Now that the Class of 2026 is winding down as the robes have been returned and the tassels have long been turned from one side to the other, education in the first quarter of the 21st Century is a lot different than when the graduates’ parents and grandparents went to school.
I saw a social media post the other day after how it’s the 50th anniversary of the “events” that happened in ‘Dazed and Confused,’ a movie I’ve never romanticized the way others have. It has a great soundtrack but I think most people forgot Richard Linklater was mocking most of the main characters rather than glorifying them. To be honest, we all had a Wooderson, some loser 20-something who worked a full-time job and either still lived with his parents or shared a crappy apartment or house with some other failure to launch losers. He might have been cool in 1976 but in 2026, he’s a pedophile and groomer.
But that’s a topic for a different subject I’ve done on the lack of nostalgia movies from the 1990s and 2000s.
‘Class of 1984’ was actually released in 1982 and I didn’t fully understand the title until later but I think it has a double meaning both in the Orwellian dystopian future and also the fact the students will very soon one day be adults. Filmed in Toronto but set in an unspecified American city, it claims to be based on a true story but really isn’t. Students have to pass through a metal detector at the entrance every day. This is something that seemed outrageous in 1982 but eerily prophetic in 2026.
Andrew “Andy” Norris (Perry King) is a young music teacher at Lincoln High who learns on day one he has underestimated what he is in store for. He meets fellow science teacher Terry Corrigan (Roddy McDowall), who has a handgun concealed within his sports coat. A gang of punks led by Peter Stefman (Timothy Van Patten) are bullying the music students, one of who is Arthur (Michael J. Fox). They’re not music students even though Stegman is a wonderful pianist something that initially surprises Andy.
While the rest of the faculty/staff tolerates it as the principal Morganthau (David Gardner) just wants to get through each day without something really bad happening. The gangs which are somewhat racially divided solve their problems off campus.
Andy learns the hard way not to make waves as his car is vandalized with graffiti and they show up at his house to throw paint in his face. His wife, Diane (Merrie Lynn Ross), is initially supportive but becomes more cautious as Andy is determined not to let things get the best of him. Diane is poorly written and thus poorly acted being the biggest problem with this movie because she’s mainly used as a potential victim when Stegman and his gang attack, rape and kidnap her while Andy is trying to make changes by scheduling an orchestra for the community to come to.
It’s mainly King, Van Patten and McDowall who carry the movie. It’s nice to see Fox before he hit it big. Behind the scenes Arthur Dent would be the main producer. He would later become famous for his reporting for NBC during the Persian Gulf War where he was labeled the “Scud Stud.” King had famously appeared in the controversial ‘Mandingo’ and never really became a big movie actor working mostly on TV. He seems to invoke the type of average American look and being called “Andy” gives him more of a gullible vibe even though he’s shown what he is capable of when pushed too far.
Van Patten’s Stegman has been compared to Malcolm McDowell’s Alex from ‘A Clockwork Orange.’ Both men are capable of violence and debauchery. But they are both cultured and have a way to manipulate their parents into getting their way. Andy is required to patrol the halls during his off periods and through a confrontation with Stegman, the young man hurts himself but puts the blame it on the teacher. Later Stegman acts innocent and defensive to his mother when Andy stops by their home.
During one of the movie’s most memorable scenes, Corrigan pulls his gun on Stegman, his girlfriend, Patsy (Lisa Langlois), and his hulking goon, “Barnyard” (Keith Knight), while quizzing them in an oral exam. Earlier in the movie Stegman and his gang kill some of Corrigan’s lab animals which traumatizes him but also makes the gang less and less sympathetic. But what makes the scene work is how afraid the gang is when Corrigan has a gun in their face. It makes them feel more human which is more disturbing because they are capable of selling drugs, pimping out young women, killing animals and even other students but when faced with actual consequences they can’t weasel out of, they know they are screwed.
It also makes us sympathize with Andy and Corrigan as they are treated with a “grin and bear it” attitude by school administration and police Det. Stewiski (Al Waxman) who says their hands are tied because the gang members are 17 and thus considered juveniles regardless of how grim and severe their actions are.
This is what director Mark L. Lester who co-wrote the script with John Saxton and Tom Holland who would go on to make the original ‘Fright Night’ and ‘Child’s Play’ accomplishes so well. They make us want to cheer for Andy to get his revenge on the gang especially after discovering they brutally raped Diane. The graphic images of this and others are hard to watch but the gang gets what’s coming to them. Not to give much away but one gang member is burned alive as his charred body is seen still gasping for air.
People have said it’s ‘The Blackboard Jungle’ meets ‘Death Wish’ but I’d say it feels more like Wes Craven’s “Last House on the Left” as the parents have the option of leaving to seek police but choose to dole out their own form of swift justice. All Andy has to do is show police the Polaroid of his wife’s attack. But his instincts to protect and rescue Diane kick in and all rational and logic is gone.
While the movie borrows a lot from ‘Blackboard Jungle,’ it’s not based on an actual story but inspired by reports of how schools were reported to become more dangerous. The catchphrase “It’s 10 p.m., do you know where your children are?” had become a pop culture reference. The students in the movie were born in the latter 1960s. They are mostly Gen Xers before it was a thing. Their parents had become too strict leading to them getting more out of hand behind their backs. Or their parents left them being unsupervised for days it seems.
Following the murder of Jennifer Levin by Robert Chambers in 1986, many reports came out about how Chambers hung around with teenagers who were left to their own devices by parents in affluent homes where they drank and did drugs. Gen Xers were expected to parent their younger siblings while their parents attended parties and even went on vacation trips without their kids.
The movie points the finger at adults and parents as much as it does against children. Around the same time of the Chambers “Preppy Killer” case, there was Alex Kelly, who raped two women and then fled America for almost eight years supposedly being supported financially by his family. We see it now with the Jesse Butler rape case in Stillwater, Okla. or the Timothy Hudson case in Florida where he’s out on bond as he’s charged with rape and murder. Hudson is 16 and white.
Many school districts refuse to fail students giving them nothing below a grade of 50 even if they don’t answer one question on a test or turn in any homework. The community in ‘Varsity Blues’ lets things slide because the football team keeps winning games. Yet student athletes are now more out of control as ever as sexual assault cases seem an everyday occurrence. Even when I covered one myself, the coach didn’t like how I reported on it as it came in the aftermath of their state title championship win.
And trying to put any onus on the parents results in a defense of “I’m a good parent.” Kip Kinkel, who went on a shooting spree at Thurston High School in Springfield, Ore. in 1998 had been given many of the firearms he used by his parents, who he killed prior. He was only 15 at the time.
‘Class of 1984’ seemed to usher in a string of movies in the 1980s focusing on troubled schools. In 1984, there was the satirical ‘Teachers’ with Nick Nolte and early performances by Laura Dern and Ralph Macchio. Then Jim Belushi and Lou Gossett Jr. took on gang members in school in ‘The Principal.’ You also had ‘Stand and Deliver’ and ‘Lean on Me’ based on real stories of teachers and administrators dealing with schools in need of major improvements.
Lester would also make a standalone sequel ‘Class of 1999’ in 1990 that was a cross between ‘Class of 1984’ meets ‘The Terminator’ as cyborg teachers are placed in an inner city school to battle gang warfare. Yet this time, the teachers are the villains while the gangs must unite to fight. McDowell appears as the school principal and his casting is more than happenstance.
But the “teacher who makes a difference” trope almost became a parody by the time 1999 really came and went with the parody ‘High School High’ which is mostly remembered for the “Rhinestone Cowboy” dance club scene.
Van Patten, younger half-sibling to Dick and Joyce, would go on to find better success behind the camera as he is credited as director of 20 of ‘The Sopranos’ through its run as well as winning Primetime Emmys for his work on ‘The Pacific’ a WWII miniseries which was produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg.
Probably the scariest thing is how this seemed like fiction for students in the early 1980s but is a reality for their kids and grandkids in 2026.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 