“You kids must be from the suburbs.”
Although spoken by the white John Pruitt, this line of dialogue perfectly captures why Adventures in Babysitting is the perfect 80s movie for an urban historian. By the movie’s release in 1987, racial tensions had led to a re-segregation of America, and those self-drawn lines coincided with the urban/suburban divide. Adventures in Babysitting is about four white kids from the suburbs of Chicago, an urban center whose inner and outer ring suburbs represent the racial history of America much as a tree’s rings demonstrate its age, venturing into the city to rescue a friend from the scary forces threatening her. In this movie, and in the public mind, the city is a dark place with evils lurking around every corner. It exists as a contrast to the white shell both its suburbs and protagonists possess. This movie is all about white versus black and thus, good versus evil.
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