On Deck with WJHU: The 80s of today color our view of the past

I have a confession to make.

It took me until halfway through my second viewing of The Perks of Being a Wallflower for me to realize that the movie is actually set in the 80s.

I don’t know what it is about our more recent portrayal of Ferris Bueller’s decade that makes it so easy to confuse with the “hipster” culture of recent years. Somehow, the more vibrant and ridiculous 80s fashion accessories have been softened in modern movies set in that time period in favor of the kind of things that we still wear today under the guise of being retro. Similarly, the more iconic 80s tunes have been shelved in favor of deep cuts that, while making for more authentic soundtracks, fail to evoke the 1980s stereotype that we all know and love.

I have to say, musically, I’m digging the vibe.

I’m not alone either, as other Hollywood movies are opting to color their films with 80s inspired soundtracks. I don’t really get how a zombie has the dexterity to put on a record, much less where he gets the electricity to power a speaker, but the quality of the musical tracks in Warm Bodies gave me all the motivation I needed to suspend my disbelief.

As we move away from the 1980s, the decade is becoming more and more romanticized.

Gone are the DIY dresses of Pretty in Pink and the scenes set to Marvin Gaye. We’ve settled into the comfortable delusion that the 80s were more like the way we choose to celebrate them today: all NES with the Smiths in the background. And although I’m on the train when it comes to the Reagan Renaissance, I also recognize that we are sacrificing authenticity.

Today, our musical landscape is rich and diverse, and our libraries filled to the brim with Spotify, illegal downloading and sites like soundcloud offering us a way to listen to anything and everything for little to no cost.

The 80s were the last hurrah of collective music. As the music industry took a victory lap just years before Napster would change everything, people relied on radios and singles records to hear their favorite songs. Music was centralized, ruled by hits and the King of Pop.

Today, we have the luxury of sifting through old records and finding the deep cuts that most people missed. When Hollywood plays the b-sides, they’re playing them because they know that the children of the 80s, now in their thirties and forties, are too busy for their teenage romances. They are playing these songs for us. These are our 80s because these are our movies.

So listen to Big Star, because they knew how to rock an anthem, but remember that this isn’t how it was. It’s just 2013 casting a shadow.