Class of 1984

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Class of 1984 is a 1982 action-thriller movie about a newly hired music teacher at a troubled inner city school, where students have to pass through a metal detector due to problems with gangs, drugs and violence.

Tropes used in Class of 1984 include:
  • Backstab Backfire: Peter Stegman to Mr. Norris
  • Berserk Button: Let's just say you don't mess with Andy's wife.
  • Bittersweet Ending: All the gang are dead and Andy gets away with the killings because there were no witnesses. He and his wife still have to put up with the trauma of the events, not to mention every student in the school seeing Stegman hang himself.
  • Blondes Are Evil: Patsy.
  • Can't Get Away with Nuthin': One kid buys drugs off the gang and takes a sniff. Five minutes later he climbs the flag pole and falls to his death.
  • Chekhov's Gag: Inverted. We see Terry carries a gun in his briefcase in the very first scene. It reappears in a darkly humorous scene where he brings it to class and holds students at gunpoint to force them to answer questions.
  • Clothing Damage: Diane as she is being abducted. Andy's clothing also becomes more untidy and unravelled as he fights off the gang.
  • Cool Teacher: Mr Norris is this to his music class, since he's the only teacher in the school that actually cares.
  • Disappeared Dad: Implied to be Stegman's Freudian Excuse.
  • Disney Villain Death: Complete with the "give me your hand" failed trick Stegman falls to his death through the window of the school auditorium.
  • The Dog Bites Back
  • Establishing Character Moment: The gang beating up another rival gang.
  • Fanservice Extra: One girl at the club who flashes her boobs. For the other side, the shirtless band member on stage.
  • Five-Bad Band: The gang:
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: Marty McFly is Arthur.
  • Hidden Depths: Stegman is quite the talented piano player.
  • Hollywood Nerd: Arthur.
  • Inner-City School
  • Kick the Dog: Because Terry helped Andy save two kids from the gang, they punish him by killing all the animals in his classroom and putting them on display.
  • Mama Bear: Stegman's mother certainly flies into a rage when Andy supposedly assaults him. Too bad she's so clueless.
  • Papa Wolf
  • Teenage Wasteland: The school and the town are well on their way to becoming this.
  • Teens Are Monsters: Played with. Only the gang members are actually that sadistic although there are other troubled kids in the school, Mr Norris makes a point to stress that there are good kids there and the principal eventually agrees saying "it's just the bad ones command all our attention".
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: It's never actually confirmed whether or not Patsy died as she is last seen bleeding in the front seat of the car, panting.
  • Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Andy kills all the male members of the gang personally. Lucky for him Patsy inadvertently gets herself killed by crashing a car. And we're not even sure she's dead.
  • Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Stegman slams his head off of a mirror and a sink and then wipes his blood onto Mr. Norris' hand to get him suspended.
  • Very Loosely Based on a True Story[context?]
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Class_of_1984?oldid=1837607"