Similarities Between 'Where The Boys Are And'

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ere the Boys Are (Henry Levin, 1960) and Where the Boys Are ’84 (Hy Averback, 1984) are the same film. Both follow a group of four college girls as they experienced spring break at Fort Lauderdale and as they hunted for sex and romance. However, beyond superficial similarities, the films have widely different portrayals of how college age women do and should act, a result of changes in both societal and industry views on sex and dating in young women. Following the release of the 1960’s film, the sexual revolution lead to far reaching changes in the concept of dating and what was acceptable behavior for single young women. Additionally, the downfall of the Hayes code in the late 1960s and 70s and other changes in the economics and legal realities …show more content…

Both groups are girls are college co-eds at a mid-tier Midwestern university who spent spring break in Fort Lauderdale in an attempt to be ‘where the boys are’. What they intended to do with those boys once they find them, however, differs greatly. In the 1960 film, the focus is on “romance with an eye toward marriage” while the women of the 1984 film are intent on “the pursuit of sex” (Conklin 2008). The differences in these goals is a reflection of American standards on the proper behavior of young women and the definition of dating and youth …show more content…

There were no longer formalized rules of proprietary and attitudes to sexual behavior relaxed greatly (Bailey 2004). By the 1980s, 97% of surveyed college students said that felt that kissing was acceptable by the third dating —60% even said that no dates were necessary for it to be acceptable — and more than half said the premarital intercourse was acceptable after several dates (Knox and Wilson 1981). Additionally, between 1965 and 1986, the percentage of adults who viewed premarital sex as wrong or always wrong decreased by two-thirds (Thornton 1989). While teenager’s perceptions of parental attitudes toward premarital sex did not change much between 1950 and 1975, their perceptions of their peer views drastically changed. The number of teenagers who reported that their friends would be okay with them having sex increased 400% from the era of Where the Boys Are and Where the Boys are ’84 (Finer 2007). Teenage sex, even pre-marital sex, was no longer a cardinal sin for white teenagers in

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