Reaganite Cinema

In the 1980s to 1990s the hustle and bustle of everyday life felt too much for any American to withstand. Many people looked back to the 1950s where life seemed too simplistic to even be real. Back then people only had to worry about work or the family and things didn't become much more complicated. Whether or not this stereotype is actually correct, theaters picked up on this profound interest and produced several unique movies. People would later dub this movie genre the Reaganite Cinema.

In the famous Back to the Future (1985) movie, a young boy named Marty (played by Micheal J. Fox) accidentally travels back in time and disrupts his parent's relationship, causing them to not get married. In order to save himself from fading out of existence, he's forced to interrupt the 1950s and reunite his parents. The docile world that they come from almost seems alien to Marty. This time period and alienation he receives, is symbolic of a parents inability to understand teenagers and what they go through. At the end of the film his visit to this utopian past does more then just cement his existence, all of his family struggles and financial problems are now gone.

Like many of the politicians of the time, movies in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries gave extremely high focuses on rejuvenation from past experiences. By going to or learning from people in the past, many Americans felt they could fix their modern day problems. Although this seemed like a valid solution it was more of an escapist reality to not deal with modern day issues many people had never faced before. The movie Cocoon (1985) approached this issue and stated that the rejuvenation people were looking for should be spiritual and not physical (which many people wanted), because a physical rejuvenation won't change anything.