Sirota’s writing is animated and feverishly referential. Armed with a trivia master’s repository of cultural arcana, he deploys David Foster Wallace footnotes to either spell out a point (typically about the details of Pentagon spending or Top Gun interpretations); or, more tediously, to carry on conversations with readers. A typical footnote begins: “The professional screenwriters and amateur film enthusiasts that I know often cite 1986’s Cobra’s first fifteen minutes as the most cartoonish rendering of the rogue cop ever to grace the silver screen…” and continues for nearly a paragraph. Suddenly, as if in a cliché eighties movie, readers are stuck at the nerd table in the cafeteria, privy to fights over cultural minutiae. Sirota is entertaining enough to make reading about Knight Rider or post-Vietnam military history engaging, but a vested interest in his subject matter comes in handy.
It’s not until the final half of the book that Sirota really lets his politics fly. He mounts a convincing, if excessively detailed, case for how politicians manipulating the media manipulationenabled runaway militarism; and traces the evolution of Huxtable-era racial attitudes into contemporary political discourse. (White America is okay with black people, but only if they’re appropriately ‘transcendent.’) By this point, readers are familiar enough with the source material/political subtext/bigger picture structure of Sirota’s arguments to see where he’s going pages before he gets there, and, more significantly, whether they’re willing to go with him. If you’ve still got the energy, one usually is.
That is, until the very last chapter. Invoking Fukuyama’s overplayed ‘end of history’ argument, Sirota wonders if American history really did culminate in the eighties, and if society is doomed to live out the decade, Groundhog Day-style, until further notice. His answer is no: grassroots politics are making a comeback, new college grads are going into public service, and the “1980s outlook is… outdated and inappropriate for the challenges at hand.” And this is where the book’s limitations are most obvious. Sirota uses his formative decade as an instrument for explaining pathologies in the American psyche—greed, rampant individualism—but never convincingly makes the case that these began, or ended, in the eighties. As a work of pop scholarship, Back to Our Future is impressive, but it could benefit from a lighter touch.
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The problem starts with the sub-title of this review. The phrase the 'Me Decade' was coined by Tom Wolfe to describe the laid-back, self-absorbed Marin County-style sensibility that was fashionable in the 1970s - which sensibility, as Wolfe was able to suggest to the reader without having to be obvious, became a strong component of white, affluent, liberal feminist and environmentalist politics. The term has been hijacked for the usual drab weary political purposes to characterize the Reagan years. Wolfe, on the other hand, was after something more subtle and bracing than the conventional journalists, tethered to a narrowly-focused narrative of American politics and culture, seem to be able to grasp. He always kept in mind the struggle for status as a driver of social movements, for which money was only one tool.
And, predictably enough, the reviewer channels the author by trying to cram the complexity of American popular culture into a little box featuring (zzzzz) bad, manipulative Republicans and Tea Partiers. It took only four paragraphs, whereas I was expecting the little liberal civics lesson a bit deeper into the piece. Loudis writes that the reader is usually able to see where Sirota is going 'pages before he gets there'. I could tell where Loudis was going, with Sirota as the sock puppet, as soon as I saw the article heading.
#1 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Wed 23 Mar 2011 at 01:40 PM
the me decade may be the happy coinage of Tom Wolfe, but Wolfe died a long time ago and went to louche heaven. Accusing him of subtlety is like accusing Reagan of truthfulness. And if you want to channel Veblen and a host of other sociologists, Mr Richard, that's fine. But calling a reviewer a sock puppet betrays your own 'drab weary political purposes.'
#2 Posted by lauran, CJR on Wed 23 Mar 2011 at 05:39 PM
The 80s was the "me" decade unless you were like me and had long hair and listened to heavy metal music. Then all the conservative types were the first ones to unleash their intolerance.
#3 Posted by tobychainsaw, CJR on Thu 24 Mar 2011 at 07:13 AM
Lauran, gee, I didn't even mention Veblen. I thought I was talking about Tom Wolfe, who is still, I believe, living. Score one for 'truthfulness'. And in the achingly predictable department, it only took you two sentences to get to bashing some Republican. This just in: there are many things that happen in American life that don't have much to do with who's in the White House.
#4 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Thu 24 Mar 2011 at 12:31 PM