We just watched Purple Rain last night.
Xtine somehow made it 25 years without seeing The Kid and Morris Day duking it out faggot-style over Apollonia. She maintains she was traumatized, disgusted and offended at what she perceived to be rampant misogyny and "dickishness" that Prince represented in his seminal, semi autobiographical picture, though she enjoyed bits of it. I admit it's a terrible movie, but I was 14 and very impressionable when it came out. I bought the VHS tape as soon as it arrived at the local shop and played it til it broke. I've probably seen Purple Rain 25 or 30 times. I still love it, and love Morris Day more with every viewing. Then again, the place that the Purple Rain zeitgeist holds in my personal development is kinda important.
There was so much overlap betwixt the Minneapolis scene and the New Romantic thing, it was a very smooth transition from Duran Duran and Human League to Prince's 1999 album and so forth. Purple Rain came out in 1984, right as puberty and identity searching hit me full force. Plus, I was the new kid in town, and a freshman in high school. I'd show up wearing eyeliner, sometimes blush, and even a hint of lip gloss...boy did I polarize the local Connecticut community right from jump. Purple Rain only widened the gap; for about six months I was so Paisley Parked out it was ridiculous. My surrender to Bowie and Goth the subsequent year was a welcome evolution.
I'm actually less embarrassed by this than the hardcore Cure obsession I had a year or two later. Let's put it this way - I went through a tall can of the purple Aqua Net in about two weeks, average. I can still listen to Prince now and again, but I can't stand to hear The Cure at all to this day.