Why The 80s Return Again and Again

Essays in papers on both sides of the Atlantic try to shine light on the resurgence of nostalgic pop culture. An article by Alex Williams in the New York Times considers why we’re seeing the reappearance of 80s tough guy icons like Rambo, Chuck Norris and Hulk Hogan in popular culture. He says that at a time when the US faces new problems, the return of the ’80s action hero suggests that some Americans, particularly men, are looking to revel in the vestigial pleasures of older times and seemingly simpler ways:

This is a moment in American history bedeviled by a sinking economy, the possibility of environmental catastrophe and violent conflicts in the Middle East and beyond. So it’s not surprising to see men who were raised on cartoonish images of the fictional John Rambo taking out more Soviet soldiers in two hours than the Afghan mujahedeen did in a decade show an appetite for characters who tend to fix even big problems with room-clearing brawls, monosyllabic wisecracks and large-caliber firearms.

…Indeed, heroic caricatures seem comparatively less cartoonish at a time when nonfiction heroes like Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds have been tarnished by accusations of fraud, said David Zinczenko, editor in chief of Men’s Health.

…However unfashionable these macho caricatures may have seemed even five years ago, their cartoonish image of macho rectitude actually may be enhanced by their dogged efforts to protect an all-American image.

On a slightly different angle, John Harris in the Guardian argues that popular culture is increasingly defined by an unhealthy refusal to let go of the past fueled by technology that refuses to allow us to forget it. He says:

Think about it this way: whereas, say, 1968 and 1958 denoted two different worlds, how is it that 2008 and 1998 seem so close? Pop is a pretty good place to start. The idea that the people’s music was ever defined by built-in obsolescence now looks absurdly quaint. Last year’s highest-earning US tour was by the Police, while over here, the world was seemingly tilted off its axis by the reunion of the three surviving members of Led Zeppelin.

… [It] might be to recognise that fixating on the past is an in-built aspect of the human condition, but limited technology used to keep it in check. We had space and productive capacity only for so much stuff: a hidden hand cleared the cultural world of outdated clutter. And now? Bandwidth and memory grow exponentially, TV channels extend into the distance, and providing the means by which the classes of 77, 87 and 97 can get back in touch is a cinch. The same technology that we once thought would propel us into a fast-changing future stokes nostalgic appetites and condemns us to a present so laden with repetition that it’s beginning to feed back on itself.