movies

"I've just noticed a very big problem with my favourite 80s movie."

As an 80s kid most of my weekends followed the same formula.

I’d wake up early and watch the morning cartoons/Rage. Then I’d do a bunch of fun activities like skinning my knees at netball, rollerblading in my hypercolour t-shirt, or putting an empty packet of Twisties in the oven to make a tiny Twisties key ring.

And in the afternoons I would settle in to watch a couple of my favourite VHS tapes.

For those of you playing along at home, VHS tapes were the Netflix of the 80s. They were big chunky tapes that you’d shove into a machine and hope to hell that one of your siblings hadn’t taped over them.

Anywho, one of my favourite weekend watches was Overboard, a lil’ romantic comedy starring Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell.

A few weeks ago I decided to relive my childhood and pull out the old VHS (just kidding I found it on Netflix).

And… oh. Things have changed, guys.

Overboard is a classic tale of two people from different backgrounds meeting, initially hating each other, then slowing falling in love.

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It was your normal run-of-the-mill romantic comedy where no one was really harmed in the process and everyone ended up happy in the end.

Except for, you know, motherflippin’ Goldie Hawn’s character who was KIDNAPPED AGAINST HER WILL AND FORCED TO RAISE FOUR SNOTTY-NOSED CHILDREN AS HER OWN.

I kind of forgot about that bit.

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You see, in the movie Hawn plays the role of Joanna Stayton, a spoiled heiress who lives on a yacht with her husband Grant Stayton III.

She’s pretty bloody awful – as if Paris Hilton was a lifestyle blogger and it was the 1980s and everyone lived on yachts.

While docked in the rural town of Elk Cove, Oregon, Joanna hires local carpenter Dean Proffitt to remodel her closet.

Of course, they immediately hate each other. She’s rich/he’s poor/she’s a snob/he’s a knockabout bloke etc etc.

So Dean starts working on the closet and puts up with Joanna’s snooty attitude because she’s paying him. He does a knock up job of the closet but then Joanna chucks a wobbly because he used oak instead of cedar, despite her not actually requesting cedar at the start.

They have a lil’ blue and he agrees to redo the closet if she pays for the work he’s done. She’s not happy about this though. He tells her she’s just making things up to complain about because her life is so boring and pampered. Then she pushes him off the yacht into the ocean.

Cut to later that night when Joanna goes on deck to retrieve her wedding ring and falls overboard (hence the name of the movie).

The next day a local news station runs a story about Joanna being found in the water. The fall has caused amnesia and she has no idea who she is or where she belongs.

This is where things get a bit iffy. Dean, a widow with four scruffy looking kids, sees her on TV and decides to go pick her up from the hospital.

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He pretends she’s his wife and brings her back to his house to work off her unpaid bill.

overboard movie
Dean, a widow with four scruffy looking kids, sees her on TV and decides to go pick her up from the hospital. Image via Universal Pictures.

Yep, he brings a woman suffering from considerable memory loss back to his house and basically makes her the unpaid maid.

Of course, Joanna is initially confused but soon accepts that she must be his wife and the mother of his children. And she rubs his feet. SHE RUBS HIS FEET.

Over the course of the movie Joanna slowly starts to love her new life, she grows attached to the kids, and her and Dean start to get the feels for each other (even after she's touched his feet).

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Then bloody Grant Stayton III finally turns up and tells her that she's not actually a dirt poor mum-of-four. So Joanna has to decide between her old life with ole' mate Grant and her new life with Dean.

Of course, she chooses Dean and it's all very nice and be still our beating hearts and they all live happily ever after etc etc.

It's a bloody great movie, one I watched for approximately 234 weekends in a row.

But HOLY HELL you can't just kidnap a woman and make her your wife, that kind of s**t just wouldn't fly in 2017.

We would never stand for that kind of the sexist caveman behaviour now, right? Right?

Except... they're currently filming a remake. But before you whip off your bra and burn it, it'll star Anna Faris and Eugenio Derbez and their roles will be reversed.

Derbez's character is a rich, Mexican playboy and Faris will play the working class, single mum he ultimately falls in love with (after she kind of kidnaps him, of course).

I can't bloody wait to see this remake.

But also I'm going to continue watching the original and being slightly outraged because a Goldie Hawn/Kurt Russell 80s movie is too much of a gem to give up (even if it is slightly problematic).

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