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1984 was the year of flag-waving patriotism in America [Person jumping up and down holding the American flag]

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Ronald Reagan's reelection campaign rolled out a series of uber patriotic television

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ads that perfectly captured the mood of the nation they showed idealized scenes [Reagan in front of the American flag]

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of everyday American life while a soothing voice over crooned "it's morning

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again in America" yeah like that. Well the majority of Americans ate this message [Girl looks excited]

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up. Guess they were morning people... Well the red white and blue summer of nineteen

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eighty-four found its perfect soundtrack in (singing) born in the USA! [Footage of a beach]

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Born in the USA was a chart-topping new album from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band and if [Record player spins]

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you haven't heard well you should. The title track in particular seemed to

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capture the nationalistic spirit of the moment in its chorus yeah it's like [People stood proudly with the American flag]

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(singing) Born in the USA! Alright we're not Bruce I wont do that again. Many listeners heard

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in the music a rock and roll echo of Ronald Reagan's morning in America. [Girl lying on grass listening to music]

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Even Reagan gave the song and the boss a shout out praising the full throttle

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patriotism. What's funny about this is that though the chorus might seem like a

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flag wavers dream the verses kind of tell the opposite story. The songs are [Person holding up the flag and shouting]

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really about a disillusioned Vietnam vet trying to make it in a broken-down

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America. The chorus is actually meant to be bitterly ironic, well that didn't stop [Veteran begging for food and a home]

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patriotic masses from making it their anthem. You can't blame them Springsteen

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does seriously mumble on those verses. Though meanwhile old-school hip-hop

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artists were also capturing the dark underside of the Reagan era. In 1982 [Person break dancing]

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Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five produced, The Message. A lot of the album

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is fun party music but the title track absolutely captures the raw desperation

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of black urban life in the 1980s. Lyrics describing rats, junkies, [Police car pulls up next to black man]

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broken glass and urine in the streets painted a picture that was more midnight in

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America than morning. On the flip side some artists created songs that [Coin spinning]

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captured the free market love and capitalistic spirit of Reagan's America

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think Madonna's Material Girl where she sings (singing) "we're living in a

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material world and i am a material girl." Well conservative America might not have [Cover art of Madonna's track]

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liked her pointy undergarments but they stood behind her big wet kiss to [Madonna on stage in costume]

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capitalism. One of the most iconic pop culture representations of Reaganism was

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Alex P Keaton the character played by Michael J Fox on the hit sitcom family

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ties. Well Alex Keaton was the teenage son of aging hippie parents who kept a [Photo of Family Ties cast]

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portrait of Richard Nixon at his bedside, subscribed to The Wall Street Journal and

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never went anywhere without his briefcase and a tie. Well the huge [Man walking with a briefcase]

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generation gap between the ultra capitalistic Alex and his parents

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provided family ties with comedy gold through seven primetime seasons on NBC. [Emmy award trophies]

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President Reagan himself once named the show his favorite television program

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although he may have had to resist calling up the cast and giving acting

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tips. And over on the silver screen perhaps one of the best renditions of

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the Reagan era zeitgeist was Oliver Stone's 1987 film Wall Street. Stone [Cover art for the film Wall Street]

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intended it to satirize the free-market philosophies that dominated the 1980s. [Oliver Stone stood on a trading floor]

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But ended up for many viewers glorifying them instead... While the film's most

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magnetic character is a ruthless financier named Gordon Gekko, played by

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Michael Douglas where greed is good all that. Well Douglas's riveting performance [Gordon Gecko sat in his office]

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which won him an Oscar, stole the show transforming the character that Stone

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intended to be a villain into a flawed but compelling hero. In one famous scene [Gecko wearing a mask]

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Gekko delivers a monologue about the power of greed, declaring that greed is

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honest good and empowering. Instead of shaking their heads at the horrors of

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capitalism many audiences cheered. For many it was indeed morning in America [Crowd clapping]

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and the pop culture of the time reflected that, but it's important to

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note that not everybody's agreed on just how sunny of a morning it was and for [Girl wearing sunglasses]

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non morning people it must have been the pits. [Guy holding coffee looking tired]

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