With surfing's popularity once again on the upswing, Hollywood and the American mainstream press returned their attention to the sport. Between them, however, journalists and filmmakers in the late '70s and throughout the '80s couldn’t seem to decide if surfers were crazy and violent or crazy and dumb. Either way, the salty-haired people they described had little to do with actual waveriders, and much more to do with the state of American pop culture.
A 1981 Newsweek article described “surf g...
