Theme Song: This insanely sensuous theme song seems very out of place.
Interesting Dated References: The deluge of home-video PSAs. In the ‘80s, people seriously thought if they rented a tape on sex or drugs or kidnapping and forced their children to watch it, the kids would somehow be safe. So much so, schools would show these tapes on a regular basis as a substitute for their substandard teachers.
Social Context: This home PSA is overly focused on being late-80s “cool.” Everything is casual, “no big deal,” and no one is putting the viewer “on the spot.” Hosts Justine and Jason Bateman stress this point over and over and over. They even loaf-about on furniture to stress how laid back this tape is.
In fact, I don’t think Jason sits up once. Ted Danson (Just Between Friends) also shows up, since a critical aspect of PSAs from this era were random drop-ins by celebrities working off community service parking fines.
Summary: Helmed by renowned author and sex education advocate, Sol Gordon, who also worked on the wonderful Strong Kids, Safe Kids, How Can I Tell If I’m Really in Love is a jumbled mess of high school kids giving short one-sentence reactions to various questions about love and sex, while the Batemans repeatedly stress that it’s casual.
Can you believe the shoes-on-the-couch with this guy? And for shit’s sake, with a running time of 51 minutes, this thing is padded to death. There are two original songs that play in their entirety and are interspersed repeatedly throughout! Every one of the scribbly ‘80s graphics that appears on-screen plays out super slow, as if you are watching some terrible digital artist paint in slow motion.
And there are like 50 of these in the film! So as a sex education film/discussion, this one’s not so hot, but as a totally insane extravaganza of what hairstyles and fashions the kids were sporting in L.A. in 1986-87, this thing will blow your FUCKING MIND.
Worth Mentioning:
– Most of the student interviews were filmed at University High School Charter, commonly referred to as “Uni,” a popular filming location in L.A. with many famous graduates.
– Sol Gordon was apparently awesome, because he wrote an obituary for himself in the Summer 1980 issue of The Journal of Clinical Child Psychology in which he lamented his lack of popularity, subsequent jailing after murdering home invaders trying to set a bomb, and his successful overthrowing of a dystopian, empirical government.
Poster and Box Art: Heavy late-80s/early-90s graphic design happening on the box art as well.
