Who are icons from the 1980's?

Answer 1

Okay like, the eighties were cool in a totally new wave sort of way, do you know what I mean? I don't know it was like...well, I don't know in some ways retro, you know? But then like, it was totally new wave and punk and like...well, cool. I mean, historically speaking it was sort of a bummer. You know, all that corporate buy out and leveraging stuff and right wing reactions to left wing dominance...whatever that means. I mean like, who really paid attention to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and Helmut Kohl when there was Micheal Jackson thrilling us all and Madonna proudly proclaiming she was a "Material Girl", echoing Americans love to "shop 'til you drop". That was the eighties, at least the parts that mattered.

I mean okay, like don't get me wrong, we were totally into what was going, you know? I mean that whole middle east thing really got a lot of attention and who could really expect anyone to really know what was going on? I mean there was the whole plight of the Palestinians but there was also like Israel's right to exist, because you know of the whole holocaust thing and so the U.N. was like; "Okey then, were going to give you Israel and you you can be Jews over there...which must of kind of backfired or something because more Jews live in New York City than do in all of Israel, but all those other Arab nations didn't really think it was cool that the U.N. said; "Okay, you Arabs have to go somewhere else now because this land is now for the Jews." And it was like everyone hates everyone and there is all this terrorism and wars over there...it was really confusing and sad. But, it was totally awesome when Regan, who was this really, really old man who was President of the United States, told that Russian communist guy Gorbachev to "tear down that wall". Regan was like really likable, you know? I mean, I don't want to be gross about it or anything, but he was kind of cool in a grandfatherly sort of way and it was totally cool to watch all those Berliners, east and west, tear down the Berlin wall. So you see? It wasn't like we were totally ignorant to what was happening, It's just that there were more interesting things going on than politics and world events. I mean, for like the girls Harrison Ford was so dreamy and the guys really got into Jessica Lange and Paula Abdul who they thought were really hot.

See, Harrison Ford was Han Solo in Star Wars and then the Empire Strikes Back and that other one with the furry little Ewoks or whatever they were. That's not the point, the point is that he was like really big and then he became Indiana Jones and that was like...Whoa! Raiders of the Lost Arc was like totally retro and like really modern, you know what I mean? Jessica Lange was this total babe who kept trying to be Meryl Streep but it was Streep who kept taking home Oscars...it was kind of sad. It was sort of a sad time because of all those people that died from AIDS. My friend was always like, "hey it's the AIDties you know?" Ha, ha, so funny I forgot to laugh. It was sad and that's why everybody wore those little red ribbons, to like...I don't know, raise awareness, you know? Getting tested for HIV was the thing to do and plain old sex became safe sex so Trojans were kind of like...well, you know famous.

It wasn't all sad though, it was the age of the New Romantics at first and then all those Metal bands with their big hair and fashion sense, was like totally fashionable, you know what I mean? If you couldn't afford to wear Armani or Christian Dior, it was cool because you could just wear an Izod and Levi's with topsiders if you were like conservative and you still look cool but you could also like be totally goth or like punk or like I don't know retro in a vintage sort of way and just buy all your clothes at vintage stores which was pretty expensive and even Izods didn't come cheap. So a lot of people wore knock-offs and did all their shopping at K-mart where the girls could get leg warmers and head bands, which even the guys would wear...the head bands, and all those knock off Miami Vice jackets with a t-shirt and really skinny ties.

It was a the age of PC and I don't mean personal computers which really didn't become a must have until the nineties, I mean political correctness, you know what I mean? It was like...well smoking was really ick and just not cool any more. Neither was apartheid because of the whole like...well you know those White South Afrikaner's and the way they treated all those black people. It wasn't right, you know? So a whole bunch of people bought like these records and cassette tapes of like reggae bands and all these benefit albums that had like Peter Gabriel and Sting and Peter Tosh. It was cool and some of us learned all about Steven Biko in that Song by Peter Gabriel named Biko and it was enlightening but in a cool way, you know? Nuclear power was like totally uncool and people like Jackson Browne and Daryl Hannah were always getting arrested just for having peaceful protests about nuclear power. I mean Gawd! What is that about? My friend always called it nucular, you know like nu-cue-lar, which was kind of funny.

Oh my God! I almost forgot about the whole gay rights movement thing which was like...well, I mean let's face it pretty gay. There were these bands like Frankie Goes to Hollywood with their like..."Relax don't do it" attitude and Boy George with his all Karma Karma Chameleon schtick. Even like, Elton John who was all in the seventies like; "Un-uh, nope I'm not gay." and then in the eighties he's all like; "Well, okay I'm gay but you shouldn't judge me." And it's true you know? You shouldn't judge those people and who cares who they have sex with, right? Well I mean I hope it would be safe sex because of AIDS and all but so what if some guy likes another guy in that way, right? Or if some girl likes another girl, that was cool. I mean, most just played it straight but because the gays were becoming so hip and like, more accepted, every body started dressing like them. I mean it was like...I don't know, but it was like they had this gene that made them gay but they also had like this gene that gave them a really good fashion sense. So, everybody liked gay people more and was kind of surprising how many of peoples friends turned out to be gay when the whole coming out the closet thing became like kind of a fad.

You know how like Andy Warhol once said that everybody would have their fifteen minutes of fame? In the eighties that was kind of true. There was Bobby McPherrin with his whole "Don't Worry Be Happy" song that was like...huge! Every body, and I mean like pretty much everybody started singing and saying that. Nobody even knew who Bobby McPherrin was before that and I couldn't tell you where he went after that but during that he was big! There was like that John Hinckley guy who tried to kill the President but Regan was all like...Whoa! He actually told his wife that he forgot to duck. That's why everybody liked Regan and even if you didn't agree with his politics you had to love that guy for being so witty and...well, likable. Hinkley was this really weird loner guy who was always reading A Catcher in the Rye by some guy who stopped writing years ago...J.D. Salinger was his name and he hadn't even written in like forever but everybody was reading this book because John Hinkley wanted to impress Jodie Foster by killing the President. This like totally freaked out Jodie so she kind of quit making movies for a while and went to Yale. It was kind of ironic, you know? Because Jodie Foster was in that creepy movie with Robert Di Nero...what was that movie? Oh yeah, Taxi Driver. "You talkin' ta me?" Travis Bickle who was this really creepy loner dude who killed a whole bunch of bad guys to impress Jodie and then this happens. Whoa!

Movies were pretty cool in the eighties but kind of Clueless, which was a movie made in the nineties but in a lot of ways described the whole culture of the eighties. In the eighties there was Spike Lee who was totally cool and like refreshing and he really put like racial issues in front of us and made us like think about it, like in Do the Right Thing. That film was great but that year the Oscars like totally ignored it because they were like; "No, we're giving the Oscar to Driving Miss Daisy because it makes all us white people feel better about how we're not so racist anymore and things like that." There were movies that made us feel good about E.T.'s and movies that movies like Tootsie that made us feel good about cross dressers and really horrifying movies like Platoon that made us feel sad about the way we treated all those Vietnam vet's because that movie showed you just how awful it was. Tim Burton kind of fixed Batman's image a little after that whole sixties foppish guy Adam West made Batman a dork. It was funny because Burton used Micheal Keaton for Batman and everybody was like; "Huh?" But somehow it worked and Batman was cool again. Micheal J. Fox was like mega cool with his whole Back to the Future thing and the De Lorean was kind of like... what's that word? Vindicated!

Besides Madonna and Micheal Jackson who were like these gazillionaires because of their music, there was Duran Duran and The Clash and Elvis Costello and U2 and MTV...Oh my God! MTV was the....well, I can't say that on this page but suffice it to say that MTV dominated the eighties. There was like, Nina Blacwood who was totally hot and like babalicious and J.J. Jackson who was so cool and those other two guys who were kind of dorks...Mark Goodman and Alan Hunter. I mean...I don't know, they were cool in their own way but like took turns being geeky and dumb. There was the little pixie girl Martha Quinn and then Sting sang that intro to Dire Straights Money For Nothing." It was really cool. Rap was like the new thing to freak your parents out with and rappers like Run DMC and L.L. Kool J or Ice T and Ice Cube who were like totally gangsta rap which really freaked out parents. I guess the eighties was kind of in a lot of ways just like the fifties and sixties and seventies...I mean, the music was different but kind of the same and fashion was different but kind of the same and the politics were different but kind of the same only it was the eighties, you know what I mean?