{"id":17030,"date":"2021-08-23T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-23T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=17030"},"modified":"2024-03-02T21:14:11","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T05:14:11","slug":"how-michael-j-fox-went-from-80s-kid-to-90s-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/how-michael-j-fox-went-from-80s-kid-to-90s-man\/","title":{"rendered":"How Michael J. Fox Went from ’80s Kid to ’90s Man"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

While numerous actors help represent the respective decades during which they came to prominence, there are only a few who feel more like mascots of that decade, their image evoking the politics and culture of that time. Michael J. Fox feels affixed to the 1980s in this fashion, thanks in large part to his role as Alex P. Keaton on TV\u2019s \u201cFamily Ties.\u201d That sitcom\u2019s basic premise\u2014a middle-aged liberal couple who were hippies in the \u201860s must deal with their teenage, Young Republican son\u2014acted as a light encapsulation of the political and cultural climate during the decade, the disillusioned radicals of the Summer of Love confronting the Reaganite youth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Fox\u2019s star gradually rose thanks to the show, his film career saw him similarly used as a stand-in for the decade: Back to the Future<\/em> (1985) sees the \u201cmodern\u201d \u201880s meeting the \u201cinnocent,\u201d nostalgic \u201850s with Fox as the \u201980s\u2019 representative, while The Secret of My Success<\/em> (1987) and Bright Lights, Big City<\/em> (1988) had the actor embrace his latent Yuppie image. Fox had stretched his persona before the decade ended a few times, trying out horror (1985\u2019s Teen Wolf<\/em>), a musical (1987\u2019s Light of Day<\/em>) and a Vietnam War film (1989\u2019s Casualties of War<\/em>); he said goodbye to the \u201880s by completing \u201cFamily Ties\u201d and revisiting Marty McFly in the back-to-back Future<\/em> sequels of 1989 and 1990. When those sequels were shot, Fox was only a few years shy of 30, meaning his days of playing teens were pretty much over. It was time to grow up, literally and figuratively. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The films Fox starred in during 1991\u2014The Hard Way<\/em> and Doc Hollywood<\/em>\u2014prove that the actor realized this need to move past the \u201880s in a big way. Both movies swerve away from Marty and Alex, allowing Fox to develop his craft and show his range. Yet they also are knowing comments on not just Fox\u2019s screen image but the typical late \u201880s young white male, using that stereotype as a jumping off point for Fox\u2019s characters. This is in part because both movies seek to join then-current cinematic trends while subverting them: The Hard Way<\/em> is a movie that satirizes the buddy cop action film while serving as  an example of it, while Doc Hollywood<\/em> attempts to graft the wholesome blend of character study and romantic comedy of \u201840s Frank Capra onto the early \u201890s. In playing an action hero in the former and a romantic lead in the latter, Fox uses both movies to expand his screen persona while retaining his roots as a comic actor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In The Hard Way<\/em>, Fox portrays Nick Lang, a conceited Hollywood actor whose concerns extend no further than himself. While he\u2019s the hugely successful and popular star of a franchise called \u201cSmoking Gunn\u201d (a splashy blockbuster series that appears to be an amalgam of \u201840s detective pulp and Indiana Jones-style adventuring), Lang demands to be taken more seriously, and happens upon a news story detailing NYC cop John Moss (James Woods) and his pursuit of a vicious serial killer known as the \u201cParty Crasher\u201d (Stephen Lang). Convinced that studying Moss, Method-style, would allow him to land a role in a gritty cop movie, Lang uses his considerable charm and connections to be assigned as Moss\u2019 partner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While movies satirizing the backstage world of filmmaking featuring actors portraying themselves (or generic stereotypes) as egotistical are a dime a dozen, The Hard Way<\/em> gets a little unique juice out of the gag in casting Fox. The actor\u2019s reputation wasn\u2019t anywhere near difficult or demanding, so seeing nice guy Fox act like a spoiled, clueless brat lends what could be a tired joke some nice contrast. It also gains some added satiric weight given that Fox\u2014who is emphatically not playing himself\u2014can make Nick Lang as obnoxious as he needs to be, sending Woods\u2019 Moss into a apoplectic rage (thereby feeding the film\u2019s odd couple comedy) and not have to worry about hurting his own image in the process, unlike Arnold Schwarzenegger\u2019s good-sport turn in Last Action Hero<\/em> (1993), for instance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fox\u2019s casting also allows Lang to more easily transition into becoming a real-life hero by the end, exploiting the actor\u2019s natural, good-natured likability to make such a character arc believable. Throughout the film, Lang\u2019s attempts to ingratiate himself to Moss and the cop\u2019s girlfriend, Susan (Annabella Sciorra), come off as genuine efforts to connect and help them with their problems, whereas another actor may have played such scenes more self-centered. The film is securely aligned with Moss at the beginning, viewing Lang and his Hollywood-skewed vision of the world as hopelessly incorrect, but Fox and Lang slowly but surely win the movie over. Lang accurately predicts the behavior of the Party Crasher during the third act (which Lang is sure to label the third act, in one of the film\u2019s meta-touches) and even saves Susan during the big climax (which takes place on a giant animatronic billboard of Lang\u2019s face, the contrast between the ego-driven persona and the real man made manifest). Lang\u2019s selflessness earns him that coveted role, in a movie that is implied might just be The Hard Way<\/em>. It\u2019s subtle, but the film seems to say that the self-centered excess of the \u201880s, through Fox, might find a way into a more introspective \u201890s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Introspection is what\u2019s on Doc Hollywood<\/em>\u2019s mind\u2014the film and the character\u2014as Dr. Ben Stone (Fox) finds his cushy Beverly Hills plastic surgeon job interview delayed by getting stuck in the small Southern hamlet of Grady, a town that\u2019s badly in need of a family doctor. Ben is callous, friendless (the opening sequence makes a point of how none of his colleagues like him enough to genuinely wish him well on his West Coast move) and capitalistic, nakedly chasing his opportunity to work as a plastic surgeon solely for financial gain. When his car crashes in Grady, Ben is expectedly put off by the town\u2019s cuddly simplicity, but reluctantly agrees to act as substitute local doctor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doc Hollywood <\/em>is part of a wave of films in the late \u201880s\/early \u201890s that saw yuppie characters either foolishly choosing to live or accidentally ending up living in rural towns suffused with Americana\u2014that basic setup runs through films like Arachnophobia<\/em> (1990), Groundhog Day<\/em> (1993) and Trapped In Paradise<\/em> (1994), to name just a few. It also belongs to a revival of Capra-esque wholesomeness of that period, with the jaded city slickers (another one!) learning the value and charms of country living. Ben, with the help of ambulance driver Lou (Julie Warner), comes to see that having a practice in a small town would feed his soul if not his wallet, and the movie goes so far as to have Ben land that Beverly Hills gig, the world of L.A. and plastic surgery portrayed as a Tim Burton-lite nightmare that Ben can\u2019t wait to escape. Doc Hollywood<\/em> is far less subtle than The Hard Way<\/em> in its using Fox to supplant \u201880s selfishness with \u201890s self-reflection, allowing love to supersede financial gain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doc Hollywood<\/em> shifts Fox\u2019s image from snot-nosed Alex P. Keaton\/Marty McFly teen arrogance into humble romantic leading man, thereby prepping him for the next phase of his career. He plays Ben initially not as a cartoonish douche, but rather embodies most people\u2019s cynicism toward doctors in general. Fox still had his winning boyishness, but now had a layer of innate maturity, making Ben\u2019s relationship with the no-nonsense Lou a clearly adult one as opposed to the teen romances of his early films. His natural ability to find chemistry with Warner along with most of the supporting cast allows Ben\u2019s inner humanity to emerge, and demonstrates the actor\u2019s range once again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s this new adult image Fox would carry with him into his next few leading roles, from the family comedy Life With Mikey<\/em> (1993) to another romantic comedy, For Love or Money<\/em> (1993), to his next television role on the sitcom \u201cSpin City\u201d (1996-2001). Even Fox\u2019s return to genre in films like Mars Attacks!<\/em> (1996) and The Frighteners<\/em> (1996) had him playing more complicated and idiosyncratic characters than he had in his youth. While the actor may forever be associated with the \u201880s more than anything else, it\u2019s through these two films in 1991 that he expanded his persona sufficiently to not be left behind in the \u201880s. Put another way, Fox may help define the \u201880s, but the \u201880s don\u2019t define him.\u00a0\"\"\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the dawn of a new decade, quintessential \u201880s screen and TV star Michael J. Fox found two film projects to reposition and reconfigure his persona.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":459,"featured_media":17032,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1399],"tags":[1422],"class_list":["post-17030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-looking-back","tag-looking-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/459"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17030"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22205,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17030\/revisions\/22205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}