What were the 1980s really like? In one corner, a liberal actor calls them a “fucking mess.” In the other, a former reality star, a Republican, says it was a time of true “heroes.”
The totally different perceptions of that decade — characterized by a revival of patriotism, prosperity, and traditional values under President Ronald Reagan — reveals the stark cultural divide Americans are experiencing in the current decade.
The debate on social media was ignited when former reality TV star and unsuccessful Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt offered a terse response to actor Ryan Reynolds after the Deadpool star called the decade “brutal” while promoting his Cold-War era film Mayday at its New York premiere.
“When you get far enough away from a time period that’s quite distinct, there’s always a lovely feeling associated with it, almost like you pave over all the trauma with puppy dogs and ice cream,” Reynolds said in a red carpet interview with Variety.
“The ’80s was a brutal, brutal time for people. It was a fucking mess, and people forget that.”
Perhaps tellingly, neither entertainers experienced the 1980s as adults, with Reynolds, born in 1976, only turning 14 at the decade’s end and Pratt, born in 1983, not even a teenager at the time.
Their ages side, Pratt argued that the 1980s were a time of cultural sanity compared to today’s world, one where there were clearly defined ideals of good and evil.
“It makes perfect sense that Ryan Reynolds’ view of the 80s is the inverse of what normal people think. In 80s movies, bad guys were villains. Today, the bad guys are the heroes. Hollywood now bends over backwards to redeem wickedness and mental illness,” he wrote on X.
“‘Top Gun and St Thomas of Cruise represent the hero generation of cinema. Reynolds represents the antihero generation, and they are both byproducts of their own creations. Choose your path carefully, young man.”
“Reynolds has played the Marvel superhero/antihero Deadpool, who is a wisecracking mercenary who breaks the fourth wall of the Marvel Universe and stands as a stark contrast against the more traditional superhero archetype,” according to Fox News’s coverage of the debate.
Fox spoke with Christian Toto, an award-winning film critic, about how Pratt’s response to Reynolds points to a “very real fissure in American culture.”
“Spencer Pratt’s hot take suggests a sobering reality. Has pop culture’s infatuation with antiheroes had real-world implications? It’s one thing to follow Tony Soprano or Walter White, but modern films and TV shows are replete with villains we’re asked to cheer on,” he told the outlet.
“Consider how many recent movies have given us hit men with hearts of gold. ‘Bullet Train.’ ‘Hit Man.’ The ‘John Wick’ saga. Indie films like ‘Emily the Criminal’ and ‘Carolina Caroline’ also turn villains into quasi-heroes.”
Toto concluded, “Has that had a corrosive effect on the culture? Pratt’s question is worth exploring.”
Breitbart contributor Lowell Cauffiel covered the 1980 landslide election of Ronald Reagan for the Detroit News. He is the best-selling author of the Los Angeles crime novel Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.