"We are meant to dislike—or at least, feel queasy—in the presence of the strutting superabundant charmer of the second half of the film, as he bursts forth from, and destroys, the chrysalis of Joel Goodsen. When Joel's parents go on vacation, he teams up with Lana to bring his horny friends together with her scheming colleagues, and in Joel's transformation (into a pimp, but also into Tom Cruise), we see the emergence of the '80s as the '80s. It's not just that Joel is no longer innocent; having been played by Lana, he learns how to play others. As they hand him their money, his friends still wear the jeans, the sweater, the loafers; Joel wears shades and the unconstructed jacket with the sleeves rolled up. The Man has been reborn, not as a gray flannel drone, but as a happy libertine."
In Slate, Stephen Metcalf discusses Tom Cruise, Risky Business, and the birth of the 1980s.
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