The ’80s are back, but should they be?

One might be forgiven for thinking that the ’80s are over. Yet for others, they never truly ended. Nestled amid the big announcements at this month’s CinemaCon about Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Dune: Part Three and Avengers: Doomsday was the news that the Top Gun franchise was getting ready to fly again. Or you could always see the 40th-anniversary screenings of Top Gun in cinemas this month.

Meanwhile, ’80s king of pop Michael Jackson lives again in the biopic Michael and Arnold Schwarzenegger is in talks to revive three of his biggest franchises, Conan, Predator and Commando. Sylvester Stallone is working on another Rambo movie – 44 years after the first. Eighties cult classics Escape from New York and Highlander are getting reboots. Madonna has released a “banger” new song, Kate Bush is charting again, vinyl records are back in vogue, and you can still see Cheap Trick, Poison, Bon Jovi, Gun ’N Roses, Metallica and friends on tour. LIVE!

As Arnie might say, “They’ll be back.” They are back! But should they be?

Don’t get me wrong: I love the ’80s. I am a child of the ’80s. We all rode BMXs, played with Atari consoles and Rubik’s Cubes, and listened to Madonna, Jackson, Prince and new romantic music. We watched Schwarzenegger throttle bad guys, Stallone re-invade Vietnam and Indiana Jones punch Nazis. We went to drive-ins (remember those?) and rollerskating rinks (remember those, too?). We repeated “that’s not a knife” with Paul Hogan in Crocodile Dundee (also celebrating its 40th anniversary this year). Our TV shows were bracketed with ads for the Grim Reaper AIDS campaign and the risque Antz Pants offerings – “Sic ’em, Rex!” We drank Tang. We tried to breakdance on hard school hall floors. MTV blew our tiny minds.

Why, decades later I even regularly attended ’80s nights in the city, until the day I was refused entry at the door of one venue for wearing white, Seinfeld-esque sneakers.

Yes, the ’80s were great. Yet here we are, 40 years later, hooked on nostalgia and still trying to capture the spirit of that age. Although many of us don’t play beach volleyball with our shirts off, a la Top Gun. We don’t invade small countries in our Speedos, a la Arnie. We don’t wear acid-wash denim or get a mullet. (The next generations may, but most of us ’80s kids shudder.)

Looking at the endless cannibalising of the past in popular culture, it has been argued that we are experiencing a kind of “cultural stasis”. Trapped in nostalgia, we are unable to move on – too afraid to take financial and creative risks.

“We’re living in the age of deja vu,” suggests The Modern Muse digital magazine, in an article headlined, “Why nothing feels new anymore – and what that says about us”. “Songs sound familiar,” it says. “Red carpet looks arrive already dissected through side-by-sides with ’90s supermodels or ’60s icons. Movies, music, fashion – even language itself – feels like it’s on loop.”

So perhaps it’s time to break the loop. Maybe it’s time for Tom to step out of the cockpit and Arnie to put down his sword (does anyone really want to see an 80-year-old Conan the Barbarian?). Perhaps it’s time to park the BMXs in the garage and put the shoulder pads, mixtapes and Cabbage Patch Kids in storage. The ’80s are over. They were rad then, overrated now. Move on.

Charles Purcell is a Sydney writer.