seems like a parody now.
it has not aged well
shareI don't think it was taken too seriously when it was released either.
shareUrban gang violence and crime, especially in NYC, were a big deal in the late 1970s and into the early 1980s.
The public mostly accepted the idea of gang colors and a "look", maybe from bikers like the Hell's Angels.
I don't think Walter Hill intended anything except superficial realism. It was more of a stylistic exercise in a certain type of film that was his specialty. Namely, a small group of men getting picked off one by one as they try to survive a near impossible situation. The Hill film that most closely parallels The Warriors is Southern Comfort, but this element is also prominent in The Long Riders and Extreme Prejudice. On a more individual level, with one man defiantly battling enemies from all sides, you see this in The Driver and Johnny Handsome. None of these films pass the realism test and I could care less. They're all solid and I greatly miss directors like him.
share"It was more of a stylistic exercise in a certain type of film that was his specialty."
Absolutely perfect - you nailed it!
What makes The Warriors so memorable today is its SURREALISM, not its realism.
I don't think it was meant to be literal realism either, but I guess my point was its not like gangs with a stylized logo/jacket were so outré as to be unrecognizable to the average moviegoer.
I think it also played into people's fears that youth street gangs actually could begin to transform into some larger organized threat.
I think the movie was fairly accurate but I don't think Hollywood wanted to glorify gangs. Some of the uniforms were kind of silly. The article below shows the uniforms of the gangs and I thought the baseball furies and hi-hats looked ridiculous. Gangs have exploded in the US and even MS-13 from El Salvador is firmly entrenched in the US. Civilians get shot for wearing a blue or red shirt in the bloods/crips territory. I believe the bloods and crips are now national gangs.
https://www.founditemclothing.com/blogs/it-goes-to-11/the-warriors-fashion-round-up ** the uniforms **
I kind of agree that the uniforms did have an outlandish element to them, but this was also an era where pimps drove stylized Cadillacs with furry interiors and dressed almost like something out of the 18th century. And it was NYC in the 1970s where people often out-competed each other to be outlandish; look at scenes from Studio 54 as kind of an example.
I think there's a broader definition of gang in play as well that might not necessarily align with the narrow vision of a hyper-violent, murderous crime syndicate that's almost part political insurgency. I think some gangs might have been less than that. Perhaps willing to fight, conduct some petty theft, and deal in small-scale extortion, but they were more for gaining status and notoriety in urban neighborhoods, not killing their way to total criminal domination. These gangs may also have been more interested in some of the more dapper/dressy kinds of styles vs. more butch/macho styles (leather, denim, vests, patches, etc).
I think some of the styles in the film are too out there for reality, really, but all in all I think it's less than they're all impossible for the era and more that the film just made them about 33% too vivid. I mean a gang that dresses in baseball jerseys and carries bats is not at all unrealistic, but maybe face painting is.