a prairie girl moment
amongst holiday turmoil!
Outfit of the Week | Gremlins (1984, dir. by Joe Dante)
wow i’ve been writing this newsletter for a little over a year now and i’m having extreme deja vu to last Christmas…writing about the various cozy and nostalgic things that my family and i partake in this time of year.
…annual activities all beginning and ending with a baked good (usually coated in a thick frosting) and a creamy hot beverage…plus some delightful indigestion!
this year, upon arrival to my parent’s house, my boyfriend and i suggested we watch a new kind of Christmas movie - one none of us had seen, in hopes of squelching my father’s annual woes of having to watch The Santa Clause for the trillionth time.
similar to most movies i watch for the first time: i cannot believe i waited so long to see Gremlins! i’ve been aware of this one for most of my life, but never could get myself to veer off the heavily trodden path of holiday movies i HAD to watch every single December.
well, lemme tell ya, i am glad i did because Gremlins is very fun, very silly, and honestly pretty dumb, too! but, let’s start with some history…
the term “Gremlin” goes back to the 1920s and was used to explain random mishaps and unexplainable mechanical errors that occurred on airplanes (largely during WW2).
although the mystical creatures were the conduits of blame for problems in the sky, i guess it was also deemed good luck to have a Gremlin on-board to ward off, uh, other Gremlins?? this guy (shown below) was used as a good luck charm aboard a plane that flew in Germany in the 40s.
so, these little Gremlins had really been messing stuff up for a while prior to the original Gremlins script being written by a freshly graduated NYU film student named Chris Columbus (who’d later go on to write The Goonies and direct Home Alone, Mrs. Doubtfire, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, etc).
it was around 1980 when Steven Spielberg bought Columbus’s script and led the charge in getting the movie made. with Spielberg producing and Joe Dante (Piranha, The Howling) directing, Gremlins was pretty set up to be a commercial success.
the movie begins with Randall Peltzer, a struggling inventor, meandering around Chinatown looking for a Christmas present for his son, Billy.
he eventually comes across a dimly lit shop of treasures, slightly off the beaten path, and discovers a little creature known as a Mogwai, stashed away in a box and supposedly not for sale.
he pleads with the shop owner to sell him the animal, but the old man is insistent that Randall is not ready for the responsibility that comes with owning a Mogwai.
luckily for Randall, the shop owner’s grandson cares more about money than protecting some middle-class White family from complete chaos, so after a little wheelin’ and dealin’, Randall is headed home with Gizmo the Mogwai.
there are just 3 rules that need to be followed while caring for a Mogwai:
do not let the creature be exposed to any kind of light
do not let the creature come in contact with water
*most importantly* do not feed the creature after midnight
and i am guessing you don’t need me to tell you that all 3 of these rules were successfully broken within the first 30 minutes of the flick because if they weren’t, we really wouldn’t have anything to be talking about, would we??
the Gremlins run amuck. they take over the town’s movie theater and get super drunk at the local watering hole. it takes Billy, his family dog, and cute little Gizmo to put a stop to the looting and cold-blooded murder (these Gremlins legit kill some people and this movie holds a PG rating…ah the 80s)!
okay, wow, this movie just has so much going on it’s almost impossible to focus on fashion here, i gotta be honest. but, there is a very clear winner when it comes to the question of best outfit in a scene…
Kate, Billy’s desired girlfriend and coworker, sports a delightful little prairie situation at the beginning of the movie when Billy heads into work.
(sad fact: Billy is basically the main source of income for his family due to his father’s unsuccessful inventions)
the two of them work at a local bank in their hometown and it’s clear there’s a bit of chemistry between the 20-year-olds. clearly Billy can’t take his eyes off Kate, especially while she’s wearing this ruffly, high-collared blouse.
the brilliant blue and feminine look of her top really make it memorable especially when compared to the endless rubble and dusty shit show that’s about to go down.
and the white heart barrettes! so precious!
if you want your fair share of cottage-core dresses, immediately go shop at Batsheva. it’s your modern one-stop-shop for all things Little House on the Prairie!
Honorable Mention of the Week | i don’t understand how Billy’s mom has stuck around in this marriage because all her husband’s inventions don’t work and he doesn’t seem to really care or be considering a late-in-life career change.
that being said, the props team on this movie really killed it with the creation of these kitchen appliances - they’re all so adorable and chunky.
An all time fav!!!!