a heart of gold” character? What did you see in her that set her apart from the other women you studied.
NZ: What heart of gold? I thought she was the antithesis of that entire idea. She was not the kind of woman who would suffer for anyone. Though she was in the profession where she had to sell her body, all her motivations came directly from a brain that was made for business. Joel could not have found a better role model. Yes, she cared a little bit about him, but I think she was out to achieve her own goals, and that is what was so different about her.
RM: So you thought she was a stronger character than, say, Julia Roberts in PRETTY WOMAN or Elisabeth Shue in LEAVING LAS VEGAS?
NZ: I won’t stay stronger but it different in a way I had never really seen before. Definitely tougher than Roberts’s character (I haven’t watched LEAVING LAS VEGAS). I was quite old when I actually understood that she was a hooker in spite of having watched Pretty Woman many times as a kid, so I think that plays in my loving that character the way I do…which is a lot)
RM: As for Cruise, I’m guessing this is the youngest you have ever seen him on-screen. In many ways, this was the dawn of his image – though his characters would get even cockier in the films to come. Was it strange seeing him so young, and does his more recent off-screen attitudes checker this more clean-cut role?
NZ: This is the youngest I have seen him.
It was a bit odd but I think in a good way. I’m always surprised by how some actors actually started out (See: CRY-BABY). I usually don’t let off-screen personas of actors influence my judgement of their performances, and even without that, I have no issue with Cruise. And I don’t know if I would call this a “clean-cut role”. He was just so endearing and sincere that he made a character who could come off looking like a big dumb douche very likeable. It is completely understandable why he became so much in demand after this.
As I touched upon earlier, even with all the mocking and parodying of the underwear dance that has happened over the years, it is still a delightful scene and I am biased towards actors who make a complete fool of themselves for a role, and for someone that young, it was very brave and well, risky.
I would actually love to see Cruise do something like that again, though I don’t think he can anymore.
RM: Earlier you mentioned the dancing scene. When I tasked you with watching this film, I specifically wondered how that moment would play. There’s a risk when something has become such a part of pop culture for it to lose its impact. For instance, someone who now watches CASABLANCA might find it cliché when Renault says “Round up the usual suspects”, even though that was the genesis of the line.
So my question is did it still hit you with the desired level of joy, or was it more dulled after seeing so many parodies through the years?
NZ: It did actually provide me with as much joy as the filmmakers intended. I thought I would find it stupid and boring, but it was a great deal of fun. Again, maybe it is because I have never seen Cruise do anything like that, but I like people doing mad stuff, so it’s all cool.
RM: I tried really hard to be that cool when I was a kid…I probably still do. It couldn’t all have worked for you though, what didn’t you like about the movie?
NZ: The first thing that I didn’t like about the movie was the smart-ass best friend. He was really annoying and though some of his lines were funny, I pretty much hated him.
RM: Wait – do you mean the best friend Barry? The guy played by Bronson Pinchot? He was in a pretty dumb sitcom in the 80’s that I used to love! I’ll hear no bad things said about the man!
NZ: No, I was referring to Miles, played by Curtis Amstrong. The one who kept saying, “What the fuck” and had called Jackie.
RM: Oh, I don’t care about him. You can bash him as much as you want. That said “What the Fuck” is a pretty good life motto.
NZ: It is but I think most of us are like Miles in the sense that we may keep saying it to sound cool, but will be too scared to implement it.
Another thing I don’t like is the ending. I kept thinking that it was going to end and then Joel’s dad would say something or Joel would have a voice-over and so on. I was actually a little confused right after the movie got over as to what it was trying to say and I think that is because of the ending.
Finally, I did not care for most of the songs. The only other time I had heard Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight” was when Mike Tyson sings it in The Hangover and I just could not take it seriously.
RM: I wouldn’t call myself a fan of that song – back when music videos were more of a thing, the clip for “In The Air Tonight” was especially cheesy. That said, I grew up with it, so it’s never something I’d skip past.
Besides the film’s choice in music, was there anything else that made it feel dated?
NZ: Certainly that young Tom Cruise does look slightly unbelievable at times.
RM: In what way does Cruise look “unbelievable”? Just too old to be a teenager?
NZ: No – just in the sense that I had never seen him that young before, and that dated the film for me.
Something that I thought about while I was watching it is that the party that Joel throws for his friends could not have happened now because some loser (and they were ALL losers in there) would have posted pictures on Facebook or something and they would not have gotten away with it like they did in the older days.
Similarly, though many young people today are as driven to make money as they were back then, I think the part when Joel asks his group of friends, “Doesn’t anyone want to accomplish anything or do we just want to make money?” and they all answer in favour of the latter- that isn’t something I think the youth would say today. Even if we want to get rich, it isn’t a very “cool” answer. Those were the things that struck me when I was watching it.
RM: Interesting. The funny thing about the teens wanting to make money is that I’d wager that still exists, but it’s less prevalent than it was in the “Me” decade that was The 80’s. So, are you saying that kids in high school now DON’T want to be rich?
NZ: I think now kids become hipsters instead of yuppies. I do think teenagers today want to get rich; I just don’t think they would say it aloud like that.
RM: Maybe. With that in mind, the talk of the teenagers wanting to be rich reminds me of the goings-on in THE BLING RING, and how that film underlined this generations obsession with fame and opulence. Maybe that’s what makes the boys’ conversation about being rich feel dated – not that they speak it aloud, but that it’s actually coming from wanting to be businessmen instead of pop stars?
NZ: Interesting point. I do feel as though fame has almost replaced the allure of money now. Being just rich isn’t enough, one needs to parade their wealth around and get more followers and “friends”. God, that sounded cynical. But I suppose every generation is screwed up in its own way.
RM: Did the role The Porsche played in the plot make it feel a bit more 80’s? Besides the fact that it plays up the materialism of the age, it doesn’t feel like the sort of car that would be fetishized any more (now it would be a Ferrari, a Mercedes, etc)?
NZ: I couldn’t really say whether or not the Porsche makes the film feel dated. I have no clue about cars.
RM: You aren’t missing much. Well on the whole it sounds like you had fun with this pop culture classic. Did it live up to the hype, and what would you score it on a scale of 1 to 10?
NZ: I will give it a 9. it was very well-written and quite clever. I originally described it as ‘almost brilliant’. It was also pretty funny. It certainly made wearing sunglasses indoors look less douche-y than it is. I thought it was very entertaining and had a couple of great characters and I really enjoyed it.