Seeing Through the Eighties

Seeing Through the Eighties
Author: Jane Feuer
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 184
Release: 1995-10-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780822316879

With a cast of characters including Michael, Hope, Elliot, Nancy, Melissa, and Gary; Alexis, Krystle, Blake, and all the other Carringtons; not to mention Maddie and David and even Crockett and Tubbs, Feuer smoothly blends close readings of well-known programs and analysis of television's commercial apparatus with a thorough-going theoretical perspective engaged with the work of Baudrillard, Fiske, and others. Her comparative look at Yuppie TV, Prime Time Soaps, and made-for-TV movie Trauma Dramas reveals the contradictions and tensions at work in much prime-time programming and in the frustrations of the American popular consciousness. Seeing Through the Eighties also addresses the increased commodification of both the producers and consumers of television as a result of technological innovations and the introduction of new marketing techniques.

Seeing Through the Eighties

Seeing Through the Eighties
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2009
Genre:
ISBN:

DIVThe 1980s saw the rise of Ronald Reagan and the New Right in American politics, the popularity of programs such as thirtysomething and Dynasty on network television, and the increasingly widespread use of VCRs, cable TV, and remote control in American living rooms. In Seeing Through the Eighties, Jane Feuer critically examines this most aesthetically complex and politically significant period in the history of American television in the context of the prevailing conservative ideological climate. With wit, humor, and an undisguised appreciation of TV, she demonstrates the richness of this often-slighted medium as a source of significance for cultural criticism and delivers a compelling decade-defining analysis of our most recent past. With a cast of characters including Michael, Hope, Elliot, Nancy, Melissa, and Gary; Alexis, Krystle, Blake, and all the other Carringtons; not to mention Maddie and David; even Crockett and Tubbs, Feuer smoothly blends close readings of well-known programs and analysis of television & rsquo;s commercial apparatus with a thorough-going theoretical perspective engaged with the work of Baudrillard, Fiske, and others. Her comparative look at Yuppie TV, Prime Time Soaps, and made-for-TV-movie Trauma Dramas reveals the contradictions and tensions at work in much prime-time programming and in the frustrations of the American popular consciousness. Seeing Through the Eighties also addresses the increased commodification of both the producers and consumers of television as a result of technological innovations and the introduction of new marketing techniques. Claiming a close relationship between television and the cultures that create and view it, Jane Feuer sees the eighties through television while seeing through television in every sense of the word. /div

Back to Our Future

Back to Our Future
Author: David Sirota
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2011-03-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0345518802

Wall Street scandals. Fights over taxes. Racial resentments. A Lakers-Celtics championship. The Karate Kid topping the box-office charts. Bon Jovi touring the country. These words could describe our current moment—or the vaunted iconography of three decades past. In this wide-ranging and wickedly entertaining book, New York Times bestselling journalist David Sirota takes readers on a rollicking DeLorean ride back in time to reveal how so many of our present-day conflicts are rooted in the larger-than-life pop culture of the 1980s—from the “Greed is good” ethos of Gordon Gekko (and Bernie Madoff) to the “Make my day” foreign policy of Ronald Reagan (and George W. Bush) to the “transcendence” of Cliff Huxtable (and Barack Obama). Today’s mindless militarism and hypernarcissism, Sirota argues, first became the norm when an ’80s generation weaned on Rambo one-liners and “Just Do It” exhortations embraced a new religion—with comic books, cartoons, sneaker commercials, videogames, and even children’s toys serving as the key instruments of cultural indoctrination. Meanwhile, in productions such as Back to the Future, Family Ties, and The Big Chill, a campaign was launched to reimagine the 1950s as America’s lost golden age and vilify the 1960s as the source of all our troubles. That 1980s revisionism, Sirota shows, still rages today, with Barack Obama cast as the 60s hippie being assailed by Alex P. Keaton–esque Republicans who long for a return to Eisenhower-era conservatism. “The past is never dead,” William Faulkner wrote. “It’s not even past.” The 1980s—even more so. With the native dexterity only a child of the Atari Age could possess, David Sirota twists and turns this multicolored Rubik’s Cube of a decade, exposing it as a warning for our own troubled present—and possible future.

My Folks Grew Up in the '80s

My Folks Grew Up in the '80s
Author: Beck Feiner
Publisher: HarperCollins Australia
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1460710134

TRAVEL BACK IN TIME TO THE ERA NO-ONE HAS EVER FORGOTTEN - THE 80s - BECAUSE THOSE OUTFITS WERE SO RAD YOU HAD TO WEAR SHADES. Welcome to the 1980s. Mum and dad have described it to me, and it was totally whack. It was a time when crimped hair and perms were cool, kids listened to cassette tapes, thought dancing on your head was the ultimate, and synth pop ruled the school. It makes no sense to me of course, but it looked kinda fun, don't you think? My Folks Grew Up in the '80s is a stroll down memory lane for the kidz who grew up then, and a hilarious chance to share the decade's downright weirdness with a whole new generation.

The Films of the Eighties

The Films of the Eighties
Author: William J. Palmer
Publisher: SIU Press
Total Pages: 358
Release: 1995
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780809320295

In this remarkable sequel to his Films of the Seventies: A Social History, William J. Palmer examines more than three hundred films as texts that represent, revise, parody, comment upon, and generate discussion about major events, issues, and social trends of the eighties. Palmer defines the dialectic between film art and social history, taking as his theoretical model the "holograph of history" that originated from the New Historicist theories of Hayden White and Dominick LaCapra. Combining the interests and methodologies of social history and film criticism, Palmer contends that film is a socially conscious interpreter and commentator upon the issues of contemporary social history. In the eighties, such issues included the war in Vietnam, the preservation of the American farm, terrorism, nuclear holocaust, changes in Soviet-American relations, neoconservative feminism, and yuppies. Among the films Palmer examines are Platoon, The Killing Fields, The River, Out of Africa, Little Drummer Girl, Kiss of the Spiderwoman, Silkwood, The Day After, Red Dawn, Moscow on the Hudson, Troop Beverly Hills, and Fatal Attraction. Utilizing the principles of New Historicism, Palmer demonstrates that film can analyze and critique history as well as present it.

Scraping by in the Big Eighties

Scraping by in the Big Eighties
Author: Natalia Rachel Singer
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 250
Release: 2004-01-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780803243095

The author describes how her rejection of the materialism of her generation and her low-budget search for creative fulfillment led her to a duplex in Seattle, a beach hut in Mexico, and a Left Bank convent, but never freed her from her obligations as an American.

The Eighties

The Eighties
Author: John Ehrman
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2005-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0300115822

John Ehrman offers analysis of the transformation in American politics & society that marked the years of the Reagan presidency during the 1980s. He considers the fundamental shifts in American attitudes & examines the way Reagan built a right wing consensus around key policies.

Living in the Eighties

Living in the Eighties
Author: Gil Troy
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2009-10-22
Genre: History
ISBN: 019972010X

Some see the 1980s as a Golden Age, a "Morning in America" when Ronald Reagan revived America's economy, reoriented American politics, and restored Americans' faith in their country and in themselves. Others see the 1980s as a new "Gilded Age," an era that was selfish, superficial, glitzy, greedy, divisive, and destructive. This multifaceted exploration of the 1980s brings together a variety of voices from different political persuasions, generations, and vantage points. The volume features work by Reagan critics and Reagan fans (including one of President Reagan's closest aides, Ed Meese), by historians who think the 1980s were a disastrous time, those who think it was a glorious time, and those who see both the blessings and the curses of the decade. Their essays examine everything from multiculturalism, Southern conservatism, and Reaganomics, to music culture, religion, crime, AIDS, and the city. A complex, thoughtful account of a watershed in our recent history, this volume will engage anyone interested in this pivotal decade.

New York Times: The Times of the Eighties

New York Times: The Times of the Eighties
Author: The New York Times
Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal
Total Pages: 1055
Release: 2013-07-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 1603763287

From our nation's best source of in-depth daily reporting comes this sweeping retrospective of the news, culture, and personalities of the decade of the 1980s, as told through hundreds of handselected articles and compelling original commentary in this unique and fascinating book. There is no better record of history than the archives of The New York Times. Now, more than 200 articles from the great decade of the 1980s are culled from these archives and carefully curated, by editor and Times writer William Grimes, to create one complete, compelling, historical and nostalgic collection. Organized by sections such as politics, business, science & health, sports, arts & entertainment, food, obituaries, and more, The Times of the Eighties covers the biggest stories that shaped the 1980s. Articles include coverage of historic events like Wall Street's "Black Monday," the Iran-Contra scandal, Tiananmen Square, the Challenger disaster, the Human Genome Project, the collapse of communism, and the introduction of the personal computer by IBM; cultural highlights like the launch of MTV, Ted Turner's establishment of CNN, the Cabbage Patch doll craze, reviews of movies like E.T., Terminator, Raging Bull, and Tootsie, and features on musicians like Michael Jackson, Joan Jett, U2, Wham, Blondie, and more; plus pieces on personalities like Mikhail Gorbachev, Princess Diana, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Pete Rose, Bill Cosby, and more. The stories are penned by well-known Times writers like William Safire, Frank Rich, Anna Quindlen, Serge Schmemann, Russell Baker, Nan C. Robertson, Thomas L. Friedman, Linda Greenhouse, Bill Keller, Clyde Haberman, Paul Goldberger, Francis X. Clines, John Noble Wilford, Nicholas Kristof, Fox Butterfield, John Rockwell, Anthony Lewis, and many more. Grimes guides readers through the articles he's selected with commentary that puts the stories into historical context and explores the impact that these events and individuals eventually had on the future. Hundreds of color photographs from the Times and other sources illuminate the stories throughout.

Turning Forty in the Eighties

Turning Forty in the Eighties
Author: Michael P. Nichols
Publisher: Touchstone
Total Pages: 292
Release: 1987
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9780671642471

Gently but firmly, Dr. Nichols shows the millions of Americans turning forty in the '80s how to creatively deal with the challenge posed by this day and age and alerts the reader to the dangers to be found in extreme preoccupation with self-improvement.