Collective depression.
While watching Death Wish 3 the other night I started thinking: what kind of culture will the current recession bring? The economic turmoil of early-to-mid-1980s gave us some pretty amazing anti-establishment movies like Repo Man, Videodrome, and Escape from New York, but the third installment in the Death Wish series really exemplifies what the ’80s were about. The system’s broken, only a lone hero can save it.
The system is certainly suffering now, but we’re not quite as bad off as the early 1980s…yet. But other than the economics, there is a fundamental difference. Right now, our society seems to actually believe in “society” and isn’t placing all of its faith in an atomizing market. This is a radical departure from the Reagan-era. For me, it’s a welcome one.
But the question remains. Instead of Paul Kersey, Otto, or Snake, will we see collective uprising on celluloid to fix our society on the brink? I hope so.
