Growing up in the 80’s could be frightening, amazing and confusing. The threat of a senile decrepit old man (Reagan) with only the push of a button could bring about a nuclear holocaust. I had only known him from Mad Magazine and Spitting Image and countless other parodies in a negative light, that just got increasingly more dark as I grew older. With the recent murder of Gadaffi/Quadaffi/Kadaffi I remember an incident that happened in a NY videostore. In the 80’s the moral majority/Christian coalition and media giants went out of their way to scare children into believing that serial killers, horror films and Ozzy Osbourne were lurking outside their doorways waiting to abduct them. As a kid you had no idea what to believe because in some cases it was genuinely a real threat (like Adam Walsh, Ricky Kasso and Ted Bundy). The nation was heavily influenced by the religious right, censorship and people took it deadly serious. Boogeymen were alive and well and scarying kids into believing that the 90’s would never occur (and in some cases I wished it never would, because it sucked ass!)
So in this video store in Long Island Ny. I would see families over at the horror section and being scared into thinking maybe the actors were actually killed (as in Faces of Death). I even thought Texas Chainsaw could have been a snuff film, as ridiculous as that is! I was a nervous wreck at 9 years old, but of course I way too impressionable, I had no idea how less terrifying things were and my overly religious dad didn’t help matters. I thought those families beat their children or didn’t give them proper guidance and maybe didn’t really care about them. I had a twisted view of fantasy and reality( and an over active imagination). The media was a bad parent as well and backwards messages were real, Dungeons and Dragons was a game played by Satanists(not nerds who couldn’t get laid) and Oujii boards really did summon demons with the soundtrack of Judas Priest in the background. I see this poster of Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2 with a gunsight of Qadaffi’s face on the poster and just thought to myself “He must be the star of that film” and he may have been goofed on in Mad Magazine, but it didn’t really hit me yet. For a while by way of Dead Kennedys songs and lies and hearsay I heard that he may have been assassinated, before the internet rumors had more power because you couldn’t tear them apart by way of research. The horror section was a place that I always have been repelled and fascinated by and as years went by I learned to embrace the fear of irrational scares and take its power away. Take away energy like in the 1st Nightmare on Elm Street (which I was so obsessed by that my mom had to take it away from me because I watched it religiously everyday).
As for Gadaffi, I feel odd politically about his death and it makes me think that machines will be doing the job of murder in the wars of the future. If that saves the lives of millions stuck in unnecessary combat then it’s a positive (for our side) but still morally unforgivable, Whoa let me get off this high horse my balls are chaffing!
check out this 80's news example of Gene Siskel freaking out over nothing.
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