Problematic Movies of the '80s | "Amazon Women on the Moon" (1987)
To be frank, I don’t remember much about this movie with the exception that I remember thinking it was hysterical. I vaguely recall some racial humor and David Allen Grier as a black guy who sings like a white guy. I’m pretty sure there’s gratuitous boobs and, going into this one, I’d bet a hefty sum that it has a laundry list of problematic elements.
It’s 1987. It’s John Landis (the director behind Animal House, Trading Places, and The Kentucky Fried Movie). It debuted just a year before Mystery Science Theater 3000, itself a spoof of crappy ‘50s sci-fi films. It seems to have been a perfect movie for my alcohol-fueled residency at the University of Arkansas — an anarchic sketch comedy aimed at late night channel-surfing — which coincided with my own interest in filming goofy skits I wrote. I had a huge VHS camera and had created random characters to film, culminating in a video movie long since gone called A Day with Larry likely inspired by Amazon Women on the Moon.
I couldn’t find a streaming version but my wife found a DVD copy she ordered from a local vinyl record store in Las Vegas so we settled in and watched it together.
Amazon Women on the Moon
Directed by John Landis, Joe Dante, Carl Gottlieb, Peter Horton, and Robert K. Weiss
Written by Michael Barrie and Jim Mulholland
The conceit is simple: Channel 8 is showing a late-night viewing of the fictional classic Amazon Women on the Moon featuring Steve Forrest and Sybil Danning as well as Joey Travolta complete with film burn marks, clumsily edited jump cuts in time, and a lot of technical difficulties. During the sci-fi goofiness, the channels shift in that attention deficit mode that happens late at night.
The rundown is kind of amazing with so many of the stars of the day hopping on board including Arsenio Hall doing his best Buster Keaton by nearly killing himself repeatedly as his apartment malfunctions around him; Michelle Pfeiffer, Peter Horton, and Griffin Dunne in a sketch about an incompetent pediatrician; David Alan Grier as Don “No Soul” Simmons, first as part of a PSA to raise money for “Blacks Without Soul” hosted by B.B. King; Rosanna Arquette, and Steve Guttenberg in a prescient sketch about online dating decades before there even was online; Ed Begley, Jr. as the Son of the Invisible Man who simply runs around naked; and a young Carrie Fisher as Mary Brown in a parody of Reefer Madness.
Some sketches feel dated (but that could be expected given the damn thing is thirty-two years old) and others just aren’t nearly as funny as they think they are. More often, however, these short bits are genuinely hysterical.
Archie Hahn plays a turd of a man whose life is critiqued by an “At the Movies” show that frustrates him so much he dies on the spot, which segues into a funeral roast featuring Steve Allen, Rip Taylor, Charlie Callas, Henny Youngman, and Slappy White.
Yes. That’s Howard Hesseman…
Joe Pantoliano as a spokesperson for a hair replacement method that is basically stapling shag carpeting on your head is a hoot.
Marc McClure rents a VHS tape in a prognostication of Live PornCams that culminates in Andrew Dice Clay breaking in and shooting the girl and himself (it’s funnier than that sounded…)
Of course, David Alan Grier as Don “No Soul” Simmons singing “Blame It On the Bossa Nova” is one of my favorite bits.
PROBLEMATIC MOMENTS/THEMES
Sure, the two scenes of gratuitous breasts are certainly objectifying the two women but the first (about a Playmate who hates being hounded in NYC but loves California because she can walk around, shop, and go to church completely naked) is funny without degrading the actress and the second (the PornCam scene) puts the objectifier in his place.
The racial humor never punches down and, in fact, emphasizes the reverse stereotype (black Republicans, nerds, and, of course, Don Simmons).
No homophobic humor (which, frankly, surprised me).
The butt of most of the jokes are the white men.
There’s very little in this whole collage of goofy ass humor that even hints as problematic from a 2019 perspective. It’s just dumb fun.
DID IT HOLD UP?
Like I said, it’s dated. But it’s funny enough to crack me up consistently and laugh at the perception I had from when I was younger.
OVERALL
Scale of 1 to 10
1 = Classic
10 = Burn all VHS copies of it
Amazon Women on the Moon gets a 3.
Next Up: Ghostbusters (1984)
