The social and political dimension of eighties f lmmaking had two components. The first, examined in chapter 7, involved the production of topical films that responded to key issues on the periods public agenda. From the new cold war and Vietnam to the symbolic transformations of dystopian science fiction, eighties filmmakers responded to their period with passion and imagination.

Their period also responded to them, with skirmishes and outright wars over the moral content of American film. While controversies about the appropriate content of motion pictures and their potential social effects are as old as the medium, the 1980s were a peak period for such activity. Arguments roiled within and outside the industry over portrayals of violence, sexuality, and religion; the horror genre; the burgeoning adult videotape industry, and such prominent studio pictures as CRUISING (1980), DRESSED TO KILL (1980), and THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (1988). These...