MB: You're throwing some tough questions my way. Let's deal with the first one: 'Why do you think the 1980's films are so iconic now?' Here, I can only speak on my own opinion mind you, but when I was growing up as an adolescent in the 1980's, there were quite a few more SHARED EXPERIENCES in regard to films (and television shows as well). Every member of Generation X that I personally am acquainted with has watched the following films:
The Breakfast Club,
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,
Rain Man,
Back to the Future,
Ghostbusters,
Batman,
Pretty in Pink,
The Empire Strikes Back,
Beverly Hills Cop,
Return of the Jedi,
Raiders of the Lost Ark,
Top Gun,
The Goonies, and
The Terminator. More importantly, I guarantee that ANY one of my friends has seen one of these aforementioned fifteen movies at least ten times - and has viewed a few of those films MANY times over. What has ingratiated these films so profoundly into the psyche of Generation X?
Maybe I can explain. If a major network premiered one of these fifteen films for the very first time on network television (ABC, CB, or NBC), every member of Generation X growing up in the early 80's watched it. I mean EVERYONE. Remember: this is a time where there weren't any DVD boxed sets. No DVD's with bonus disks and special features. There weren't any DVRs, TiVo was a figment of our imagination, and VHS tapes were very expensive in 1980. We were without Redbox and Blockbuster - so you had to rent films from your neighborhood Video Store.
Furthermore, other than the big screen, our T.V. viewing options were limited by the availability of only FOUR networks: ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS. Heck, FOX didn’t even make its way onto the small screen until October of '86. If a major motion picture was broadcast on television for the first time - or the second time - or the third time, you watched it because in the very early eighties, only "rich folks" owned VCRs (!). You simply watched "what was on."
For instance, there was a period from 1975-1985 that Generation X saw EVERY James Bond film that was aired on television many times over because the networks played them repeatedly - every year without fail - from Sean Connery's
Dr. No,
Goldfinger, and
Never Say Never Again to Roger Moore's
The Spy Who Loved Me,
For Your Eyes Only, and
Live and Let Die. In the early 80's, since beggars couldn't be choosers, if a Bond film was on you watched it (even though I didn't particularly care for Roger Moore). Again, with only four television networks available (well... essentially THREE since PBS was educational programming), WE ALL WATCHED EVERY BOND FILM ON TELEVISION. Remember though, it wasn't just Generation X (my peers and me) viewing these films: it was everyone who owned a TV. Probably because without VCRs or DVD players or DVDs or movies on demand, we watched what was offered.
This made television and movie going more of a "shared experience" back in the early eighties. To wit: if a cool action/adventure film or a children’s television special aired on a Wednesday night, you can bet that every kid in your class would be talking about it the next day in school. Perhaps every single child in your entire school.
Sadly, I'm not sure that happens anymore. With the proliferation of the Internet and websites such as
Hulu.com and
Megavideo.com, most folks can instantly access all of the episodes they've missed for nearly any television show in broadcast history. For instance, I just recently was told about a friend who discovered that there are nearly thirty episodes of
Quantum Leap on Hulu. And he spent the better part of an entire weekend catching up on an old favorite. This is disheartening to me because it makes television and movie watching even MORE passive and less of a shared experience. The ability to access every episode of every television show, or download every frame of every film (illegally, of course), at any time satisfies our impulses toward gratification almost too quickly. It rewards impatience and impulsivity. There's just something profoundly special about waiting for a program to air once a week... it adds a reverence to watching the show and an air of anticipation. Similarly, screening a film in a theater on the night of its premiere is a similar undertaking. These two acts seem to be falling off in our culture - particularly in respect to television viewing. The act of anticipation, I mean: The deferred impulse toward gratification. For instance, I know that NONE of my friends (and I'll include myself in this demographic) watch any of their favorite shows at the time these programs actually air on television, and rarely - if ever - do we watch films in the theater (and we may be in the minority... but I think not): thanks to the Internet and TiVo and DVRs, we watch what we want, when we want, and - thanks to laptop computers - wherever we want.
I think the fact that nearly every member of Generation X watched
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back allows them to have access to and draw upon a similar shared experience, a cultural touchstone that adds a component to our personalities. Everyone from my generation knows what it means to be "like Han Solo" or "like Luke Sykwalker" or "like Ben Kenobi" - and the inherent differences between these three comparisons.
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