AMST – The 1980′s A Totally Awesome Decade
Background: Consider the background of these seven (7) friends and Chloe. They were members of the student movement of the 1960s known as the New Left. These were the young radicals of the late 1960s who opposed the Vietnam War and fought for civil rights. The characters attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The school was a center of the New Left student activisim (this is where the group, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was founded). They were idealists, ready to start a revolution against the Nixon era if need be to change America in an effort to snap America out of what they perceived was a hypocrisy they viewed as the ruination of their generation and the cause for thousands of deaths over in Vietnam. [unique_solution]The Men: Sam, the actor, was a campus activist. Harold, a shoe store owner, was a student organizer. Michael, a celebrity reporter, was a student newspaper journalist with an agenda to expose hypocrisy. Nick, the drug dealer, fought in Vietnam. Alex, their friend that commited suicide. The Women: Sarah, the wife Harold is now a doctor. Meg, a real estate attorney, was going to law school to be a public defender with hope of defending people against social injustice like members of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense (Huey Newton and Bobby Seale). Karen, a suburban wife and mother, was a radical poet. The minister at the beginning of the movie asks one very important question that will resonate with every character in the movie: Where did Alex′s hope go? Consider tha tthis movie is filmed in 1982, released publically in 1983. This was a time of great HOPE; this afterall is supposed to be a period characterzed as a definite change from depressing decade of teh 1970s to one of HOPE and OPTMISIM under Reagan′s America. Prompt: Where did the ″hope go″ for these characters as well others that represented the New Left in the early 1980s. Student will need to reference their readings as well as the film to answer this prompt 500 word minimum