dreamin80s
4-28-01, 04:58 AM
Get Out Your Shoulder Pads: The 80's Are Here
Nostalgia for the 80's? That decade of bad taste and wretched excess? Isn't this taking our mania for cultural recycling too far, too fast?
Julian Schnabel is back. Pee-wee Herman is back. Jerry Bruckheimer is back. And Madonna (news - web sites), the original Material Girl, is back.
Sequined mini-skirts, slinky one-shouldered dresses, hardware studded tops, Lurex jumpsuits and big-shouldered power suits are back. So are designer logos, gem-encrusted chandelier earrings and jeans by Jordache, Gloria Vanderbilt and Sergio Valente. Michael Jackson is trying to stage a comeback. Nancy Reagan red is in again, and so is the scary mullet haircut.
Nineties grunge is gone. Seinfeldian minimalism has given way to the operatic kitsch of "Gladiator" and "Hannibal." And "Dallas" and "Dynasty"-era glitz ruled at this year's Oscars (news - web sites) and Golden Globes.
Nostalgia for the 80's? That unseemly era of "Greed is good," that decade of bad taste and wretched excess, escapist entertainment, designer food and macho posturing? Isn't this taking our mania for cultural recycling too far, too fast? Not only is President George W. Bush (news - web sites) doing an impersonation of Ronald Reagan (news - web sites)'s hands-off managerial style (right down to the afternoon naps) and adopting policies from a Star Wars missile shield to tax cuts to environmental rollbacks that have a decided feel of déjà vu, but the country at large seems intent on doing its own imitation of the 80's as well.
There are radio stations and clubs specializing in 80's music; 80's-themed parties where guests dress up like Bo Derek and Morgan Fairchild; and an 80's Web site (www.80s.com) that features trivia games about movies like "Risky Business" and "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." The teen pop idols of today Britney Spears, 'N Sync (news - web sites) and the Backstreet Boys (news - web sites) are younger, shriller descendants of Duran Duran, Bon Jovi and the other eye-candy stars of the 80's who capitalized on MTV's debut in 1982, just as Hollywood's current obsession with ever younger stars recalls the 80's heyday of the original Brat Pack. Even the women around Bill Clinton Hillary in her power suits, Denise Rich in her spangled, cleavage-baring gowns and Monica Lewinsky in her tight dresses and coy hats seem like throwbacks to that era of "Dynasty," "Wall Street" and "Flashdance."
Our romance with the 80's began more than a year ago, before the fall of Nasdaq, with newly rich dot-comers following in the Gucci-clad footsteps of the yuppie, that much maligned creature declared dead or at least endangered by Newsweek magazine in 1988. Sure, the style, initially, was different casual Friday khakis instead of suspenders and suits, S.U.V.'s instead of BMW's but the giddy consumerist ethos was all too familiar. The easy money to be made on Wall Street not only nourished a host of catalogs and Web sites specializing in high-end designer trifles, but it also turned shows like "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (news - web sites)" into instant hits, nurturing the notion that anyone with a smattering of knowledge and a smidgen of luck could strike it rich.
With the downturn in the stock market and murmurings of a recession, however, things have taken on a more ominous tone. In recent months, "Millionaire," with the avuncular Regis Philbin and the comforting "phone a friend" support system, has taken a hit in the ratings, and this month's much ballyhooed new show, "Weakest Link," features a haughty Englishwoman named Anne Robinson whom NBC's Jeff Zucker calls "the anti-Reege." Her specialty: cruel, mocking putdowns of ignorant contestants, who are voted off the show and forced to take a "walk of shame."
The social Darwinism of the "Survivor" shows ratified by the popularity of the book "The Darwin Awards," commemorating people who removed themselves from the gene pool through acts of gross stupidity opened the way to shows with an even more masochistic twist. There's "Boot Camp," which features 16 "military recruits" who sign up to be yelled at and humiliated by former Marine drill instructors; "Eco-Challenge," an extreme version of "Survivor;" and "Chains of Love," which revolves around a man or woman handcuffed to four strangers of the opposite sex.
The stark black outfits worn by Anne Robinson on "Weakest Link" enhance her authoritarian image, and they reflect a nervous society's obsession with power and control a phenomenon echoed by the new-found popularity of the Marquis de Sade, the subject of three recent biographies as well as "Quills," a movie nominated for three Academy Awards (news - web sites). Dominatrix gear, pioneered by Azzedine Alaia in the 80's, is enjoying a comeback, with design houses as varied as Helmut Lang, Gucci, Versace, Krizia and Donna Karan showing bondage and S-and-M looks for the spring. Eighties stiletto heels are fashionable again, along with stern pinstripe suits, studded boots and wide "power belts."
"It's not dressing for success, it's not Faye Dunaway in 'Network,' " the March issue of Vogue magazine observes. "If anything, it's Peter Finch yelling, `We're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it anymore!' " The May issue of GQ adds: "Pay homage to the decade that spawned Ronald Reagan, the power suit and the pointy-toe shoe."
This fascination with raw power nurtured by masters-of-the-universe fantasies, and accelerated by worries about losing that status is also reflected in our current choice of cultural icons, reminiscent of the testosterone-fueled heroes of the 80's.
James Gandolfini's Tony Soprano is a New Jersey Everyman, coping with family angst and panic attacks, but he's also a take-no-prisoners mob boss, capable of coolly executing his pal Pussy, or garroting a snitch while taking his daughter on a college-visiting trip. He may not have Michael Corleone's cold, shark-eyed control, but he still possesses an outlaw's ability to settle scores with his bare hands an ability most of his neighbors in suburban North Caldwell lack. "Tony Soprano fears no enemy," reads a new ad from Oxford University Press. "Sun Tzu taught him how. `The Art of War' the book for bosses."
Dr. Lecter, another appetitive, if less conflicted killer, is enjoying a renaissance, with the movie "Hannibal" boasting the largest box-office opening to date for an R-rated movie. As played by Anthony Hopkins, the debonair man-eater whom Thomas Harris first introduced in his 80's best sellers "Red Dragon" (1981) and "The Silence of the Lambs" (1988) readily wins the support of audiences who share his taste for the finer things in life (good wines, Renaissance art and Italian fashion) and secretly admire his Machiavellian intelligence, his ruthlessness, his instinct for others' weaknesses the same sort of skills that enable survivors on "Survivor" to survive.
As for Russell Crowe's Maximus in "Gladiator," he represents an 00's answer to Sylvester Stallone's Rambo and Arnold Schwarzenegger's Conan those 1980's action-adventure heroes with brawny chests and scowling visages who used sheer brawn and steroidal will to avenge themselves on the powers that done them wrong. Maximus's maxim "Strength and Honor" has become a kind of mantra for Soprano mobsters, and it was uncannily echoed by former President George Bush at last year's Republican National Convention when he described the qualities he felt his son, George W., would bring to the White House.
Though the younger Mr. Bush has been sharply criticized for being a friend of big business and for pushing a tax plan that favors the rich, a gung-ho Reaganesque capitalism has been embraced by segments of the culture that resisted it the first time around in the 80's. Back in 1987, when Nike used the Beatles song "Revolution" in a sneaker ad, there were howls of protest about selling out. Today, in an environment in which even film of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech was licensed by his family to a communications company for a television ad, the commodification of art is increasingly a given.
Indeed, commercial exposure is now widely considered a useful publicity tool: Sting turned his song "Desert Rose" into a hit by licensing its video to Jaguar cars; Moby scored exposure and sales for his album "Play" by making more than 100 deals with movie and television productions, and companies like Nordstrom and American Express.
Well-known actors and directors, once loath to tarnish their star status with commercial endorsements, are now jumping at the chance to become pitchmen. Jeremy Irons and Milla Jovovich are starring in a series of Donna Karan print ads inspired by the movies "The Lover" and "Indochine"; Uma Thurman has become the new face of Lancôme cosmetics; Rob Lowe and Matt Dillon have signed deals with Skechers shoes. Later this month, BMW cars will begin Webcasts of five short films produced by David Fincher, the director of "Fight Club" and "Seven"; the ads, which the company says "merge art, entertainment, technology and commerce in a way never seen before," have been directed by Ang Lee, John Frankenheimer and Guy Ritchie, among others, and will feature performers like Madonna and Mickey Rourke.
Back in 1985, the year the Dow passed 1,300, Madonna sang, "We are living in a material world and I am a material girl" an anthem for an era of takeovers and acquisitiveness that abruptly ended two years later, when the Dow dropped 508 points in a single day and for a time ushered in a new, more subdued zeitgeist.
Today's stock market woes have yet to produce such a cultural U-turn. Newsstands still sell glossy magazines like Opulence, which claims to reach "an audience with an average net worth of $9.9 million," and Tycoon, whose spring issue features an interview with Sir Richard Branson, chairman of the Virgin Group. ("We love this guy. He has style, charisma, vision, babes, and he's amazingly rich.") And the best-seller lists remain packed with books like "The Millionaire Next Door," "Ordinary People, Extraordinary Wealth" and "Rich Dad, Poor Dad."
An article by David Brooks titled "The Organization Kid," in the current issue of The Atlantic Monthly reports that today's college students, who were mostly born in the early 80's, have adopted a pragmatic, success-oriented outlook as well; for them, teenage alienation and rebellion are passé, replaced by what Mr. Brooks calls "the achievement ethos."
At the same time, entrepreneurs from Sean (Puffy) Combs to Dave Longaberger, whose posthumous account of his basket-weaving business became a No. 1 New York Times best seller last month continue to exert a hold over the public imagination, a fascination that apparently extends to drug dealers as well. The new movie "Blow," starring Johnny Depp, is based on the real-life story of a small-town New England kid who became a big-time cocaine dealer in the 1980's. And a new Palm-programmed version of the 1980's computer game "Dope Wars," which enables a player to adopt the role of an urban drug dealer, has recently achieved cult status on Wall Street and in Hollywood.
Given the ailing economy and fears of a recession, this 80's-style fascination with the lives of the rich and infamous is increasingly looking like wishful thinking, Depression-era escapism or get-it-while-you-can desperation. Today's "hot strategy," Rolling Stone magazine reports, is "milking it": "the smart money," the former counterculture publication observes, "is on getting it while you can, however you can, as fast as you can."
------------------
<IMG SRC="http://www.200cigarettes.com/html/wepk/downloads/stills/4.jpg" border=0>
::It's 11:59 On New Years Eve.Do You Know Where Your Date Is?
-200 cigarettes::
Nostalgia for the 80's? That decade of bad taste and wretched excess? Isn't this taking our mania for cultural recycling too far, too fast?
Julian Schnabel is back. Pee-wee Herman is back. Jerry Bruckheimer is back. And Madonna (news - web sites), the original Material Girl, is back.
Sequined mini-skirts, slinky one-shouldered dresses, hardware studded tops, Lurex jumpsuits and big-shouldered power suits are back. So are designer logos, gem-encrusted chandelier earrings and jeans by Jordache, Gloria Vanderbilt and Sergio Valente. Michael Jackson is trying to stage a comeback. Nancy Reagan red is in again, and so is the scary mullet haircut.
Nineties grunge is gone. Seinfeldian minimalism has given way to the operatic kitsch of "Gladiator" and "Hannibal." And "Dallas" and "Dynasty"-era glitz ruled at this year's Oscars (news - web sites) and Golden Globes.
Nostalgia for the 80's? That unseemly era of "Greed is good," that decade of bad taste and wretched excess, escapist entertainment, designer food and macho posturing? Isn't this taking our mania for cultural recycling too far, too fast? Not only is President George W. Bush (news - web sites) doing an impersonation of Ronald Reagan (news - web sites)'s hands-off managerial style (right down to the afternoon naps) and adopting policies from a Star Wars missile shield to tax cuts to environmental rollbacks that have a decided feel of déjà vu, but the country at large seems intent on doing its own imitation of the 80's as well.
There are radio stations and clubs specializing in 80's music; 80's-themed parties where guests dress up like Bo Derek and Morgan Fairchild; and an 80's Web site (www.80s.com) that features trivia games about movies like "Risky Business" and "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." The teen pop idols of today Britney Spears, 'N Sync (news - web sites) and the Backstreet Boys (news - web sites) are younger, shriller descendants of Duran Duran, Bon Jovi and the other eye-candy stars of the 80's who capitalized on MTV's debut in 1982, just as Hollywood's current obsession with ever younger stars recalls the 80's heyday of the original Brat Pack. Even the women around Bill Clinton Hillary in her power suits, Denise Rich in her spangled, cleavage-baring gowns and Monica Lewinsky in her tight dresses and coy hats seem like throwbacks to that era of "Dynasty," "Wall Street" and "Flashdance."
Our romance with the 80's began more than a year ago, before the fall of Nasdaq, with newly rich dot-comers following in the Gucci-clad footsteps of the yuppie, that much maligned creature declared dead or at least endangered by Newsweek magazine in 1988. Sure, the style, initially, was different casual Friday khakis instead of suspenders and suits, S.U.V.'s instead of BMW's but the giddy consumerist ethos was all too familiar. The easy money to be made on Wall Street not only nourished a host of catalogs and Web sites specializing in high-end designer trifles, but it also turned shows like "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (news - web sites)" into instant hits, nurturing the notion that anyone with a smattering of knowledge and a smidgen of luck could strike it rich.
With the downturn in the stock market and murmurings of a recession, however, things have taken on a more ominous tone. In recent months, "Millionaire," with the avuncular Regis Philbin and the comforting "phone a friend" support system, has taken a hit in the ratings, and this month's much ballyhooed new show, "Weakest Link," features a haughty Englishwoman named Anne Robinson whom NBC's Jeff Zucker calls "the anti-Reege." Her specialty: cruel, mocking putdowns of ignorant contestants, who are voted off the show and forced to take a "walk of shame."
The social Darwinism of the "Survivor" shows ratified by the popularity of the book "The Darwin Awards," commemorating people who removed themselves from the gene pool through acts of gross stupidity opened the way to shows with an even more masochistic twist. There's "Boot Camp," which features 16 "military recruits" who sign up to be yelled at and humiliated by former Marine drill instructors; "Eco-Challenge," an extreme version of "Survivor;" and "Chains of Love," which revolves around a man or woman handcuffed to four strangers of the opposite sex.
The stark black outfits worn by Anne Robinson on "Weakest Link" enhance her authoritarian image, and they reflect a nervous society's obsession with power and control a phenomenon echoed by the new-found popularity of the Marquis de Sade, the subject of three recent biographies as well as "Quills," a movie nominated for three Academy Awards (news - web sites). Dominatrix gear, pioneered by Azzedine Alaia in the 80's, is enjoying a comeback, with design houses as varied as Helmut Lang, Gucci, Versace, Krizia and Donna Karan showing bondage and S-and-M looks for the spring. Eighties stiletto heels are fashionable again, along with stern pinstripe suits, studded boots and wide "power belts."
"It's not dressing for success, it's not Faye Dunaway in 'Network,' " the March issue of Vogue magazine observes. "If anything, it's Peter Finch yelling, `We're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it anymore!' " The May issue of GQ adds: "Pay homage to the decade that spawned Ronald Reagan, the power suit and the pointy-toe shoe."
This fascination with raw power nurtured by masters-of-the-universe fantasies, and accelerated by worries about losing that status is also reflected in our current choice of cultural icons, reminiscent of the testosterone-fueled heroes of the 80's.
James Gandolfini's Tony Soprano is a New Jersey Everyman, coping with family angst and panic attacks, but he's also a take-no-prisoners mob boss, capable of coolly executing his pal Pussy, or garroting a snitch while taking his daughter on a college-visiting trip. He may not have Michael Corleone's cold, shark-eyed control, but he still possesses an outlaw's ability to settle scores with his bare hands an ability most of his neighbors in suburban North Caldwell lack. "Tony Soprano fears no enemy," reads a new ad from Oxford University Press. "Sun Tzu taught him how. `The Art of War' the book for bosses."
Dr. Lecter, another appetitive, if less conflicted killer, is enjoying a renaissance, with the movie "Hannibal" boasting the largest box-office opening to date for an R-rated movie. As played by Anthony Hopkins, the debonair man-eater whom Thomas Harris first introduced in his 80's best sellers "Red Dragon" (1981) and "The Silence of the Lambs" (1988) readily wins the support of audiences who share his taste for the finer things in life (good wines, Renaissance art and Italian fashion) and secretly admire his Machiavellian intelligence, his ruthlessness, his instinct for others' weaknesses the same sort of skills that enable survivors on "Survivor" to survive.
As for Russell Crowe's Maximus in "Gladiator," he represents an 00's answer to Sylvester Stallone's Rambo and Arnold Schwarzenegger's Conan those 1980's action-adventure heroes with brawny chests and scowling visages who used sheer brawn and steroidal will to avenge themselves on the powers that done them wrong. Maximus's maxim "Strength and Honor" has become a kind of mantra for Soprano mobsters, and it was uncannily echoed by former President George Bush at last year's Republican National Convention when he described the qualities he felt his son, George W., would bring to the White House.
Though the younger Mr. Bush has been sharply criticized for being a friend of big business and for pushing a tax plan that favors the rich, a gung-ho Reaganesque capitalism has been embraced by segments of the culture that resisted it the first time around in the 80's. Back in 1987, when Nike used the Beatles song "Revolution" in a sneaker ad, there were howls of protest about selling out. Today, in an environment in which even film of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech was licensed by his family to a communications company for a television ad, the commodification of art is increasingly a given.
Indeed, commercial exposure is now widely considered a useful publicity tool: Sting turned his song "Desert Rose" into a hit by licensing its video to Jaguar cars; Moby scored exposure and sales for his album "Play" by making more than 100 deals with movie and television productions, and companies like Nordstrom and American Express.
Well-known actors and directors, once loath to tarnish their star status with commercial endorsements, are now jumping at the chance to become pitchmen. Jeremy Irons and Milla Jovovich are starring in a series of Donna Karan print ads inspired by the movies "The Lover" and "Indochine"; Uma Thurman has become the new face of Lancôme cosmetics; Rob Lowe and Matt Dillon have signed deals with Skechers shoes. Later this month, BMW cars will begin Webcasts of five short films produced by David Fincher, the director of "Fight Club" and "Seven"; the ads, which the company says "merge art, entertainment, technology and commerce in a way never seen before," have been directed by Ang Lee, John Frankenheimer and Guy Ritchie, among others, and will feature performers like Madonna and Mickey Rourke.
Back in 1985, the year the Dow passed 1,300, Madonna sang, "We are living in a material world and I am a material girl" an anthem for an era of takeovers and acquisitiveness that abruptly ended two years later, when the Dow dropped 508 points in a single day and for a time ushered in a new, more subdued zeitgeist.
Today's stock market woes have yet to produce such a cultural U-turn. Newsstands still sell glossy magazines like Opulence, which claims to reach "an audience with an average net worth of $9.9 million," and Tycoon, whose spring issue features an interview with Sir Richard Branson, chairman of the Virgin Group. ("We love this guy. He has style, charisma, vision, babes, and he's amazingly rich.") And the best-seller lists remain packed with books like "The Millionaire Next Door," "Ordinary People, Extraordinary Wealth" and "Rich Dad, Poor Dad."
An article by David Brooks titled "The Organization Kid," in the current issue of The Atlantic Monthly reports that today's college students, who were mostly born in the early 80's, have adopted a pragmatic, success-oriented outlook as well; for them, teenage alienation and rebellion are passé, replaced by what Mr. Brooks calls "the achievement ethos."
At the same time, entrepreneurs from Sean (Puffy) Combs to Dave Longaberger, whose posthumous account of his basket-weaving business became a No. 1 New York Times best seller last month continue to exert a hold over the public imagination, a fascination that apparently extends to drug dealers as well. The new movie "Blow," starring Johnny Depp, is based on the real-life story of a small-town New England kid who became a big-time cocaine dealer in the 1980's. And a new Palm-programmed version of the 1980's computer game "Dope Wars," which enables a player to adopt the role of an urban drug dealer, has recently achieved cult status on Wall Street and in Hollywood.
Given the ailing economy and fears of a recession, this 80's-style fascination with the lives of the rich and infamous is increasingly looking like wishful thinking, Depression-era escapism or get-it-while-you-can desperation. Today's "hot strategy," Rolling Stone magazine reports, is "milking it": "the smart money," the former counterculture publication observes, "is on getting it while you can, however you can, as fast as you can."
------------------
<IMG SRC="http://www.200cigarettes.com/html/wepk/downloads/stills/4.jpg" border=0>
::It's 11:59 On New Years Eve.Do You Know Where Your Date Is?
-200 cigarettes::