The term yuppies, or Young Urban Professionals, is inextricably linked to 1980s America and refers to highly educated young people with well-paid jobs in the corporate world during the era of rampant ultraliberal Reaganomics. In their quest for status-enhancing possessions, they contribute to a wave of gentrification in major cities. Personified in thrillers like Wall Street and light comedies such as The Secret of My Success, there is also a series of films in which these wealthy and arrogant white-collar workers are punished for their smugness by disastrously ending up in the wrong part of town or with the wrong company: the so-called yuppie nightmare comedy, which includes John Landis's Into the Night, Susan Seidelman's Desperately Seeking Susan, Adrian Lyne's Fatal Attraction, and the double bill of these B-Z movies: Martin Scorsese's After Hours and Jonathan Demme's Something Wild.

The yuppie nightmare film cycle combines elements from two seemingly contrasting genres: screwball comedy and film noir. Both genres are characterized by complex, convoluted plots, and in both Scorsese's and Demme's films, the male protagonists are pulled into chaotic, illogical situations and precarious positions by transgressive female figures (and the promise of sex) — the screwball heroine and the femme fatale. In this way, a bomb is placed under the confident, patriarchal façade of 1980s America.