AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE IN THE EIGHTIES

Summary: Today we will begin to consider the complex cultural landscape of 1980s America. We will examine how the rise of the New Right in the late seventies contributed to Reagan's success. We will then consider the cultural ramifications of "Reaganomics" in the 1980s. Examples will be drawn from television, popular music, and film.

I. Introduction

A. Continuing Legacy of Vietnam, Watergate, and 1960s Movements for Social Liberation

B. The Rise of the New Right

C. The 1980s and Reagan's Cultural Appeal

II. Class and Culture in 1980s America

A. Reaganomics and the American Class Structure (see Donald Trump info.)

"The economic distance between rich and poor, between well paid and poorly paid, is higher today than at any time in the lifetimes of all but our most senior citizens, the veterans of the Great Depression."

B. Televisual Celebration of Wealth in 1980s America: Dynasty, Dallas, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

C. The Rise of the "Yuppie"

D. Blue-Collar Workers' Declining Standard of Living

E. Problems of the Inner City

1. influx of immigrants and ethnic polarization

2. inner-city unemployment and crime

3. skyrocketing incarceration rates for African-American and Latino men

III. Literary Reflections on American Culture in the 1980s

A. Postmodernism

1. visuality

2. intertextuality

3. commodification

B. The "Bratpack": Bret Easton Ellis, Jay McInerney, Tamma Janowitz

1. "Bratpack" as chroniclers of "Generation X"

2. Good critical analysis of Ellis' novels: James Annesley, Blank Fictions: Consumerism, Culture, and the Contemporary American Novel (1998)

3. preoccupations of "blank fiction":

a. emphasis on the extreme, the marginal, and the violent

b. sense of indifference and indolence

c. limits of human body seem indistinct, blurred by cosmetics, narcotics, disease, and brutality

d. critique of consumerism and commerce

C. American Psycho and 1980s American culture

1. publication history of the novel: controversy, censorship, publicity

2. complex relationship between the novel and its eighties social context

3. discussion of novel --

a. How are Bateman's psychotic tendencies related to the broader experience of yuppies in the 1980s?

b. How are consumerism and class differences represented in the novel?

i. Bateman's and others' preoccupation with matters of taste and cultural distinction

ii. their relationship to the homeless

iii. what is important to these characters?

c. How does morality fare in the novel?

d. How does identity faire in the novel?

D. The novel and the film: clips from Mary Harron's American Psycho (2000) starring Christian Bale

IV. Conclusion: Ellis' American Psycho affords rich insights into the social and cultural tensions of urban America in the 1980s. In particular, it satirizes the ruthlessness and excessive consumerism of "yuppies." Hopefully our discussion today will leave you well equipped to judge the controversy surrounding the novel in the 1990s.