Word: social
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...each of his films, Lee stirs the social pot. His first success, She's Gotta Have It, in 1986, explored sexual stereotypes with the tale of a liberated young black woman who refuses to give up her three lovers. School Daze, Lee's 1988 musical, examines the tensions between light- and darker- skinned blacks on an all-black college campus; it evoked the ire of some blacks, who charged him with airing the race's dirty laundry in public. With Do the Right Thing, Lee has produced his most provocative film...
Before Roe, abortion was slowly being legalized, state by state, under varying rules, amid moderate controversy. Roe told abortion supporters and opponents alike that it was all or nothing at all, a Manichaean battle in which compromise was impossible. A generation of social-issue conservatives was politicized and mobilized. As a result, today's Republican Party officially endorses a human-life amendment that would not merely return the abortion issue to the states but would constitutionally ban abortion except to save the mother's life...
...either way about who will win the coming legislative battles over abortion and what effect those battles will have on politics at large. My bet is that the repeal of Roe (especially if it is completed by the court next year, as seems likely) will awaken and politicize social-issue liberals the way Roe itself energized conservatives 16 years ago. From 1973 until recently, abortion mattered a lot more to the antis than to the pros; that is already starting to change. The new politics of abortion will also put many Republican politicians in the sort of bind Democrats have...
Spike Lee, whose films intentionally raise social and political questions, has made this summer's most controversial movie, Do the Right Thing, about race relations in a hot New York City neighborhood. His movies don't just aim to please; they expose stereotypes and vent his anger...
...Simple. Drugs are fashionable, and they make an easy target. And it proabably is no coincidence that Licence to Kill carries a disclaimer in its credits, warning of the dangers of smoking. The new James Bond target is every kind of personal vice. God save us from spies with social consciences, particularly ones who open fire on their enemies in crowded bars filled with reasonably innocent people who just want to get away from their troubles...