this week's episode (featuring guest star alyson hannigan, from buffy) looks to be totally amazing. there will be an 80s dance. logan will be dressed as tom cruise in risky business. veronica will be in a madonna-esque ensemble. and i imagine the writing quality will be as consistently smart, funny, and riveting as every other episode has been.
so why aren't you watching yet?
10 comments:
at the risk of sounding like a cultural wet blanket, i hate 80s nostalgia, especially when it's employed by people who weren't even sentient beings during the original. but allison hannigan is like ridiculously talented, so if i'm near a tv i'll check it out. hopefully she's shorn the mullet-extensions she gained in buffy's last season!
speaking as someone born in 1979, and thus largely unaware of much of 80s culture--i love 80s nostalgia.
i mean, when i was a kid, we had 70s disco dances. it's the same principlw--just, there's a lot more neon when you dress like you're in the 80s. i don't see why you have to have experiences something directly to enjoy it at some cheesy school function. what, now i can't dress like a superhero on halloween b/c i don't actually have powers? :)
i am against it for two reasons. one, it's a marketing ploy that retreads an identity instead of letting people run the risk of developing their own. secondly, it's not the 80s dances and "risky business" look-alikes that i'm most concerned with. it's the necon philosophy, the myopic commercialism, the coke-snorting, the sexual immaturity that leads to a resurgence of AIDS cases, and the "greed is good" mentality that are all folded into the zeitgeist of that awful, awful decade. have we learned nothing?
so i guess "pretty in pink" is innocuous enough, sure, but i feel like for alot of people 80s nostalgia cuts deeper than that.
and thirdly, 80s nostalgia's been around since the late 90s. what a cliche.
I am exactly the right age for eighties' nostalgia - and for the most part, it makes me feel old. On the other hand, the magic of time is that I am mildly nostalgic for all the good things about my formative years, and have managed to forget a lot of the crap.
(oh, but if you had seen the outfits I wore to high school...and those of my "fashion-forward classmates - you might just hemmorhage)
jordon--i'm sorry, but nothing you say will make me not sing along to "come on eileen" whenever i hear it. i think you can find awful things for every decade--the point of nostalgia is to romanticize the silly and sweet things about the past. i mean, the 80s for me were all about care bears and my little ponys and crappy saturday morning cartoons. i didn't figure out that reagan wasn't some benevolent grandfather-type until i was older, long after bloom county became outland.
anyway, i'm more of a 16 candles girl. mmm, jake ryan.
pinky--i demand pictures! :)
i feel like i should clarify the above to note that i didn't figure out the crappy stuff about the reagan administration until later--despite having parents who were lifelong democrats. i just wasn't very politically aware before the age of ten. sorry.
i'm not saying i don't like anything that came out of the 80s, just that i don't enjoy it simply because it's from the 80s. (the cars, retro sneakers, and st. elsewhere, for example.) similarly, i avoid awful music, awful fashion, and awful behavior irrespective of the decade in which it was produced. so i guess (in theory) i am not averse to singing "come on eileen" to the top of my lungs, but the appeal would largely derive from my opinion that it's a kickass song, not because it's a cultural artifact.
i must say that 80s nostalgia particularly infuriates me, however, because apart from DIY, i can't think of any positive idea that came out of the blamed decade (and DIY was an alternative to the prevailing ethos, so that might not even count). maybe someone who actually came of age in that era (unlike me) could provide some context.
I'll email you the picture of me at the pinnacle of my youth and beauty - asymmetrical haircut and all :-)
(although it's a rather large, rather...dramatic photograph)
pinky--YAY!!!!!!!! and hee.
jordon--i was just trying to promote a funny and awesome show. perhaps you should not watch it if the 80s dance will annoy you for political reasons, and prevent you from enjoying the mysteries and character interactions (i only know about the dance b/c i saw a picture of those two characters in costume, so can't really say if it's a big plot point or anything). veronica mars is awesome every week, so maybe give it a chance another time.
The 80s is the bad decade between the groovy 70s and the cool 90s. I like the 70s and the 90s but I hate everything about the 80s except ALF. And I was born in 1988.
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