THE MANLIEST DECADE IN HISTORY; THE 80's BABY!
Part 3: The Masculinity of 1980s Culture

This article is the follow up to the series “The manliness of the 1980s”. It is named the “The Masculinity of 1980s Culture”. This may seem to be a bit counter intuitive but this article will prove that the culture of the 1980s was the pinnacle of masculinity. This article will cover movies and associated movie stars, pro wrestling, yuppie culture and other random thoughts from my advanced brain.

Movies and Actors of the 1980s
As much as I tend to despise most motion pictures, I do think that they provide a good cross section of the culture of the time they were created. For instance, modern movies are all about metrosexual pussies who are more concerned with women and their hair than being a real man. Or they revolve around garbage teen culture which MTV/Viacom (Satan incarnate) has exploited and destroyed. Movies of the 90s were more angsty and pissed off but typically it was not a manly form of anger, it was more about how their parents had beat them and now their life sucks, wah, wah, wah, nothing but bullshit whining.

The most popular movies of the 1980s, on the other hand, were manly ass movies such as Predator, Terminator, Rambo (the series), Rocky (especially Rocky IV), The Mad Max series, Die Hard and other movies of similar type but of less cinematic manliness; 48 Hours, Lethal Weapon, etc. The common theme of all these movies may be hard to see on the surface but once examined it is plain for the eye to see. These movies were about being a man!! No, not a man who uses beauty products “for men”, get manicures or any other gay shit like that. These movies all had a central theme and that theme was “The toughest SOB wins and lives while the weak die a horrible and undignified death”. This is a real Viking theme. The Vikings were great because they challenged anyone and everyone to fights and wars and because they were bigger, meaner, nastier, and tougher they won and to the winner go the spoils (rape of locals in the case of the Vikings, or huge fees charged by Arnold, Stallone and the rest).

In doing my extensive research for the article (searching my limitless brain), I found that all of the big stars of 80s action movies are conservative by nature and moreover they all had their big break or biggest movies in the 1980s. This is no coincidence. The fact is that the 1980s were all about being a man and that culture was pioneered by our late, great President Ronald Reagan. He defeated a short, inbred Southerner (Carter) and immediately started doing all sorts of manly things. Firing unions, talking shit to the Soviets, etc. he was manly to the core. Read more on how manly Reagan was at http://www.arthurshall.com/x_1980s_1.shtml .

You see the 1980s were all about excess and a real man revels in excess; excess muscularity, excess cocaine, excess testosterone, excess meaningless sex and excess money. That is the real reason why America was clamoring for more Arnold, more Stallone and more Willis, these guys represented everything that was great with the culture of excess.

The movie that, to me (which means IT DOES), personifies the manliness of movies in the 1980s was Rocky IV. While Predator is manlier in a pure sense, Rocky IV is the perfect movie for its era. Let me take you back to 1985. In 1985, we were in the midst of the Cold War and the outcome of this war was not clear to anyone. The Soviets were still building a massive war machine and we were designing space-based weapons to repel a Soviet nuclear ICBM attack. The movie has the inevitable two-tone training sequence follows, but with a great angle. While Drago (Dolph Lundgren, a manly Viking who is posing as a Soviet beast) trains-up in a scientific Soviet Gym turning him into a near machine, Rocky takes to the Siberian wilderness and pretty damn near conquers nature as he smashes logs, drags rocks and runs up a mountain. That is fucking manly. One guy is a juiced up killing machine and the other is the hardest working lunatic in the world!! This flashy, cheesy training sequence represents the battle between the Soviet Union and the US. The Soviets were known for having superior technical ability and discipline and the US has always been known for its scrappiness and dogged determination to win at all costs. In the end (I should not have to tell you but I fear that many of you are too busy fixing your hair and coddling your girlfriends to know much of anything) Rocky prevails in an epic struggle that would have, if it were even somewhat realistic, ended in a double homicide. He earns the grudging respect of his enemy and opens the Russian mind to Americanism. Shit, this movie predicted the end of the Cold War perfectly. Rocky IV was the perfect movie at the perfect time and it still gives me chills watching it. Watch Rocky IV and you will soon realize that modern movies pale in comparison. You can smell the testosterone when watching Rocky IV and that is not a bad thing (even if cologne companies have convinced you to smell like a bitch).

Random Manliness of 1980s Culture
There are other ways that the culture of the 1980s was unquestionably manly. The drug of choice in the 1980s was cocaine. The begs the question, What the hell does that have to do with anything? Well I will tell you and you should listen. Coke is the manliest of all illicit drugs (with the notable exception of anabolic steroids of course), what makes it manly?? Well, you can snort it off the ass of a prostitute and God knows that many rich men in the 80s were doing just that. It is also a rich man's drug and to be rich you have to be successful which is, in and of itself, a manly trait. Many high-powered executives and sales people in the 1980s were big time coke heads and coke is a drug that is used by ultra-competitive people. Keep in mind, I am not talking about the idiots who smoke crack, they should burn in hell along with their modern descendant, the cranker. Coke is much more manly that the drugs of other eras. The 1970s: Pot and PCP, great a bunch of unmotivated, lazy and fat losers having visions of themselves getting off the couch and grabbing another bag of Ruffles. The 1990s: Heroin, people who hate themselves so much that they ram needles into their veins to experience a coma like haze. They abstain from eating since it is “self-indulgent” and whither away and die of overdoes, GOOD RIDDANCE JUNKIES!! The 2000s: Crank/Meth, by far the worst of the drugs. Hey!! I have an idea! Lets combine the most toxic household chemicals and let Sudafed dissolve in it and shoot, smoke or snort it!! Sounds good to me!! Death to crankers. I am sure that thinking about crankers makes you yearn for the good old days of coke parties, skinny nasty whores and coke induced orgies.

Another cultural phenomenon of the 1980s was pro wrestling. Let it be known that pro wrestling is always great but it had its first golden age in the 1980s. Led by Viking men like Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair (Wooooooooooooooooo), Andre The Giant, and the Macho Man, wrestling became immensely popular. These guys were everything that is manly. They were arrogant, juiced up on steroids, huge, loud, and talented. The viewers were unable to turn away from these manly dudes in tight shorts fighting to the death (in jest of course) while talking shit to each other. Men like Hulk Hogan and Arnold were the standard bearers of the look for men in the 1980s, big, strong and tough. Not pretty and feminine like “sexy” men now. Wrestling became the sport it is today in the 1980s and that is only more evidence that the culture of the 1980s was damn manly.

Yuppies
The last and possibly the most important cultural aspect of the 1980s was the rise of the Young Urban Professional, known by less talented and jealous people as “Yuppies”. These guys were the guys who were buying the suits, snorting the coke, buying the whores and making all the money in the 1980s. What caused the Yuppie phenomenon?? I would say it was the massive tax cuts that were passed by Ronnie the Great in the early 1980s. These tax cuts allowed people who were innovative and industrious to make substantially more money and thus created this group of upwardly mobile professionals. Many of you will laugh at this group after all they dressed funny, had goofy ass hair and had a thoughtless culture that was imposed on a good portion of America through the media. Oh yeah, most of you idiots are immersed in such a culture now, you know who you are; that's right I am going to nail you, I bet you have the following; pointlessly “hip” tattoos (guys “the tough guy arm band”) chicks “The Tramp Stamp”, the “profound” tattoo right above your ass that your endless collection of fuck buddies use as target practice with their Chlamydia laced load, shit pierced all over your face (the “innocent” nose stud or your advertisement for HIV “studded tongue ”, frosted hair (frat boy types who go the salon to get their hair touched up gay homosexuals), tanning addicted (read the following http://www.arthurshall.com/x_tanorexia.shtml), rap music listening (learning about the real street life of “Urban America” and thinking that it is real culture, news flash fuckers it does not exist and they are merely selling you an image), liberal leaning pussies (Bush Lied, Move On, Green Day). You fuckers are worse than the yuppies, at least yuppies contributed to the culture of the greatest decade in history. They ran companies, subsidized drug lords, stole money and created much of the wealth in this nation. You pussies are too busy fixing your hair to ever do anything with your pathetic, wasteful lives. The 1980s!! Bring ‘em Back Now and save me from the idiots of my time!!

-arthur@arthurshall.com