Television (and everything else) of Yesteryear

As I’ve grown, I’ve noticed that I have a fascination with media from the decades before I was born. Just today I heard the song “Little Lies” by Fleetwood Mac on the radio for the first time and have since downloaded it, and then watched a special on HBO about the comics of today when they were younger—it was taped in 1986 and threw back to segments from the 70’s. And then its just a basic rule of thumb with me that I really don’t like any of the “country” music past about the year 2000.

Last summer I was obsessed with watching movies from the 80’s, only to be told in my fancy-smansy (and expensive) film classes that the stuff coming out of the 80’s was the worst of all time in film. I laughed to myself, thinking, “Of course it was, since I like so much of it.” Within the last two years, I saw many 80’s movies for the first time in my life: Terminator, Back to the Future, Nightmare on Elm Street, to name a few.

Honestly, I'm glad I didn't see Terminator or Elm Street until now, they likely would have scarred me as a child. This scene in T1 gave me the creeps--the terrible jerky effects of a robot chasing Sarah Connor got me at 18 years old. Elm Street didn't get me until I realized I couldn't go upstairs and go to bed in the dark.

I saw The Expendables the day it came out, mostly because my dad loves Sylvester Stallone and Rocky, but also because I was interested to see exactly how it would play out and if it would actually end up a decent movie. It wasn’t bad. In short, it was a bunch of guys punching and yelling at each other while explosions went off in the background. I would have been a bit happier if Jason Statham had gone shirtless, but alas, it wasn’t so.

KABOOM. I was one of three female viewers in my theater.

Also, last summer I was very sad to hear of Michael Jackson’s passing. I was at college orientation when one of my friends texted me, and lo and behold it exploded on the news shortly thereafter. Only three celebrity deaths have really startled me, his, Steve Irwin’s, and Heath Ledger’s. All three because I felt like I had a personal tie to them, I loved The Crocodile Hunter so much that I did a report in 6^th grade on the man. My friends and I loved 10 Things I Hate About You and fawned over Heath Ledger, wishing he went to our high school and would sweep us off our feet. When I was in middle school, one of my best friend’s sister taught us the dance to Beat It, and whenever it came on, no matter where we were, we would always dance to it. I bought a Michael Jackson Greatest Hits album when I was in middle school. It got plenty of my attention last summer in the wake of the news. Between watching the documentaries on the man and watching so many 80’s movies I hadn’t seen, I wished I’d been able to live in the decade.

Thriller was great, but Bad is by far my favorite video. Smooth Criminal is a close second.

I’m sure one of the big reasons I’m so interested in the older stuff is because I never had the chance to experience it at the time. I was born in ’91. The other reason? I’m certain it’s because the world we live in today is so completely obsessed with HD and CGI and the best graphics possible. Some times (more often than not), this trumps good story telling. HD’s great, of course, but we see in HD every day with our own two eyes. Sure, it might be in bad lighting, but our sight is the most crystal clear thing we’ve got (provided of course you’ve not got some type of injury or blindness creeping on). Avatar’s beautiful and wonderful and proved its worth by making billions of dollars. But now it’s going back in theaters less than a year later after being released on multiple sets of dvds just because it’s got nine minutes of footage added. Please. Avatar was good, but in our economy, re-releasing it is just a terrible, greedy move in my opinion.

Being able to turn on my 9000 channels of cable and find old shows and old movies, it puts a smile to my face. I’m so happy I can still find the stuff. I wish I had a channel that played nothing but 80’s media. I’ve also thought to myself that it would be nifty to one day write a novel set in the decade, but that writing one in the 90’s might be a bit easier and more humorous on my part, given I lived through its questionable trends.

P.S. I LOVE OLD FASHION. I can’t fathom how the fashion of today will be viewed by my generation’s offspring, but I’m sure that someone in the future will be just as insane as me and love our skinny jeans as much as I love the outrageous hairdos and neon legwarmers.