One of the greatest articles I've ever read...

[Reaganfan]

http://inthearena.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/14/david-sirota-the-mythology-of-the-1980s-still-defines-our-thinking-on-everything-from-militarism-to-greed-to-race-relations/

By David Sirota, author of the new book, “Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now—Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything.”

He speaks of the Tea Party:

Summarizing the sentiment, one Tea Partier said: “Things we had in the fifties were better."

This rhetoric has resonated because for many, it no longer stirs memories of the actual 1950s of Jim Crow laws, gender inequality and religious bigotry. Instead, it evokes the sanitized idea of “The Fifties” that was originally created in the 1980s through movies like Back to the Future, Stand By Me and Hoosiers, television shows like Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley, and rockabilly greaser bands like the Stray Cats.

He speaks of how movie characters helped reinforce a need to "bring back the good old days":

Michael J. Fox’s two most iconic characters in the 1980s were Marty McFly and Alex P. Keaton. Those two characters perfectly represent exactly how the 1980s was revising and reimagining contemporary American history on ideological lines.

Think about it: Marty McFly was a suburban teen fleeing the cartoonized dangers of modern life (ie. bazooka-weilding Libyan terrorists stalking the suburbs) into an idyllic Fifties of unity and safety. Alex P. Keaton, by contrast, spends his life lambasting his parents Sixties idealism.

This “Back to the Future”-versus-”Family Ties” war between the 1980s version of “The Fifties” (supposedly 100% unified, universally happy, optimistic, safe, etc.) and the 1980s version of “The Sixties” (supposedly 100% violent, chaotic, overly idealistic, etc.) defines our politics today.

He speaks about how the 1980s had Americans more critical of big government:

What is the storyline of the A-Team? It’s one of the single-most anti-government parables of the modern age. From the beginning, we are told that the government wrongly accused and incarcerated these heroes; that the government is too inept to keep them incarcerated; that the A-Team is solving societal problems that the government refuses to solve; that the average person can find the A-Team but that the government can’t; and that the government is actually trying to stop the A-Team from its good samaritan work.

Sounds familiar, right? Of course it does – this is the way government is framed in the 21st century. We’re constantly told the government is either inept, evil, or both – and that the only way to solve problems is to either “go rogue” or hire a private contractor to fix the problem. That was the theme of not only the A-Team, but the entire “vigilante” genre of similar ‘80s productions like The Dukes of Hazzard, Ghostbusters, Die Hard and all the cheesy private detective shows. Their message was simple: You can’t rely on government, you must instead rely on the private corporation.

Finally, he of course, speaks of Reagan:

Reagan epitomized how the 1980s began mixing together politics and pop culture to the point where the distinction became blurred. He epitomized this mix both because he was originally known to the country as an actor, and because he regularly wove pop culture references into his speeches (two obvious examples: He made Rambo references when it came to international relations, and he made Star Wars references when it came to nuclear defense).

Here's a good example that is used:

In 1975, a Democratic Party emboldened by civil rights, environmental, antiwar, and post-Watergate electoral successes was on the verge of seizing the presidency and a filibuster-proof congressional majority. That year, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest were two of the three top-grossing films-the former a parody using the late-sixties sexual revolution to laugh at the puritanical fifties, the latter based on the novel by beat writer Ken Kesey. Meanwhile, three of the top-rated seven television shows were liberal-themed programs produced by progressive icon Norman Lear, including All in the Family-a show built around a hippie, Mike Stivic, poking fun at the ignorance of his traditionalist father-in-law, Archie Bunker.

A mere ten years later, Republican Ronald Reagan had just been reelected by one of the largest electoral landslides in American history, and his party had also gained control of the U.S. Senate. Two of the top three grossing films were Back to the Future, which eulogized the fifties, and Rambo: First Blood Part II, which blamed sixties antiwar activism for losing the Vietnam conflict. Most telling, All in the Family's formula of using sixties-motivated youth and progressivism to ridicule fifties-rooted parents and their traditionalism had been replaced atop the television charts by its antithesis: a Family Ties whose fifties-inspired youth ridicules his parents' sixties spirit.

FANTASTIC ARTICLE. I have to find the book for sure.

[Reaganfan]

Nice job completely missing the point of the article, Naso.

First of all, the actual title of this is "The mythology of the 1980s still defines our thinking on everything from militarism, to greed, to race relations."  This is not an 80s pride article.  You are going gravely to be disappointed by that book.

I didn't miss what his motives are, but I do like how he referenced pop culture to the 80s political climate.

[Reaganfan]

Still an article worth reading