Or actually, I’m not. December and January find us with a self-imposed
musical exile, partly because it’s cold, partly because there’s so much
chocolate to get through and partly because everyone is skint. This is our time
to be merry and jolly, not bellyache about the state of the musical nation. And
so, my blog isn’t about music. It’s about Hollywood’s representation of kids in
the Eighties.
While spending the post Christmas Holidays in a sort of calorific
stupor, shuffling around the house, gazing out windows and occasionally going
into rooms and forgetting what I’d gone in for, I found myself with a kind of
mental unrest. I found myself putting rather too much thought into the purchase
of a pair of slippers. As much as I appreciate the new level and warmth and comfort
engulfing my feet, the depth of thought going into this was leaving me a worrisome
nagging in my brain. Is this what I have become?
Whenever I don’t feel right, I’m a big believer in going with one’s
instincts. You know sometimes you get a random craving for a particular foodstuff?
I believe your body is in need of a particular thing found in that food, and
your brain responds by telling you to eat that food. I’m not talking about
constantly stuffing your face with cake and crisps, but say your body is in
need of vitamin B6, you may suddenly find yourself wanting a tuna sandwich. You
get the idea. I listened to my body and what did it want? 80’s kids films.
I was
born in 1985, so while missing out on most of the classics of the genre at the
cinema, I was ideally placed to reap the bountiful supply of these films in the
50p section of the local video shop. They all made sense. I related completely
to every aspect of them. Fast forward twenty something years later, and here I
was finding myself watching them all over again. They soothed my mind. But why?
They mostly follow a similar pattern. Kids (preferably in a gang) are faced
with mild peril and respond with adventures. All adults are either evil or
dullards, there’s an innocent love interest, and at some point they all ride
bikes. Job done. But why was this putting my mind at ease? My best guess is
that although as a child I never found pirate treasure, or hacked into military
databases with my BBC school computer, or met aliens, I truly believed that I could. What I was missing was that
sense of childish imagination. As adults we retain an imagination – imagine a
pink elephant, right now. What you see in your mind is an image of an elephant
and the colour pink. This is your boring, grown up, logical brain computing
what a pink elephant might look like. As a child, your imagination took you so
much further. It didn’t just stop at the elephant and the colour. The world
seemed like a much more interesting place.
This was highlighted be the scene in E.T where Elliot is explaining to
said alien what the things in his bedroom are. ‘...this is Lando Calrissian,
and this is Boba Fett,’ he says, holding up worn action figures, ‘and look, they can have wars you
see, Pioww! Pioww!’ Can you imagine what that scene would be like today? Should
the child be able to tear its attention from their inexplicable need for a
mobile phone, it would be all Ipad this and Hi Def that. Would E.T care anymore,
or would he still just want sweets and beer? Is there an app for that?
What I realised was that sometimes it’s far too easy to become bogged
down in the world of adulthood and it can leave you exasperated. It’s
all pay this and plan that, drive here and work more. Health and Safety legislation
forbids it. Your account is overdrawn by...
Bizarrely, kids today act like little adults,
and given that a lot of adults have developed into materialistic simpletons, I
wonder if they will ever feel that liberating sense of adventure that used to
seem just around every corner. Now everyone knows what is around every corner, because
the internet tells them. There’s an app for it, so you can sit on your arse on
work’s time and not have to find it for yourself.
And so my New Year’s Resolution is to live my
life more like my Eighties self and retain a sense that however unlikely
something may seem, it just might still be possible. There is still pirate treasure out there,
aliens do exist and while you may not ever have any closer friends than the
ones you had when you were young, count yourself lucky that you were there to
actually experience it all in the first place. There wasn’t an app for it.
Now, I’m getting out of this horrible virtual
reality and going to ride my B.M.X wildly through a building site.
Until next time, party on dudes.
C
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