Popular Culture Review Vol. 23, No. 1, Winter 2012 | Page 21

Childhood Rejects: One-Eyed Willie, Pint-Sized Pirates, and the Generational Appeal of The Goonies Mikey: It was a retropactum! Brandon: Rectospectum! Mikey: See! That’s what I said! You always contradict m e.. . . I know what I was saying. It was on the history of Astoria, and these are the rejects! Chunk: Kinda like us, Mikey. The Goonies. Mikey: It’s OK. You’re a Goonie, and Goonies always make mistakes. Just don’t make any more. Mikey: You know something, Willie? You’re the first Goonie. Every generation has youth movies that resonate, creating characters with whom audiences can identify and capturing the experience of growing up at a particular time and place. For those approaching adolescence in America in the mid 1980s—and those who followed—The Goonies (1985), a tale of seven misfit kids from the struggling Astoria, Oregon, neighborhood of Goon Docks who find an old pirate treasure map and set off to find fortune and save their homes from foreclosure by bankers and developers wanting to build a golf course, proved such a movie. Pirate tales have a history of intrigue: classics such as The Black Pirate (1926), Treasure Island (1934), Captain Blood (1935), The Sea Hawk (1940), Peter Pan (1953), and most recently the Pirates o f the Caribbean trilogy offer fascination and adventure with Jolly Roger characters, played by the likes of Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Wallace Beery, Erroll Flynn, and Johnny Depp, forming vivid, if not stereotypical, images of pirates in the minds of America’s moviegoers. However, among many college-age students I’ve encountered over the past two decades. The Goonies, while neither a cinematic classic nor a huge celebrity vehicle, surprisingly emerges as not only the most memorable pirate film of their childhoods, but also as one of their downright favorite movies overall. Veteran viewers, especially males, know the film’s dialogue by heart and invariably gush, “I love that movie!” (Martin). One says, “I must have watched Goonies forty times!” (Lindsay). Another claims he saw it “too many times to count” (Philhower). One freshman observes, “Go to any fraternity house on campus, and you’ll find a copy of Goonies"" (Lindsay). The film occupies cult status among college-age males, as evidenced by the popularity of its merchandising items. One male, who said he “became obsessed” with the film when he was thirteen and fourteen years old, recalls, “I wore T-shirts of the Goonies all the time until I was a freshman or sophomore in high school. My