When modern popular music shows an affinity for automobiles, it’s often nodding to the newest and fastest supercars or brainlessly reaching back to a period so far back that it’s not even nostalgia. Either what is “old” has shifted further forward than I’m comfortable with, or pop star Sabrina Carpenter’s consistent appreciation of Malaise Era vehicles is a real artistic choice grounded in a desire to achieve a specific aesthetic. But why?
The ‘Malaise Era’ is such a commonly used term these days (it has its own Wikipedia page) that I sometimes forget I’m old enough to have been there at Jalopnik when it was first coined and popularized by Murilee Martin. Drawing from Jimmy Carter’s “Malaise Speech,” it describes a period in time from roughly the early ’70s to the mid ’80s when a mix of safety and environmental regulations made new cars (especially American ones) notably worse.
It’s not a moment in history that’s remembered positively by enthusiasts, as Murilee himself explained for Capital One:
The idea that the citizens of the nation that invented the airplane and then helped defend the world from Axis powers would ever need to sacrifice anything didn’t sit well with Americans. Though Carter didn’t use the word “malaise,” journalists quickly dubbed it the Malaise Speech, and the name stuck.
My membership in the older cohort of Generation X means I sat in my parents’ thirsty 1973 Chevrolet Beauville in gas lines as a second-grader in 1973 and again as an eighth-grader in 1979. I reached driving age in a household with a miserably underpowered 1978 Pontiac Bonneville and a hilariously unreliable 1979 Ford Granada in the driveway.
With a few exceptions, these were the dark times for people who immediately consider hp/displacement when looking at a car. What if you don’t? Perhaps there’s some romance to those vehicles?
I mention this because the post-teeny bopper version of musical artist Sabrina Carpenter is, as the kids might say, very Malaise-coded. I’ll start with her latest video, for the song “Manchild,” which is basically a trailer for a movie that doesn’t exist and is absolutely jam-packed with Malaise or Malaise-inspired metal and outfits. Even the tint on the whole video makes it feel like an episode of The Fall Guy.
The video opens with Carpenter in Daisy Dukes being picked up by a single-axle Kei-truck. This is not Malaise specifically, but very of-the-moment at least. She’s then dropped off at a desert locale with an extremely Malaise Datsun 280ZX and a couple of older trucks.
She’s then picked up in this maybe 1974 Ford Gran Torino Country Squire Wagon with the super Malaise combo of red-over-fake-wood. You can feel America’s competitive edge bleeding away in the strangely raked C-pillar of this wagon. It’s possible this particular car has a 400 cubic-inch V8 with 173 horsepower, meaning it can barely power itself.
Do I care about the car’s power? I care less when Sabrina Carpenter is sharing a cigarette with the driver while hanging out on the roof. It’s a perfect image, and I like to think it’s a tribute to Robert Bechtle.
And speaking of The Fall Guy, what’s more representative of both the best and worst of this period than a full-sized two-door SUV? This specific version was neither green nor fast in its original trim, probably offering up under 200 horsepower from a carb’d V8, but it is at least arboreal.
I don’t know how old this garbage truck is, I just know that she’s Skitchin’ in traditional roller skates, which feels right.
I won’t spoil what happens to the Pinto because it’s a great payoff. This is a great example of a car from the Carter Presidency when America tried, and it still didn’t work.
This is an old bike, but the look wouldn’t be out of place in an episode of C*H*I*P*S.
This is definitely a ’90s Sea-Doo, so less Malaise, but the dude is pure ’70s.
The final frame is Carpenter getting out of an early Supra into what I think is the Chevy Citation above, though I’m not 100% sure. That’s a pure combo of late ’70s/early ’80s cars.
This isn’t her only video to feature both the aesthetic and the automobiles of the times:
In her video for “Please, Please, Please” she’s also rocking a peak-Malaise Dodge Magnum XE. This vehicle looks tough, and matches her black garters in a way that’s probably alluring if you can ignore the hottest motor available wasn’t even rocking 200 horsepower (or, worse, it has a lean burn V8 with 140 whimpering horses).
???? | Behind the Scenes of making the pool car for Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Espresso’ music video! pic.twitter.com/0cw5ecxA1X
— Sabrina Carpenter Daily (@SCdailyupdates) April 12, 2024
If you know Carpenter at all, it’s for song-of-the-summer “Espresso,” and that, too, features what looks like an early ’80s Mercedes R107 as the pool car?
That this has occurred in 75% of her new videos makes me think that it’s more than just a coincidence. This is quite clearly a choice, and while it might simply be nostalgia for the unrembered ’70s and ’80s, I think there’s a bit more going on here beyond Carpenter and her artistic collaborators being just old enough to have watched Silver Streak on Comedy Central every day after school
The easy political viewpoint at the macro-level would be a prediction that we’re headed towards a new era of stagflation, though there’s very little lyrically to go on for that perspective. Without getting into the Barry Keoghan/Shawn Mendes of it all, most of her modern songs are rooted in bad relationships with men. Her prior album, “Emails I Can’t Send” started out with a song about how she’ll maybe never fully trust the opposite sex because her father cheated on her mother.
While her follow-up, “Short ‘n’ Sweet” is a lot more poppy and cheerful, a good chunk of the songs are about wishing the men in her life weren’t such losers. Here are the lyrics to “Please, Please, Please”
I know I have good judgment, I know I have good taste
It’s funny and it’s ironic that only I feel that way
I promise ’em that you’re different and everyone makes mistakes
But just don’t
I heard that you’re an actor, so act like a stand-up guy
Whatever devil’s inside you, don’t let him out tonight
I tell them it’s just your culture and everyone rolls their eyes
Yeah, I know
The fun of your 20s, to varying degrees, is doing stupid things. Sometimes you do those stupid things with stupid people. It’s part of growing up. “Manchild” is also about stupid men, but the vibes are just a little different. It seems like she’s looking back, not looking forward. Or, as she said on Instagram:
[T]his song became to me something I can look back on that will score the mental montage to the very confusing and fun young adult years of life. it sounds like the song embodiment of a loving eye roll and it feels like a never ending road trip in the summer ! hence why i wanted to give it to you now- so you can stick your head out the car window and scream it all summer long!
While I was born at the end of the Malaise Era I didn’t live through it, but life has its own Malaise Eras. At the time it wasn’t much fun, but with enough distance, youthful indiscretions don’t look so bad. If you play back that time in your mind it’ll probably look like a highlight reel or a movie trailer, much like the video.
That’s my interpretation, at least. If I’m wrong, I don’t really want to know.
These youths and the payphones! Like Post Malone videos. Shes got the period correct clothes on too which is awesome. Nice job youths
The comments doing a great job of demonstrating why young women dont feel welcome in the car world.
Women of any age really. Also a huge part of why I don’t participate in many car events anymore.
The unprompted bigotry, misogyny, or just plain weirdness really does get old quick.
I seemed to have missed the bigotry, misogyny, or just plain weirdness in the comments. There definitely might be; I haven’t read all 151, and I would agree there’s no place for that.
But, I only see people commenting about the cars, or that she’s an attractive woman. Because… she’s a very attractive woman.
What am I missing?
My early 20’s kid freaked out when I found unopened blank cassettes and a handheld Sony cassette recorder when I was packing to move. Part of a care package including some vinyl albums.
Not surprised 70’s cars are all over her videos. Apparently all that stuff is cool now, which I think we might be in an alternate universe because nowhere, nowhere is a Citation cool.
The Citation X11 was maybe 10% cool, in an utterly tragic and terrible sort of way.
I think you’re reaching with that 10%.
I’m in a generous mood.
And you do have to take it in the context of the times. It was a pretty nicely polished turd for the day. No BMW, but it cost less than half what a rather slower 320i cost… Not like we got the good stuff in the US at the time.
Chevy Citation. When the Chevette is too small but too stylish to let go.
ROFL!
The theory of the Citation was pretty good. The actuality after the GM Bean Counters got involved, eeesh. Actually, that is very true of the Chevette as well. That was a global platform and some of the variations on it were pretty tasty in Europe and Japan.
You could tell the bean counters got ahold of it when their first commercial featured the announcer using a wood model to show the highlights of the car.
ROFL!
I bought my X11 right after Motor Trend announced their Car of the Year…and named it Xerxes.
We had an X11 growing up. It was the best but worst built car ever. The engine made enough torque to twist the chassis in two and it rusted INSTANTLY. I still want one for some sadistic reason.
At least it had some flair with the vertical radio.
I’m not one to kink shame. Go got it!
They also had issues with the rear wheels locking, to the point of an unsuccessful NHTSA lawsuit. The Citation was the last US made car my grandparents bought. My grandmother only bought Hondas or Toyotas after that, possibly related to the literal carnage that Citation caused.
“red-over-fake-wood”. I never understood the order of this function. Isn’t the fake wood over the red, so shouldn’t it be “fake wood over red”.
It just isn’t a Plywood Pleasure Palace without the fake bark. And I agree, the bark is on the paint, so fake bark over red.
above/below
Ha! Great video. And besides the malaisemobiles, don’t forget the Bronco, and the boat car, and the exploding Ford pickup…
Chevy truck.
That station wagon is most definitely a Ford LTD / Country Squire. Has everyone been blinded by Carpenters wardrobe?
Just in case you all weren’t ready to feel old, most of these vehicles would be akin to her grandparents‘ cars (when new, that’s like most Autopians’ cars from childhood or early adulthood)
She’s just missing that “GM” branded on her butt from the hot seat belt. Not that I looked closely. No siree.
malaise era cars suck, but it is now a romantic forgotten era (maybe?) – When cars guzzled gas but it was cheap, and 80s hooker wear was cool. I think the only cool thing about those days was probably that people had to entertain themselves without the internet or social media. Cars, though, mostly junk.
Come on, now, we had The Six Million Dollar Man! And Kojak!
This article brings up a point I made with my wife the other day. Cars from the Malaise and Radwood eras are now simultaneously old enough to represent “beater” cars owned by questionable/troubled people in TV shows, movies, etc., but they’re simultaneuosly picking up steam as coveted nostalgic hero cars, just like they are in real life.
This came up because my wife was watching a current English TV show called Department Q and the main character in the show drives an ’80s Ford Sierra. Knowing I’m a gearhead and pay close attention to vehicles in shows, she asked me what message they’re giving by having him drive that car, and given that I hadn’t actually watched the show I couldn’t answer the question. It kinda depends on whether the car casting for the show is done by enthusiasts who understand that cars from this era are now coveted and are nostalgically cool (like Kendrick Lamar highlighting an ’87 Buick during the Superbowl) or if they’re from the lazy/trite camp that thinks any vehicle made between 1974 and 2015 is just an old unwanted car.
I’m currently watching the show and noticed the car immediately, at first thinking it was the Mercury Merkur (was that the same car but we got the Mercury here?).
But the car is driven rather haphazardly and the main character driving it just doesn’t give a shit about the car or anything except solving his case so I guess it fits.
Ford Sierra: When you just don’t give a shit about anything.
Yes, the 2 door version was sold as the Merkur XR4Ti in the US.
And what little of the show I’ve watched, I did get the impression they’re treating it like an old beater.
Yes. But Merkur was it’s own brand, the car here was the Merkur XR4ti, nothing to do with Mercury per se. GM had the rights to Sierra in North America.
It was just a boring standard family car in the UK, available from pauper to gin palace trim. Very much the equivalent of a Taurus or Granada here. And like the Taurus, there was a very cool hot version, the Sierra Cosworth (though theirs was rather better than ours, given the Sierra was right-wheel-drive).
The XR4ti was a good bit better than average car, and if I ran across a good one today I’d probably be just stupid enough to buy one just for the bi-plane wing. Also, pour one out for Karmann, which built them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UKPh-fooLg
I thought both the XR4tis and Scorpios were great cars murdered by the worst marketing campaign man could come up with at the time. Weird unpronounceable name and (not) sold by polyester suited L-M sales droids? Yeah, that is NOT how you compete with the Germans.
They would have been far better off just selling the things here as Fords. Give Mustang Man something to trade up to when the kids come.
The name is one of those brilliant ideas that just doesn’t work, and shouldn’t have made it past the first cut. “I get it, I appreciate what you did there, but we’re never going to get 10,000 people to explain to their best friends what they just bought if that’s the name.”
Spot on. And absolutely everyone pronounced it Merker.
I’m not an SC fan, but that video is amazing. Just the sheer amount of “WTF” crammed into a couple minutes, and A++ car selection.
I love videos crammed full of weird-ass avante garde stuff (Beastie Boys, Dinosaur Jr, Missy Elliott, the list goes on). This is up there, it’s just too bad I dislike her music and her whole persona. Didn’t she get famous by opening for Taylor Swift a few times?
I always feel like with pop stars in particular, you’ve really gotta give em a couple years to see what they’re really made of – in the early career, usually it’s gonna be pretty derivative, but once people get a little older and have a little more latitude to try things, you get to see if this person’s really an artist or if they’re just an entertainer. Dunno where SC is on that list, but this was a good video.
She was on a Disney/Nickelodeon show. You know, THAT career trajectory.
Oops, they did it again.
Then I’ve got Talking Heads for you, who just got around to putting out a video for a song from 48 years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ54eImz88w
She was on a Disney animated show in which she co-starred with freaking Weird Al. Lifetime pass as far as I’m concerned.
I’m going to have to give Sabrina a citation for being hawt!
Maybe a verbal warning?
The judge is gonna have to throw that one out.
There was a Citation in that brown somewhere local to me at the same time I had one in orange. I have nostalgia for the Citation because it symbolized freedom and mobility. If a person didn’t have that experience with it, I don’t know what would draw a person to it.
But she seems to be very good at marketing whatever aesthetic she’s offering at any moment, so she can definitely make this weird nonstalgia work for her and, I assume, her intended audience.
As far as I can tell her fans are similar to Chappell Roan’s…mainly girls and women between the ages of 13 and 40 or so who want to have fun and feel sexy. That being said I am unsure of what the gays think of her and they’re definitely tastemakers when it comes to female pop stars/a sizable portion of Chappell Roan’s fans.
Yeah, I really kind of find it impressive that she has cultivated that audience instead of creepy men or whatever. I do suspect Chappell Roan will have the better staying power, because you are right about the tastemakers.
Neither of them are really my scene, but I wish them well.
Chappell Roan is queer, so obviously is going to be more readily embraced and supported by LGBTQ folks. Sabrina Carpenter seems to be straight, and is more mainstream than Chappell Roan in a lot of ways.
I like both artists, and I’ll only be 40 for a few more weeks. My daughters also love them, and they’re both under 13. So I think we need to stretch the demographic a bit. 🙂
Fair enough! I’d never claim to be a pop-knower
In case you missed it, here’s a song that’s sort of related to your comment.
This was so funny, thank you
I’m not a fan of either exactly, but Carpenter is catchy and growing on me. Roan, I don’t get the fascination- every song makes me think of someone else who did it better.
I feel like you kind of have to experience and get Roan’s entire act for it to make sense. I personally think the music is pretty good, but the whole package makes it even better, if that makes sense. I don’t necessarily seek her out but whenever one of her songs comes on I’m never upset about it.
…except the ending of her big hit where somebody put their thumb on the turntable at the outro. What happened to radio edits?!
[not really upset]
From what I know, the gays also love Sabrina. She and Chappell are friends and have collaborated a few times.
When it comes to pop culture my question is always simple: what do the girls and the gays think? Because if they’re all on board it’s a pretty good indicator that whatever we’re discussing is going to be huge…whereas I am a 34 year old white heterosexual dude who’s obsessed with cars and guitars. My input on such things isn’t particularly meaningful lol.
Re Sabrina’s cut offs and other shorts.
No snark intended here.
But a past few girlfriends have mentioned this to me.
“Sometimes you just got to give that thing some air.”
See above comment please…
Username checks out
Malaise-related so not entirely off-topic, but I have devised the mounting for a USB-powered fan in the traditional cootchie-cooler/ball-chiller location. It even has a color-changing disco light effect.
I don’t really see the appeal of her music and schtick outside of “she’s very attractive and horny” but boy does she have those things going for her in spades.
Commoner garden manufactured pop pablum.
Ah yes, the Gen Z love of the era of their parents’ nostalgia. This makes sense.
My eldest will get upset with me when someone’s made a reference to an old movie that I’ve not suggested they watch. Or when there’s a newly released sequel remake of an old movie.
Counting back the years since movies like Kindergarten Cop (1990) and realizing that it was 35 years ago is just wild to me.
Well apparently if you are doing a legacy sequel or remake these days, you have to cast Glen Powell. It must be in his contract.
Yeah, I am Gen Z and I’m going to say that this is pretty true. I love malaise era cars and I have a vinyl setup so I’d say I fit this category. I’ve also watched a ton of 80s cult classics like “Used Cars” and “Airplane!”
Im not an outlier either. One of my friends is in the process of getting a vintage gaming setup going and another one dropped a few hundred on a vintage audio setup, complete with a 20 inch Trinitron, cassette and VHS player, and other audio equipment
There’s a great video on YT called “Why Young People Like Old Things” that helps explain this.
Wait, do the youths not thing Airplane! is funny?! I mean, air travel has changed dramatically, but not fundamentally, and the disaster movie isn’t so rare as to be alien…Hm, does one need to understand what is being spoofed to find something funny?
I think it’s more likely that they don’t even know it exists. 45 years ago is a very long time to a 25 year old.
I blame the parents.
Good for you, youths, cheers [clinks]! And, similarly, I’ve taught 3 of your crew about shooting film over the last year. I am meeting you in the middle by adding a streaming DAC to my 1990 stereo amplifier, which has actually kind of blown my mind.
I so happen to be part of a film group, comprised of three people.
What a coincidence.
Ask a lot of questions about your scans. Some of them are so bad it’s impossible to tell anything about the film you’re using or how you’re exposing it. And I thought the video was on point, if that’s still what we’re saying.
Oh, heh, the video I recommended wasn’t made by me. My film group uses a single Sony FX30 for our films, so not exactly vintage.
I haven’t dabbled in the world of digitizing old film yet, but I do have a Polaroid Go lol.
You kids are odd. When we Gen-X’ers were kids we just thought old shit was shitty and wanted as little to do with it as possible.
But have I got a garage shelf of vintage audio crap for him…
As a card-carrying member of Gen X, I think we all go through that phase but we tend to focus on what was interesting/cool when our grandparents were younger. What our parents were into was never cool.
In this particular case, I think the timing checks out. That woman is definitely young enough that her grandparents could have been driving those cars (or at least sitting in them while in line waiting for gas).
None of those cars were left in Allentown in the early 2000’s
I would say that making a music video at all seems near peak malaise to peak malaise me.
How else will people like her music if they don’t know she’s pretty?
Isn’t it amazing how so few unattractive women can sing? Same with meteorology. Weird.
Susan Boyle had a nice little run there for a while.
There has to be someone with some junkers that can capitalize on this. I assume her target demo has been mainly obsessed with 90s to early 00s Japanese stuff. But could be some already in to 80s junk. I know they used to be a few years ago. My dad pulled a an old 82 rabbit diesel out of a field decided it was too far gone and listed it. Was all teenage to early 20s kids to come look at it all saying it was rad he explained what it needed and most decided it was too much work finally some kid bought it then was trying to sell it a few months later for what he paid for it.
Someone at Hyundai must feel like someone wants 80s inspired things.
There does seem to be an assertion in pop culture that the American western border is perpetually in some kind of Robert Rodriguez/Cohen Brothers time bubble.
A part of me wants this to be true.
well, to be honest, most of those cars are only still found out west.
in the middle west they have mostly rotted away.
a lot of them became so worthless that they got wagon trained tot he border where they were often “freshened” up and the smog stuff removed so they could be useful family hauler south of the border.
Seems like some are coming back, but I still see lots of old hard to find 80’s cars in Cali whenever I go. it has been this way for over 2 decades for me.
Someone on the internet pointed out teens and 20-somethings being into stuff from the 80s today is the same as teens and 20-somethings of the 80s being into stuff from the 40s and I refuse to accept this factually correct statement.
It’s the time compression of nostalgia — certain things accelerate (like computer tech) while certain other things are fixed in time (like Classic Rock). It’s a really weird phenomenon as you age to see everything aging at a different rate and how it all fits together in people’s minds.
And it gets weirder when you break down the details. Classic rock hasn’t changed much. Dad rock has changed significantly. Alternative has mostly just grown. Vinyl is still retro, but so are cassettes. 8-tracks are just old and CDs are just kind of outdated, like cassettes were when CDs rose to prominence. NES and N64 are both retro, but Intellivision and Atari are mostly just old (much to the chagrin of those Atari marketing execs trying to cash in on nostalgia).
However, CDs are regaining their cred once more, in part thanks to music streaming services’ “curation” becoming more arbitrary (and expensive) compared to just owning the disk and being able to just digitally rip them to high-quality files just like folks used to with the MP3 format in 2000s.
The other part of CD resurgence is tied to the growing appreciation of vintage audio gear, which now includes the 80s and into the early 90s in some cases. First- and second-generation CD players can sound really good, when playing a well-mastered disc. And as people build up vintage systems, a good early CD player is a nice companion to a vintage turntable.
It’s both nostalgia plus a re-discovery of what those staple formats sound like on the gear that they were developed around.
Yep, CD sales are up, for the first time in 20 years. So many BADLY mastered discs still kicking around, though!
There was some badly pressed vinyl also…probably end of the plates life. I’ve bought some pristine looking albums, only to find out they sound like crap.
That’s good to hear. For too long, I’ve heard people who claim to be audiophiles dismiss CDs because digital can’t match analog…despite the fact that modern records are almost invariably pressed from a digital recording. A digital recording of high quality is great, and CDs can provide just that.
I am a sucker for fun vinyl, though. Give me a multicolored record and I don’t even care that I’m taking a digital recording that’s been pressed to an analog medium and playing it on my mediocre equipment.
Well, the turf wars and balkanization of the audiophile world have only gotten worse over time. But at least there’s a growing bunch of both young folks and graybeards who are returning to old formats and gear, and rediscovering the gems there.
Sometimes it’s out of necessity; the commoditization of audio gear has made it hard to find anything that’s particularly outstanding without spending an awful lot of money. And too often things are overcomplicated at that level.
It was embarrassing and kicked up flamewars when it was discovered a few years ago that a common Radio Sack phono preamp that retailed for about $25 could deliver quality comparable to a $200 – $300 unit made today. Part of the problem is that it’s hard to source certain discrete transistors and other components today that are as good as “commodity” parts of decades past. Everything today is built out of mostly commodity-grade integrated circuits, many of which have design compromises to keep costs down and yields up, but don’t do sound any favors. Sometimes the older stuff just works better.
I have always been ALL IN on CDs since the beginning (for me, maybe 1991). Even if digital has taken over, I’m glad to see a little bit of a pendulum swing towards ownership over subscriptions. It’s nice to see places like Amazon also offering Autorip with so many discs, so it’s the best of both worlds — plus you can rip it yourself at whatever quality you want.
Now we just need cars to start offering CD/DVD slots standard again. There’s little reason not to, the tech is cheap and the form factor (disc) has been going strong for 40 years. That’s a lot of media out there in the world looking for a home.
Respectfully, I think it might be a little out of place. 🙂
That appears to be an AJS – a British bike – from the early 1930s, going by the canted cylinder, springer front end, and the angle of the hand-operated gear lever on the tank.
I mean more her look.
Oops! Yeah, that makes more sense.
Ah drat! I KNEW I was close, but not quite. Matt tasked me with finding the make of the bike. I narrowed it down to 1930s and British, but I couldn’t figure out the marque.
This post made me knees sore all of a sudden.
I’ve never heard of Sabrina Carpenter, which doesn’t surprise me, since I’m in no one’s target demographic anymore. And given middle age, I’m immediately concerned that those short-short cutoffs she’s wearing in that video are going to give her an awful UTI. 😉
Yeah, that would be too bad for her.
Meantime, how long can I look at her ass without being considered “leering”?
Cuz, holy shit.
And oh the road rash from crashing behind that garbage truck… [leer]gonna need a lot of TLC… /[leer]
I can’t yet UNcringe from my thoughts of road rash once I saw that.
While the cutoffs are era-appropriate, she looks a bit too curvy for the time of poster-women featuring flat backsides, narrow hips, and oversized (likely enhanced) chests. I didn’t even know my predilections are the reverse of that until the ’90s, when I saw my future ex for the first time. She wasn’t wearing the cutoffs that day, but the pockets on the ones she made used to stick out from under the “hem” line. Took me decades to learn better and I’m still not sure if I learned anything or have just aged out of any interest. Maybe not so much age as in years, but in miles of severe use conditions. Or maybe it’s like, you’ve gotten food poisoning so many times that you eventually get to the point where you just don’t care to eat at all.
From my somewhat fuzzy recollections, Miss Carpenter appears to be more-or-less within normal ranges vs. ’70s (Malaise Era) Playmates, the majority of which seemed to predate cosmetic surgical procedures (or at least the more blatant ‘enhancements’ that seem so common these days).
But my memory of anything that I saw almost 50 years ago, no matter how impressive, is always going to be unavoidably fuzzy. 😉
Implants date to the ’60s. IDK about Playmates, my early experience is more the cheesy hair-metal videos and car posters from the ’80s when the terrible fashion in bathing suits de-emphasized curves below the elbow line. I had the posters as I still tried to fit in back then, but I didn’t really get it—get off the damn car, you’ll scratch the paint! The crazy hair didn’t help, either.
I know there were some ‘early adopters’ because (of course) it’s always been a subject of interest to me (as a heterosexual male). 😉 But (IME/IIRC) it didn’t seem to really take off in a big way until sometime in the ’80s.
I agree the ’80s big hair thing is odd (along with the fetish for shoulder pads in clothes) but you can get used to anything. 🙂
Yesterday, I was reading the owner’s manual that came with my ’89 Volvo 240 wagon, and in it there’s a photo of a presumably Swedish ’80s lady in the driver’s seat, demonstrating where the seat belt release button is located. She’s got the big hair and bangs so common back then, and looks (to me) a little bit like Linda Hamilton did in the original Terminator movie.
Here, let me snap a quick pic of it for you: https://imgur.com/a/9NDdTX6
My mother had her hair like that for a bit. The shoulder pads thing was really weird. Maybe that’s where my disdain for fashion styling came from (they don’t earn the “design” designation with me). Then again, I thought Don Johnson’s Miami Vice suits were awesome, so what do I know?
The androgyny thing in ’80s pop culture* only had me further wonder if there was yet another thing that was off about me in that I didn’t find the same things attractive as everyone else seemed to. Thankfully, there were highly-rerun movies on HBO with actresses in them that reassured me (Big Trouble in Little China and The Last Dragon in particular). As it turned out, I just have a narrow range of attraction and an even narrower range for who I actually want to date (I dated two Italian dancers with the exact same birthday and, even weirder, when I ran into the first girl I ever had a crush on as an adult that I hadn’t seen in over 10 years, she looked so much like Italian dancer #1 that my friend commented on it first).
*What annoyed me about the jaguar rebrand was that it seemed like a retread of this period instead of something bold and new when it was supposed to specifically be a clean break from the past.
Well, at least those Members Only jackets haven’t come back into vogue yet, at least not for the general population. 🙂
I’ve got a photo somewhere of my first serious girlfriend, sporting a frizzy perm and a shiny, burgundy Members Only jacket, posing flirtily (is that a word?) on a grimy 8th street sidewalk. We were on our way to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show IIRC.
Good times. 🙂
PS: I loved Big Trouble in Little China of course. 🙂
I never liked those jackets. I’m surprised hipsters didn’t make those a thing back when hipsters were a thing. Or maybe they did and I didn’t notice.
I took a date to Rocky Horror once. It wasn’t as crazy as I expected from what people told me. She hadn’t been before, either, and had a similar reaction. It seemed a lot of the people there knew each other, though, so it’s probably more impactful in those circumstances. Also saw Lost Highway at that theater, which was my first time seeing a Lynch film besides Elephant Man, and that was crazy—I was expecting a vampire movie.
Was it the 8th Street Playhouse (or whatever it was called) that you saw Rocky Horror at? I saw it there a few times throughout my teen years and the live performances weren’t the same every time… sometimes raucous and amazing, while other times were more subdued, and almost phoned in. I got the impression that it’s just a matter of who shows up (to voluntarily perform) and what kind of mood/energy everyone’s got. I do still recall how Susan Sarandon looked in the movie when she was so young.
I haven’t seen it in at least 30 years (probably more), though I’ve got a soundtrack CD somewhere that I listen to every now and then (especially when driving my Miata 😉 ). Some of it still strikes me as poignant, even now.
I never liked those MO jackets myself, but they were everywhere for years… friends, parent’s friends, guys/girls, people on TV, etc… I had a very beat up old motorcycle jacket instead that someone gave me, but I foolishly waited another 40 years before getting a motorcycle.
Boston, so Coolidge Corner, maybe. Now that I think of it, that might have been in Cambridge, IDK. That was about 30 years ago for me, too. I think that was the same place they held the Spike and Mike’s Twisted Animation and the Tournee of Animation in the early ’90s, which were pretty cool. Before it was a series, Beavis and Butthead was in one of the S&T shows. I wasn’t impressed at the time.
Susan Sarandon still looks pretty good. She was recently in this sentimental movie with Vince Vaughn about a NY restaurant with grandmothers for chefs my sister put on. I had to look up her age—almost 80!
I remember those jackets being everywhere. I just assumed it was a part of everything being intentionally ugly or bland for reasons I couldn’t comprehend. Then I saw the Countach at the beginning of Cannonball Run and I realized the world didn’t have to be that way. Even better was that my father had no idea what it was.
Haven’t seen her in anything for years, but my media consumption is way below average. But an ample bosom, bedroom eyes, and a bit of snark go a long way, so I’m not surprised. 😉
And another middle age followup, given that she’s closer to my daughter’s age than my own, is a few glasses of cranberry juice and some AZO should clear that right up!
Or maybe due to all these cars, she’ll want to enroll in UTI (Universal Technical Institute)
Touché! 🙂
I’ll have to remember that Murilee changed her pronouns to He/Him. It’s going to take some getting used to, so I hope he doesn’t take offense if I occasional slip up.
/deeeeeepcut
“same as it ever was”
From the look of those Daisy Dukes shorter than Daisy herself ever wore, I think I’m gonna have to wait to watch that video until after work.
What a thoughtful piece, thanks MH.
I, for one, appreciate that Autopia is 100% cars but at least 5% music and 10% midlife crisis.
Oh gosh, I so agree! 😀
Only 10% midlife crisis?
Hahaha, the midlife crisis comment GOT me.
But seriously, I do love the eclectic nature of this site. I like Sabrina Carpenter and have always had a weird affinity for ugly cars. Sometimes I read articles on this site (like this one) and think, “Huh. There are weirdos with the same weirdness as me.”