Do you think Spaceballs is an allegory of Wall Street greed or that Better Off Dead supports assisted suicide? Do you view Predator as a cautionary tale of American imperialism or Caddyshack as a symbol of the proletariat? If so, this is the thread for you. If not, well, make something up anyway.
For me it’s Ghostbusters which has to be the most xenophobic movie I’ve ever seen. We all know that the demographics of the US are changing, but the movie ham handedly illustrates this point by having two white characters transform into chupacabras. Our heroes end up on a roof to fight the big bad who has just arrived from a far away land that looks suspiciously like a Mayan temple. The villainess then uses the white establishments own resources when she steals Ray’s childhood thoughts and creates the Stay-Puf Marshmallow Man to destroy the city. They couldn’t have been more obvious about immigrants abusing the health care system and lowering property values if they came out and said it. Anyway, our American heroes team up and defeat the evil foreign lady, the chupacabras turn back into white people, and everybody lives happily ever after. The end.
Real Genius is a Hollywood Liberal attack on religion. The one character in the movie who shows the spiritual willingness to open himself to the Word of God is portrayed as an obnoxious idiot who is all too easily led astray by the self-proclaimed “geniuses” of science. In the climax of the film, or man of Faith is humiliatingly smothered by Jiffy-Pop in a scene that in a scene that is clearly meant to portray the smothering of faith by scientific rationalism.
A Christmas Story: the BB gun represents the United States abandoning pre-war isolationism to take a lead in global events. A fun, if dangerous, proposition.
The main character is going to commit suicide by jumpoing off an overpass. IIRC doesnt actually do it, but DOES accidentally fall. He lands safely in the back of garbage truck on top of a pile of garbage. Some black workers on another overpass see this garbage truck tooling down the highway with this white kid sprawled on top of the pile. One says to another “See, thats whats wrong with country today. People throwing away perfectly good white boys” (or something to this effect). Not positive that it was Better Off Dead, but pretty sure it was.
They Live: Interesting contrast to the McCarthy-era paranoia of the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In IOTBS, the Others are on the Outside trying to get In and take over everything we hold dear; in TL,that already happened and that’s why life sux so hard. Very transparent metaphor for status-anxiety in the go-go '80s, when rich were supreme, the middle class disappearing, and the working class being steadily immisserated. Will we ever see such a time ag-- hey, wait a minute . . .
Cujo: White backlash against the Civil Rights revolution and resultant cultural upheavals of the past two decades. You treat them kindly, you think you know them, but one day they go mad and turn on you . . .
"Surf Nazis must die" is another unfairle underrated gem. Some people may think it just a dumb actioner, but i do believe that it tackles with a bravery and honest very few movies, nay, few media of any kind, have accomplished the so real and so relevant, even nowadays, the problem of nazis who practice surf, and how their prompt demise may be enforced.
And they gave the Oscar to that crappy “The last emperor” flic. Shameful, really.