- The Reagan years
- The rise of conservatism
- New conservative attitude in much of the country
- Also in popular culture
- Reagan evoked images of America's idyllic past
- Reagan's economic policy was driven by "supply-side economics"
- Lower taxes on wealthy Americans
- Theory: everyone would work harder
- U.S. foreign policy
- Reagan's foreign policy embraced building up American military
- Reagan believed that an arms race would cripple the Soviet Union
- Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Communist Party in 1985
- Advocating policies of glasnost (openness)
- Initiated perestroika (restructuring of Soviet government along Western lines)
- Berlin wall fell in November 1989
- The AIDS epidemic 1981—1989
- 150,000 cases diagnosed
- 90,000 AIDS-related deaths reported
- Increased awareness of the disease and its seriousness
- The American economy
- High-tech industries advanced impressively
- Development of smaller, more powerful computers
- Home computers became affordable to most Americans
- In 1984, Apple Computers announced the arrival of the Macintosh computer
- By 1985, the first version of Windows was available for the PC
- The beginnings of Internet use by the general public
- Cable television
- Dramatic growth during the decade
- 24-hour availability categorized television programming
- By mid-decade, many American homes subscribed to cable TV
- Channels like HBO, CNN, and ESPN
- MTV was launched
- Most important for the history of rock music
- Created competition for FM radio
- FM lost sponsors to AM talk radio
- Rush Limbaugh and others built up syndication networks
- Reinvented the radio networks of the 1930s and 1940s
- Prime time TV
- Dallas showed America's renewed fascination with money
- Debuted in 1978
- Rich Texas oil family led by the shifty J. R. Ewing
- Family Ties also reflected this new conservative trend
- Showed changes taking place in the white middle class
- Middle-aged liberal couple
- Conservative and financially astute son, Alex
- The (Bill) Cosby Show
- Cliff and Clare Huxtable were both professionals
- He was a doctor, she was a lawyer
- Comedy on family issues and never on issues of race
- The Simpsons
- Debuted in 1989
- Animated prime-time comedy
- Irreverently lampooned almost every dimension of American life
- 1980s Yuppies on film
- Young Urban Professionals
- Transformation from 1970s idealistic dreamers into well-appointed 1980s Yuppies
- The Big Chill
- 1983 film set to the beat of late 1960s rock and soul
- Characters consider the changes that have occurred in their lives
- They'd lost touch with what originally inspired and motivated them
- Oliver Stone's 1987 film Wall Street
- Ruthless lust for money and power
- Built around the phrase "greed is good"
- A glimpse into the dark side of the Reagan years
- Showed how the conservative 1980s appealed to 1960s thinkers' sensibilities
- The general cultural overview
- Rock music benefited from the wealth and technology of the times
- Cultural gaps continued to get wider
- Rich and poor
- Black and white
- Straight and gay
- Male and female
- These issues provided a stream of inspirations for musicians and songwriters
