Blacking up, wacky Asians and the Libyans: the worst of 80s movie racism

In order to understand how incredible it is that a black man (Eddie Murphy) became the biggest movie star of the 80s, we need to look at just how much racism 80s mainstream movies felt was A-OK. As chance would have it, I have watched a lot of 80s mainstream movies and here, in a handy list form, are some examples of the typical kind of racism to be found in them:

1 Wacky Asians

Sixteen Candles 1984: Despite Sixteen Candles being a John Hughes teen movie, he was more in his slapstick National Lampoon mode, as opposed to his soulful Breakfast Club gear.

An exchange student from an unidentified Asian country called Long Duk Dong (Ha ha! Asian people have funny names!) comes to stay with Molly Ringwald’s family. He is obsessed with sex (“No more yanky my wanky!”) and, of course, embarrassingly nerdy (Asians – amirite?!). His every entrance is announced by a background gong, like something out of an old Tintin comic now banned by school libraries. Twenty-four years later, America’s National Public Radio described Long Duk Dong as “one of the most offensive Asian stereotypes Hollywood ever gave America”.

2 Scary black people who teach white kids about real life

Adventures in Babysitting 1987: This film is adorable. It exemplifies so many of the best things about 80s teen films – the sweetness, the silliness, the innocence. However, it also exemplifies one of the worst things, which is using black people as a signifier for danger. Here, for reasons that need not be overly elucidated, babysitter Elisabeth Shue must leave the safety of the white suburbs and travel into the ghettoised city where she encounters all sorts of dangerous black people, ranging from car thieves to gangs to fans of blues music who force her and her youthful charges to sing some bee bop.

SEE ALSO: RISKY BUSINESS AND WEIRD SCIENCE.

3 Blacking up

Soul Man 1986: When I tell people today that my sister and I actually rented this film from the local video shop back in 1987, I can see them looking at me the way I used to look at my grandfather when he talked about growing up in a time of segregated public toilets. Seriously. Who knew people were still alive today who lived in such racist times? In this career-killer of a film, C Thomas Howell plays Mark, a spoilt white guy whose father, for no obvious reason other than to serve as a handy plot device, tells him he has to pay his own way through Harvard Law School. Mark hits upon the idea of posing as a black student in order to blag a scholarship – because everyone knows it’s super-easy to get a scholarship to Harvard if you’re black. They basically give them out to “the brothers”, as Mark would say. So Mark takes a load of tanning pills and carries out this foolproof plan. Stupid ethnic stereotypes ensue, all with a white actor in blackface for an entire movie. Perhaps the weirdest thing about Soul Man isn’t that it was made at all, but that the black female lead, Rae Dawn Chong, ended up marrying Howell. At least one person wasn’t totally repulsed by his blackface makeup.

4 Black people as comedy slaves

The Toy 1982: Again, a movie I am amazed was made in my lifetime. In this film, Richard Pryor plays a poor black dude who is bought by a rich white dude to act as a toy for his spoilt brat of a kid. That’s right: a black man as a white kid’s toy. We can all only hope that Pryor was smoking a freak tonne of crack when he signed up to make this one.

5 Scary Asians

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom 1984: We’ve looked at wacky Asians, now let’s look at scary Asians. Eighties movies are full of menacing, mystical and, yes, inscrutable Asians: The Golden Child, Big Trouble in Little China and, on TV, pretty much every episode of The A-Team. Until George Lucas decided in 2008 that, after trashing the legacy of Star Wars with his utterly pointless prequel trilogy, he would now desecrate people’s memories of Indiana Jones with the appalling Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in 2008, the worst Indiana Jones film was undoubtedly Temple of Doom (1984). Here, Spielberg bravely but unwisely decided to swap his usual villains – Nazis – for a blood-drinking Indian cult. Now, this is weird enough, but even worse is the portrayal of what wealthy Indians eat, which is living snakes, giant beetles, eyeball soup and monkey brains.

Ha ha ha, Asian people are GROSS. Happily, Spielberg returned to the Nazis in the next Indiana Jones, and that’s probably the only circumstance in which I would use “happily” and “returned to the Nazis” in a single sentence.

6 Wise Asians

The Karate Kid 1984: I imagine Mr Miyagi (so wise! So inscrutable! So asexual!) isn’t on the Japan Society’s Board of Noted Cultural Figureheads, but at least he isn’t played for laughs. Well, except for when he fails to catch a fly with his chopsticks – how all Japanese people spend their evenings, you know. What a LOSER.

7 “LIBYAAAAAAANS!!!!!!!”

Back to the Future 1985: As you well know.

This is an edited extract from Hadley Freeman’s Life Moves Pretty Fast, published on 21 May by Fourth Estate at £12.99. To order a copy for £9.99, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call the Guardian Bookshop on 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min. p&p of £1.99.