You could be happy here,
I could take care of you.
I wouldn’t let anybody hurt you.
We could grow up together, ET.

(Elliott, E.T., 1982)

I have seen many homemade E.T. costumes over the years. I’m not sure if this is homemade or store bought but it’s pretty darn cute. It definitely beats the paper mache E.T. heads I’ve seen from the 1980s. lol. This E.T. appeared in the 1983 Christmas parade in Ardmore, Oklahoma. 

Today marks the anniversary of the premiere of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial at the Cannes Film Festival on May 26, 1982. What followed was not just a hit movie. It was a cultural surge that moved through theaters, toy stores, candy aisles, Halloween, and just about every corner of kid life. Few films have ever reached that level of saturation.

E.T. was so big my parents took me to see it, which was not a normal occurrence. I was 15, and up to that point the only movies I had seen were horror films my older siblings snuck me into.

There were a few exceptions when I was little in Los Angeles. My mom took me to see Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and Song of the South. Later, in Colorado Springs, she took us to The Hiding Place.

But once we moved to the Bible Belt, that stopped. My late father was a Nazarene minister, and in the 1980s the Church of the Nazarene still forbade drinking, divorce, mixed bathing, and going to movies. So this trip was a huge deal. 

My parents drove all the way from Southeast Kansas to Tulsa to see E.T. It felt almost clandestine. The entire time we were there, we were on edge, half expecting to run into someone we knew. It was taken that seriously. If my father had been found out, his ordination credentials could have been suspended.

I still cannot tell you if we got there early or late. We bought our tickets, walked into the dark, and the movie was already playing. The only seats left were in the front row. We sat down, craning our necks, too close to the screen to make sense of anything. Fifteen minutes later, it ended. I remember sitting there thinking, that is it?

We stayed in our seats. No one moved us along. Eventually, the theater reset and the movie started again from the beginning. This time we moved a few rows back and tried to take it all in.

We already knew how it ended, though, even if we had no idea how we got there.

High School Memories

I had a core group of about ten girlfriends in high school, and each one had a defining thing.

Dana had scoliosis.
Jill had her horses.
Melanie had the Smurfs.
Shawnda had her Gremlin.
Jennifer (not me – we had two Jennifers in our class of 51!) had done modeling in Kansas City.
Mollie and Cheryl had the day they dressed up as punk rockers and got sent home.
Nancy had her running explanation that she was Native American, even though she was blonde, blue-eyed, and burned within fifteen minutes in the sun. Back then, she felt the need to explain it. Today, people do not narrate their identity the same way. Times have changed.

And Anissa had E.T.

And, I do not say that casually. She absolutely lived and breathed E.T. When we were 15, Anissa and I were very close. She loved to call me by my last name at the time, Elliott, because that was the name of the little boy E.T. loved.

As best I can recall, Anissa spent most of sophomore year carrying an E.T. doll from class to class, like it was just another binder. It was sweet and charming, and nobody questioned it because that is how big the movie was. 

I also remember Jennifer (not me, we had two Jennifers in our small senior class of 51) competing in the state FHA speech contest with an E.T.-themed speech. She used a colander in her speech to depict a spaceship. Something about going home. She was a huge hit and as best I can recall, again, she won first place.

E.T. with my Kids

Last summer, I talked my college-aged kids into watching E.T. with me. They lasted about 30 minutes. They are usually very enthusiastic about my movie suggestions. They loved movies like Shining Through, Love Story and the old TV miniseries The Thornbirds. But, E.T. did not captivate them. It held zero magic for them. I think there are better alien movies these days even if I don’t particularly like them. Hello, Avatar. It felt like I was watching a video game. Ugh.

For 20 years I’ve written culturally literate, emotionally complex and historically grounded long-form articles and photo essays about Generation X (b. 1961-1981) that are rooted in memory, decay and preservation. Much of my content is museum and editorial-level storytelling. Thank you for reading and sharing.