Teens still just wanna have fun with '80s music video remake

A bright, bubbly confection that first hit the airwaves during the age of big hair, huge hoop earrings and some sizable plastic sunglasses will take on a new life this week as Argyle Secondary drama and digital media academy students air their remake of the 1980s music video "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" as part of the high school’s film festival.

The remake of 40-year-old pop video by singer Cyndi Lauper carries on a theme of '80s remakes started last year, when Argyle students remade the classic Michael Jackson Thriller video.

Digital media academy teacher Chris Miller said surprisingly, '80s music has a fan base among today’s teenagers. “It’s light and it’s energetic,” he said. “It’s a time different to what their experience is,” that still speaks to teens today.

“They are so just so bright and colourful and shiny and fun.”

That’s certainly true for Iman Kasim-Parkinson, the 15-year-old Grade 10 Argyle student who led the video remake and stars as the Cyndi Lauper character.

“I’ve always really loved '80s music,” she said.

Music and music videos were more experimental in that era, she said. “Nowadays, I feel like so many people do such similar things and just try to conform to what society expects.”

Lauper’s message – that it’s OK to spread some joy and lighten up in a sombre world of expectation – is still one that resonates today, said Kasim-Parkinson.

“I think her dressing up in all those crazy outfits, it’s all those colours was her way of sharing who she is with the world and trying to get that message across about being yourself and being proud of who you are.”

Kassim-Parkinson said she didn’t have too much trouble recruiting fellow students to be part of the dancing conga line around the school, and even managed to convince two teachers, Chelsea Uphoff and Jon Ramsay, to play the roles of Lauper’s mother and father in the video.

She was also able to tap the school’s theatre department and Miller’s own collection of 1980s memorabilia for touches like a flamingo sweatshirt and Duran Duran poster.

The "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" video, and another 80s video remake of one-hit wonder "Turn Up the Radio," will lighten the mood among some more serious offerings at the school’s film festival, which takes place starting at 6 p.m. each night this week, beginning Monday, May 6 and continuing through to Friday, May 10. Tickets for the festival can be purchased online through the school’s drama department.

Between 18 and 20 short films will be shown, said Miller, with films ranging from a video produced by students for an eco-tourism company using footage shot by the company in Morocco, animated shorts and stop motion film about an international immigrant learning to navigate life in a new country.

The key element linking the films is they have to tell a story with not much space to tell it, said Miller of the original short films, which have all been written, directed, acted and edited by Argyle students.