Punk Performers & Theories Of Ideology ('Punk Mass' 1970 - )

There's a ton of 1980s nostalgia / appreciation websites for movie lovers and many videos available to watch on youtube (largely top 10s). I feel like this decade is a bit special for some people because it brought about the rapid rise of home video. Youth cinema has never really fallen out of fashion since the time when drive-in producers recognised there was a huge market out there if you could tap into the right demographic. Directors like Quentin Tarantino and Eli Roth are good to listen to when it comes to this topic, I find.
In the 1970s you had gentle period pieces, dramatic family portraits, serious character studies and a continuation of the juvenile delinquent picture, but you also had various comedy cycles popping up and these proved to be especially popular at drive-ins. Crown International Pictures were a leader in this field with titles like 'The Young Graduates' (1971), 'The Pom Pom Girls' (1976), 'The Van' (1977), 'Coach' (1978), 'Malibu Beach' (1978), 'Malibu High' (1979) and 'Van Nuys Blvd.' (1979), some of which are more dramatic than others. Crown International continued to lead the way in the 1980s and became a fixture on video store shelves.

'American Graffiti' (1973) offered a nostalgic view of high schoolers and drew praise for its use of rock 'n' roll numbers on the soundtrack. The more raucous college comedies were given a major boost by the box-office success of National Lampoon's 'Animal House' (1978) though it was far from being the only one produced in the 1970s. Among the best are 'Seniors' (1978), 'Teen Lust' (1978), 'French Postcards' (1979), 'Gas Pump Girls' (1979), 'Hollywood Knights' (1979), 'H.O.T.S.' (1979), 'King Frat' (1979), 'Rock 'N' Roll High School' (1979) and 'Summer Camp' (1979).

The leading cheerleader franchise of the 1970s produced 'The Cheerleaders' (1973), 'The Swinging Cheerleaders' (1974), 'Revenge Of The Cheerleaders' (1976) and 'Cheerleaders Wild Weekend (1979). In the 1980s came another key pom-pom franchise consisting of 'Cheerleader Camp' (1988), 'Camp Fear' (1991) and 'Cheerleader Camp : To The Death' (2014).

The introduction of affordable video players offered film fans a chance to own their own copies of their favourite movies, so a lot of young people were able to rewatch their favourite teen films to the point that they knew pretty much every camera angle and could recite just about every word of dialogue. I think this is reflected in peoples' writings and recollections of films from this era. Popular story formats were successfully used by genre directors time and again to inject crime, science-fiction, fantasy and horror formulae into said pictures. Musicals built upon the success of 'Grease' (1978) and a new generation of stars was born under a randy moon. I found it an excellent getaway from the horrors of school which I hated.

Punk didn't really materialise in overground cinema until the 1980s. This move was prompted by the success of low budget flicks like 'Over The Edge' (1979) and 'Rock 'N' Roll High School' (1979). We saw more and more punks appearing as subsidiary characters in genre films and this led to them eventually becoming leads, particularly in comedies set in high school, college or university.

In 2005, the film 'Fast Times At Ridgemont High' was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

In 2014 and 2016 respectively, the films 'The Breakfast Club' & 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' were selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".