While the title of the song is “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” the music video’s message is clear: Parents just don’t. Cyndi Lauper’s smash hit of the 1980s, aimed directly at teenage girls, intends to show girls that all parents want to do is ruin their fun. The whimsical music video––filled with the teased hair and flashy clothes unique to the time period––was released in 1983, just two years after the launching of MTV.

The video opens on Lauper’s mother sitting in the kitchen, cracking eggs. She sighs, glances at her watch, and rolls her eyes. Having just shimmied, snapped, and kicked her way down the street, Cyndi finally arrives home––still dancing and wide-awake after a night of partying. In the first thirty seconds of the video, Lauper has wordlessly established herself as a free-spirited partygoer and her mother as a humdrum housewife. This juxtaposition of the boring parent and the wild child emphasizes the contrast between them, making the mother seem like much more of a killjoy. Before “good mornings” can even be exchanged, her mother questions, “When you gonna live your life right?” She implies that having fun and socializing is not the proper way to live, and that Cyndi should be studying or in the kitchen alongside her. 

That night (Lauper is actually home and in bed), the phone rings. Cyndi, dressed in cheetah-print pajamas, goes to answer it. But before she can, her father grabs her hand. Ignoring the fact that Cyndi has no control over whether or not her friends call her, or at what time they choose to do so, he berates her. Wagging his finger in her face, he asks, “What you gonna do with your life?” The question is meant to make Lauper sit down and reevaluate her sociable tendencies. Her father is trying to make her focus more on her future and less on enjoying the present. Since many a teenager has pondered this question, Lauper's situation is easy to relate to. She uses the familiar situation to drive home the message that parents want to bring teens down to their level of monotony.

Towards the end of the video, Lauper and her diverse gang of friends parade down the city streets, dancing in the sun. They make their way back to Cyndi’s house, much to the frustration of her parents. They peep at the rager going on inside Cyndi’s bedroom through the keyhole. While everyone on one side of the door is having a great time, Cyndi’s parents are on standing on the other, furious. The juxtaposition of the outrageous party on one side of the door and the angry parents on the other further exemplifies how parents are unable to let their kids have fun. In the end, the door flies open and the prying parents are crushed by a dozen teenagers. The party goes on.