Subject: The Eighties Were Hades
For: People interested in where it went wrong
Short link: https://dansu.org/1980s-260910
This is a response to points made by @cstross but it isn’t intended to get into his thread. I started to comment there, but Nicolium indicated that the thread is Quiet Public. I think that that means the author would like to limit responses.
Mr. Stross commented that the 1980s were negative in some respects, including rights for women and minorities, medical care that was still primitive in some respects, and the fact that nuclear war could have happened [or this was the perception].
I’d like to comment on these points, starting with the nuclear war dread issue.
The fear of nuclear war dated back to the 1950s, but it did peak in the 1980s. There were a fair number of nuclear war dread films in that decade, weren’t there? I mean, films that focused on what nuclear war and the aftermath would be like.
1983: “Testament”. RT critics 90%. Fill it to the rim with grim. This film was released shortly before “The Day After” and complemented the latter film. “The Day After” was large scale and “Testament” was a harrowing zoom-in.
I met the author, Carol Amen, at a screening of “Testament”. She died a few years later. The film is a decent legacy. I’d like to leave something as worthwhile behind.
1983: “The Day After”. RT critics 86%. 100M people watched this one in the U.S. I think that I watched it with my grandparents, who had escaped from the U.S.S.R. 60 years before. The film had a major impact. Even Ronald Reagan’s views were affected.
1984: “Threads”. RT critics 100%. I haven’t seen this one or “When the Wind Blows”. I’ve put the two films off for decades, but it’s time to correct that.
1985: Re-release of “The War Game” (1965). RT critics 93%. No connection to “WarGames” (1983). I hadn’t heard of this one before. I see claims that it inspired “Threads”.
1986: “When the Wind Blows”. RT critics 88%.
1986: “Letters from a Dead Man”. RT audience 91%. Russian film on the subject. This one is on YT. I’ll D/L it from there and put it on my PeerTube instance.
1988: “Miracle Mile”. RT critics 91%. This film is as suspenseful as they come due to taking place in real time.
Regarding the problems with the 1980s:
The 1980s were no golden age. OTOH In the U.S., 1979 was a high-water mark of sorts, a year that could have heralded a new era. I think about the year pretty often.
The Vietnam War was over, Nixon was gone, and there was a feeling in the zeitgeist, despite the phobias and isms that Mr. Stross mentioned, that changes in society were here.
The 1980s, with all of the negatives, could have been the foundation of a real future.
Perhaps we still wouldn’t have had flying cars and lunar colonies. However, we could have had what mattered. I could have lived my life, even if the medical advances hadn’t happened, in a world filled with real people, meaning, and hope. The opposite of what we got starting in mid-1979.
In the U.S., Ronald Reagan, the Bushes, and Donald Trump with his plans to create an actual “V for Vendetta” State. Things crawling out from under the rocks that we never thought would be bold enough to be seen in the light of day.
I want a Mulligan on the last 45 years. This isn’t my future.
