1980's Film: The 1980s

1980’s Film
Jodie Foster was stalked by mentally-impaired John Hinckley, who tried to impress the actress by attempting to assassinate Reagan in late March, 1981. Along with that exciting news, Disney channel was launched in 1983 and the American Movie Classics TV channel (AMC) started in 1984 (National Geographic). Also making its way into the film industry, was the AIDS movement through the play production the Normal Heart. One could say that the 1980’s was a big year for movies, television, and theater. The 1980’s was also a big year for assassinations/ assassination attempts. The decade started off with the assassination of John Lennon in 1980 and then an assassination attempt on the Pope and President Reagan in 1981. NASA had it’s share of excitement in the 80’s too, even though some events weren’t things to celebrate. NASA sent Sally Ride as the first woman to Space on June 18th, 1983, but in 1986 things took a bad turn around for NASA when the space shuttle “Challenger” exploded shortly after lift-off on January 28th (Jennifer Rosenberg). On top of all those events; between 1981 and 1983, 1,450 people were infected with AIDS (most of them being gay/bisexual men or excessive drug users. The disease was originally labeled as GRID until 1985 when the heterosexual actor Rock Hudson died from the disease. In that same year, the AIDS movement would find its way into the film/theatre industry through one dedicated activist (Susan Myllykangas).
In the 1980’s the AIDS movement was a popular controversy and created an uproar with many people, especially play writer/director Larry Kramer. Larry Kramer created the play, “The Normal Heart” in 1985 to speak out against those muting the crisis going on in the US. He used the play as a platform for his anger and frustration, and it went on to play an active role in the establishment of ACT-UP (Colin Clews). In the same year, President Reagan went on to claim that AIDS had been one of the top priorities with the government for the past four years, but 1985 was the only time he mentioned AIDS to the public. The group ACT-UP demanded in 1986, that AIDS be talked about in public education to put a stop to the spread of AIDS. Unfortunately, by 1989 more than 100,000 people were diagnosed with the terrible disease (History of HIV and AIDS in the