The ‘80s in 40: ‘Footloose’ (February, 1984)

The ‘80s in 40 revisits the decade of the 1980s choosing four movies a year, one from each quarter. This entry covers the first quarter of 1984.

Here’s the plot of a film released in the early months of 1984: a pair of big-city outsiders roll into a small town that lives by a strict code. Modern music is frowned upon. Dancing is unthinkable. The situation seems bizarre to the new arrivals, who attempt to push back against these restrictions, only to discover that the residents are in the thrall of a powerful and charismatic religious leader. Every act of rebellion meets with resistance, even violence. Then, in the climax, a child lights up a cornfield destroying He Who Walks Behind the Rows.

Alternatively, those who didn’t want to see Children of the Corn could still catch Footloose, which had opened a few weeks earlier. It’s the story of a pair of big-city outsiders who roll into a small town that… Well, you get the idea. The times don’t summon movies into being, but sometimes it can seem that way. Children of the Corn adapts a Stephen King short story first published in a 1977 issue of Penthouse. Footloose’s origins date back to 1979, when screenwriter Dean Pritchard read a newspaper article about a town that had banned dancing. Yet the films' near-simultaneous appearance in theaters now looks like the result of cultural synchronicity.

Both Children of the Corn and Footloose arrived in the early months of an election year that would ultimately confirm widespread support for the policies of Ronald Reagan. (Reagan’s Democratic opponent, Walter Mondale, would win only Minnesota, his home state.) It was, like all presidential elections, a long, complicated process that touched on countless issues. Yet an ad launched by the Reagan campaign in September played like a closing argument: