The headline of this blog post is a bit of a lie. “Hoosiers” is not one of my favorite movies from the 80s. And I didn’t see “Fame” until I was writing this piece. But “Fame” is really good! And the other movies I wrote about in this piece are ones I really truly love.

Best ‘80s Movies to Watch With Your Teens

I’m not going to talk about every movie covered, because you should read the story! But one common theme I am seeing as I look back is how much I connected with these films despite the now very glaring fact that none of the main characters of these films looked like me. So obviously devoid of Asian-American teens, as if we didn’t exist.

Okay, I’ll say this one thing about this one film. Dead Poet’s Society takes place in the 50s at an all-boys (and all-white) prep school. I suppose the only thing I really had in common here was that I was also in prep school at the time. My sophomore English teacher revealed to our class that he would watch this movie before the school year started to get pumped for teaching. Like, is that weird? I remember being a bit mortified that I liked the same movie as him. Probably not that weird.

Those students went through the emotions that I was going through at the time. Learning to express myself in front of others; trying to figure out who I was. Big for me was is dealing with imposter syndrome. So, yes, I identified with a film about white boys in the 50s.

Anyhow, please read this very fun piece I wrote for ParentMap.