# Nothing new in American art/culture since 1980? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 11, 2020, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-new-in-american-art-culture-since-1980/920377 "2020-09-11T21:53:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2020, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-new-in-american-art-culture-since-1980/920377/61 "2020-09-13T18:38:12Z")
> [@bump](#): > > My suspicion is that it has something to do with the Internet paradoxically allowing for greater splintering/niche-ing of art/cultural forms, and also managing to totally homogenize what’s “mainstream” at the same time. Agreed, and said better than the way I was trying to put it. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2020, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-new-in-american-art-culture-since-1980/920377/62 "2020-09-13T22:16:03Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Perhaps what you’re remembering is that Amanda Bearse, who played Marcy, is gay. But the character of Marcy was straight. > [@Pantastic](#): > > I think what you’re thinking of is that the actor who played Marcy came out as a lesbian in 1993, after the show had been running for six years, and they later did an episode where she played her own lesbian cousin. Al and Jefferson definitely had a bromance, but he was never portrayed as gay on the show. After sleeping on it, I was thinking of a Three’s Company ripoff or spin-off with (I think) Ted Baxter playing the Mr Furley dad type with McGinley playing the Jack Tripper type but the twist is McGinley’s character was actually gay. I have no idea if any of that faulty memory even exists, in an “alternate ending to Big” kind of sense. Just totally memory misfire I think. Let’s go to google and see how badly my memory did… The show I was mixing up with MWC was called Too Close for Comfort, and the dad was played by Ted Knight. (Ted Baxter, of course, was the character he played on Mary Tyler Moore.) McGinley wasn’t even on it. Jim J Bullock was. And his character wasn’t gay, he was. (Just like Amanda Bearse.) Man I really whiffed that one. Otherwise, fair points, **Pantastic**. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2020, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-new-in-american-art-culture-since-1980/920377/63 "2020-09-13T22:25:50Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > McGinley wasn’t even on it. Jim J Bullock was. You weren’t alone on this one. I remember _Too Close for Comfort_ and I also thought McGinley played Munroe on that show. Checking this on Wikipedia, I was also surprised to find out that Ted Knight had a sitcom where his character ran an escort service. How did that slip my notice? ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2020, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-new-in-american-art-culture-since-1980/920377/64 "2020-09-13T23:16:35Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > The show I was mixing up with MWC was called Too Close for Comfort, and the dad was played by Ted Knight. (Ted Baxter, of course, was the character he played on Mary Tyler Moore.) McGinley wasn’t even on it. Jim J Bullock was. And his character wasn’t gay, he was. (Just like Amanda Bearse.) Yeah, it was common to have someone who ‘reads gay’ as the butt of jokes about how unmanly he is, and that wasn’t a big deal. It was still considered workable through the 90s but going out of style, and by the 2010s I don’t think it’s at all common anymore. It was fine to have someone who seems gay or is gay to laugh at them, you could have them as a villain, or a victim of a crime, or a weird outsider, but you couldn’t have one as a main character, and definitely wouldn’t have one who is legally married and a police captain. In the 80s you could probably do a skit or episode where you treat the idea of a gay police captain and/or gay marriage as an absurd joke, but it was definitely not something you’d play straight. (No pun intended). ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-new-in-american-art-culture-since-1980/920377/65 "2020-09-14T00:39:39Z")
> [@razordance](#): > > Reflecting on this, I do note that, allowing for technological advances, movies made in the 1980s seem a lot more like movies made now than do movies made in the 1970s. It is hard to imagine anyone in Hollywood now producing anything as boldly innovative as “The Godfather” or “Jaws” or even (pre-franchise) “Star Wars.” Taika Waititi? Guillermo del Toro? Alex Garland? Bong Joon Ho? Denis Villeneuve? Christopher Nolan? ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-new-in-american-art-culture-since-1980/920377/66 "2020-09-14T00:59:20Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > Hell even sony and ms arent even touting the graphics on the new systems because there nor honestly much different that the ones before it at the base level Say what? Both Sony and MS have been consistently touting 4k HDR gaming with up to 120 fps and both have focused on how they handle ray tracing. Next Gen graphics has been a key to their marketing efforts. This does make me wonder if people are just ignoring big changes. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-new-in-american-art-culture-since-1980/920377/67 "2020-09-14T01:30:41Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > > [@flurb](#): > > > > All the chatter in the last ten to twenty years is that we’re going through a renaissance in television, with shows like The Sopranos, Mad Men and Breaking Bad elevating the medium from the hacky tropes of yesteryear to “Prestige TV.” > > If those are the shows elevating the medium, then IMHO you are making the OPs case. The Sopranos, for example, ran from 21 years ago to 13 years ago. It doesn’t particularly strike me as being an “old school” show. On the other hand, let’s take the perspective of the person in 1999 when The Sopranos was starting. 20 years prior to that, they might have been watching Little House on the Prairie. > > In other words, the OP was off about what year culture began stagnating. I’d put the year somewhere in the late 1990s rather than 1980. Other than being off by about 15-20 years though, I think the OP is correct. > > Someone else mentioned Taylor Swift’s music. Sure it’s revolutionary compared to 1980, but is her music really that much different than what was on the radio in 1999 or 2000? I don’t think her music is all that different than say, 1999 era Britney Spears. Hip hop was also mentioned. Yes, today’s hip hop is very different than say, MC Hammer or Ton Loc, but compared to the Notorious BIG or Tupac Shakur not so much. > > Fashion is the same way. If you show me three pictures of a group of ordinary people, from 1985, 1999, and today, I’d be able to pick out 1985 easily, but 1999 vs. today would be a 50/50 guess. Every time I watch an episode of Friends I am very aware of how dated the fashion back then was. Similarly old school rap, even in the late 90s is interesting in the very little electronic influences on the music (which is everywhere in hip hop these days). I don’t think 2010s Kanye, or Kendrick Lamar, or Drake sounds like late 90s rap. Taylor Swift tends to reach back in nostalgia quite a bit herself so I don’t know if I’d necessarily use her as a great example. When it comes to TV, I do think shows like Arrested Development and Community show very different ways of the sitcom. Fleabag is also an example of shows that really lean into postmodernism. I also do think thinking male anti hero stories of Mad Men and Breaking Bad and Sopranos (arguably years ahead of it’s time) have been eclipsed somewhat. Shows like Handmaid’s Tale, Marvelous Mrs. Maisal, Watchmen are very different from 2000 drama. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-new-in-american-art-culture-since-1980/920377/68 "2020-09-14T11:22:25Z")
Just on the Visual Arts side, cheap microcontrollers and other components have meant there’s been a recent wave of interactive and mobile art. That certainly wasn’t a thing in the 80s. Sure, there were _some_ stabs at interactivity, before that, but as a new art movement, it’s only the last couple decades where it’s taken off. And that’s just one part of the New Media art movement. Other stuff like glitch art, datamoshing and BioArt are also emerging fields. Only someone not actually linked to the visual arts world would think it’s stagnated. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-new-in-american-art-culture-since-1980/920377/69 "2020-09-14T11:36:17Z")
And that’s just focusing on technique. On the theory side, Relational Aesthetics would be the new hotness. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-new-in-american-art-culture-since-1980/920377/70 "2020-09-14T17:23:18Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Relational Aesthetics Well, it comes from a 1998 book by Nicolas Bourriaud covering bodies of already existing art so it’s new-ish at best. And I have some doubts about how new it was even then. From [this article](https://hyperallergic.com/18426/wtf-is-relational-aesthetics/): > The most famous work, and probably the most famous practitioner, is Argentinean-born Thai artist Rikrit Tiravanija’s first untitled solo show at 303 Gallery, New York in 1992. During the length of that exhibition, Tiravanija cooked Thai food for visitors in a kitchen set up within the gallery. The food is the art, but not in the fine cuisine sense: “it is not what you see that is important but what takes place between people,” Tiravanija says. The communal experience of cooking and eating the food becomes the object on display, under the direction of the artist, who acts as a sort of experience “curator,” or maybe “ringmaster” would be a better term. That sounds very much like the kind of art that Yoko Ono was doing in the 1960s, when she was already part of a group’s aesthetics. Admittedly, the article says that Relational Aesthetics is accepted as a sub-genre (but not a movement). But the proper question is: so what? I don’t think anyone here has said that new sub-genres of art stopped appearing in 1960. That would be ludicrous. The supposed stagnation lies in the way these small sub-genres have not broken out into the larger culture and become influential outside of their own province. I mentioned the dominant styles of previous decades, all of which could be seen across multiple medias and were given headline attention in popular media so that their aesthetics were familiar to all literate readers. None of that happens today, except for a rare few exceptions. What percent of people could tell you what Relational Aesthetics is? Not even 1%. Maybe not even 0.1%. I’d bet that a thousand sub-genres of art have developed since, say, Andy Warhol. The culture made him extraordinarily famous. How many other artists since then could people name? You can’t dodge the issue by saying that art is for small in-groups who obsess about these things. That’s always been true. It’s the way that art once broke large and no longer does that’s the issue that Kurt Anderson and others are speaking to. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-new-in-american-art-culture-since-1980/920377/71 "2020-09-14T17:55:54Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Well, it comes from a 1998 book by Nicolas Bourriaud covering bodies of already existing art so it’s new-ish at best. Bourriard (and others) have gone on to refine and expand the idea, it’s not just one book. And my point, as I made quite clear, wasn’t the works, it was the theory. > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > What percent of people could tell you what Relational Aesthetics is? Not even 1%. Maybe not even 0.1%. What percentage could have told you (accurately) what Impressionism was, or knew the difference between a Minimalist painting and an Abstract Expressionist one (of a Colour Field tendency), when those were current? > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I’d bet that a thousand sub-genres of art have developed since, say, Andy Warhol. The culture made him extraordinarily famous. How many other artists since then could people name? I’m pretty damn sure more people know Banksy than Warhol… ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-new-in-american-art-culture-since-1980/920377/72 "2020-09-14T17:56:53Z")
There is very rarely anything really “new” … things are always derivative, taking existing ingredients and mixing them in new ways, geometric transformations (translations, rotations even) of the shapes of existing concepts into new domains, but they still are not new. What is different now is more the lessening of an overwhelming aesthetic and more splintering of the cultural zeitgeist. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-new-in-american-art-culture-since-1980/920377/73 "2020-09-14T18:21:05Z")
If you can’t see the differences between now and the 80’s, especially in fashion, you’re blind. Just open a yearbook. Shows like Stranger Things wouldn’t be possible if there weren’t marked differences. And the special effects of Stranger Things wouldn’t have been possible in the 80s (though you probably could have told a similar story). Music has changed a lot too. TV by huge amounts. The 80’s was very much it’s own decade. If today is similar to the 80’s at all, it’s because of tons of homages to all things 80s. Hugely popular songs like Blinding lights are direct love letters to the 80s. 90’s less so, but that’s to be expected since it’s closer. I will admit there has been a stagnation during the 2000s. There is much less difference between the 2000 and the 2010s than there is between the 1970s and 1980s. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-new-in-american-art-culture-since-1980/920377/74 "2020-09-14T18:29:33Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I’m pretty damn sure more people know Banksy than Warhol… One data point is not a trend. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-new-in-american-art-culture-since-1980/920377/75 "2020-09-14T18:29:52Z")
The South Korean band BTS has already reached number 1 on the Billboard charts — several times. That’s the sort of thing I don’t think could have happened even 10 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-new-in-american-art-culture-since-1980/920377/76 "2020-09-14T19:13:49Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > But the proper question is: so what? I don’t think anyone here has said that new sub-genres of art stopped appearing in 1960. That would be ludicrous. The supposed stagnation lies in the way these small sub-genres have not broken out into the larger culture and become influential outside of their own province. I mentioned the dominant styles of previous decades, all of which could be seen across multiple medias and were given headline attention in popular media so that their aesthetics were familiar to all literate readers. None of that happens today, except for a rare few exceptions. What percent of people could tell you what Relational Aesthetics is? Not even 1%. Maybe not even 0.1%. But (coming back to the thread topic) that’s a trend in art across the entire world, not just a US phenomenon. Changes in the way the larger culture interacts with the art community across the globe doesn’t say much about a supposed freeze of specifically American culture and art like the OP believes has happened. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-new-in-american-art-culture-since-1980/920377/77 "2020-09-14T19:48:17Z")
A lot of what you’re describing is really because they’re touting different stuff than they used to. Back in the day, it was all about the resolution and the color depth (“1024x768 in 32 bit COLOR!”) and how games/monitors/computers could handle that. At some point in the past 20 years, it’s shifted significantly toward something that’s not as immediately obvious- rendering performance for GPUs. Now it’s “Can crank 90 fps @ 1920x1024”, with the 32 bit color and the rest assumed. Rest assured, the computer game graphics treadmill has not slowed much, unlike the rest of the PC. Used to be that if you played video games, you kind of had to upgrade your entire system somewhat frequently, as the requirements were constantly pushing upward. At some point, the hardware got out ahead of the software, and it’s been a much slower upgrade cycle since about 2008-ish for everything BUT graphics hardware. That stuff’s still ripping along as ever. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-new-in-american-art-culture-since-1980/920377/78 "2020-09-14T20:06:54Z")
> [@Ashtura](#): > > There is much less difference between the 2000 and the 2010s than there is between the 1970s and 1980s. I will note that the first iPhone came out in 2007. Netflix streaming started in 2007/8. Both were considered interesting new technology, but neither tech (smartphones or streaming) dominated culturally as they do now. How many cultural touchstones are based on streaming media or something captured or made to be consumed on a smartphone? The ubiquitous use of smartphones have resulted in an explosion of social media (though Facebook was founded in 2004 and Twitter in 2006, they didn’t capture the mainstream until the 2010s). And the splintering of the culture was led by those changes. Not to mention Spotify came out in 2008, but streaming music did not become mainstream until the 2010s. I think there has been a massive change and difference in popular culture between the 2000s and 2010s as a result of those massive technological changes. (I’m not entirely sure it is due to technology, but there has been a casual-ization of American culture - office dress down policies really started to ramp up in the 2010s. Even business casual seems passe in a lot of offices these days - and I wonder if it’s the result of successful Silicon Valley companies which have become huge having most employees, and even CEOs, wear jeans and t-shirts). ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-new-in-american-art-culture-since-1980/920377/79 "2020-09-14T20:12:53Z")
Yes, the “face in the phone” thing is definitely not as prevalent in the 00’s than the 10s. I also think part of why fashion is stagnating is BECAUSE of silicon valley. We are part of the first generation where billionaires dressed like regular shlubs. There isn’t really much motivation anymore for men at least to dress “nice”. And tshirts and jeans are timeless. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2020, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-new-in-american-art-culture-since-1980/920377/80 "2020-09-14T20:22:19Z")
> [@Ashtura](#): > > Yes, the “face in the phone” thing is definitely not as prevalent in the 00’s than the 10s. It’s more than that though. We are consuming more and more things virtually. People are buying less and less physical media. They are streaming movies, TV shows, music, and gaming is going in that direction (right now a good amount of gaming is digital but not streaming per se). And you can bring your virtual media with you everywhere you go. And yes there is a ‘face in a phone’ thing, but that can be as atomizing as it can be social (how many times have people shared a meme or video from their phones; and in other country social movements, how often has a chat app become a lifeline for the protest?) People just seem to live differently than they did in the 2010s. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-new-in-american-art-culture-since-1980/920377.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nothing-new-in-american-art-culture-since-1980/920377.md?page=5)