In Part I of
Back to Our Future, David Sirota uses the Michael J. Fox sitcom
Family Ties to frame his main thesis that the 80s cultural products that dominated television and film helped to reinforce the Reaganite "Morning in America" program by portraying a misty-eyed nostalgia toward the 50s and a hostile and exaggerated view of 60s turmoil. He writes: "Pitting that bleached snapshot of an arcadian, patriotic, benevolently capitalist, conservative, Caucasian, and therefore good fifties against the psychedelic cartoon of an anti-American, malevolently collectivist, permissive, diverse, and thus awful sixties came to be far more than an overused cliche of Hollywood scriptwriters....Thanks to the 1980s, it has become the foundational allegory in our red-white-and-blue theology - the creation tale subsequently referenced by every shaman, prophet, and zealot in our civic religion."
So far, so good, I thought. Sirota is a gifted writer and he sketches out his thesis clearly and compellingly. The quotes from the political sphere that Sirota uses, particularly on pp. 20-22, provide ample evidence of the use of 50s nostalgia and demonizing 60s movementism. However, the cultural references seem forced at points. Of course like any cultural critic, Sirota is painting with a broad brush and I'm willing to go with him on the obvious Vietnam-era revisionism of movies such as
Rambo, but other references seem to be a stretch. Perhaps it's because I enjoyed movies such as
Animal House and
Diner, TV shows such as
Happy Days and even the occasional Stray Cats tune. If I enjoy the occasional chili dog at the Johnny Rockets in the mall, am I supporting 50s nostalgia? I don't know.
It seems as if we've got four contributors on board at this point, so I'll be interested in your thoughts on this issue and others in Part I. Once we've digested this chunk, we'll probably be up to speed and can move on to Part II (pp. 31-104) next week. What do you think?
The discussion on Sirota seems to have ground to a halt, so let me just post one more quick thread to round off the book. In the last section, Sirota deals with race - what he considers the prickliest issue in American society today. I do feel fortunate to have gone to reasonably diverse DoDDs schools. It wasn't always comfortable but I felt that we were confronted with issues that the students I'm teaching today - who tend to go to de facto segregated schools - aren't. As a result, they consider themselves "colorblind" but often fall into the traps that Sirota describes of thinking that race is over as an issue and that any non-white family not thriving is responsible for its own failures. Your thoughts on these or any other lasting issues from Sirota's presentation?
