Dismembering the Eighties

SoapNet airs reruns of the cancelled soap Another World, digging 16-year-old episodes out of the Procter & Gamble archives.

They've reached June 1989, and every time I hit this show during a channel surf I can't find my way back out -- it's a hypnotic time capsule of excruciatingly bad '80s fashion. Movies that mock the decade, such as The Wedding Singer and 200 Cigarettes, don't come close to how ridiculous we looked. There may be no more unseemly spectacle than men in feathered mullets, Member's Only jackets, and wedgie-tight acid wash jeans looking for love from women in shoulder pads, molasses-thick mascara and giant Dee Snider hair. If not for beer goggles, my generation would have single-handledly cured overpopulation.

I was reminded of this when I saw old photos of Tina Fey, who sang at a blogger's wedding.

Fey, who may top the list of attractive female celebrities with corrected vision, appears in wedding photos wearing a flowery Homer Simpson mumu under a dense hair helmet. The only recognizeable feature is her wry lockjaw smile, the universal gesture that tells the world I'm not sure I flossed.

Television · Soaps · 2005/05/18 · 1 COMMENT · Link