Hollywood & American Movies: Defining ‘Cool’ Since the 1980s

Say “Hasta la vista, baby” or “May the force be with you” to a person under the age of 40 anywhere in the world and the recognition, perhaps even bond, is instant. Neither expression is English — not exactly — but both are American, dreamed into existence by visionary storytellers, performers, and movie studios free of official quotas or mandates.

Thanks to those catchphrases and a something called a VCR, I saw an American. My friend’s mother brought this curious device from Poland, which in 1987 was as far west as one could stray from the Soviet Union. The man’s carefree grin beamed through the screen’s barbed tracking lines and into our imaginations. “I can’t sit here while I go nowhere,” sang Patti LaBelle as he drove down a sundrenched street of endless palm trees and flashing designer labels, bewildered as we were at this sparkling city where people smiled for no apparent reason. His name was Eddie Murphy, an actor playing a Detroit cop — transported, in his own way, to the American dream factory.

SV

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Steven Volynets

Steven Volynets is a writer and critic.

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Say “Hasta la vista, baby” or “May the force be with you” to a person under the age of 40 anywhere in the world and the recognition, perhaps even bond, is instant. Neither expression is English — not exactly — but both are American, dreamed into existence by visionary storytellers, performers, and movie studios free of official quotas or mandates.

Thanks to those catchphrases and a something called a VCR, I saw an American. My friend’s mother brought this curious device from Poland, which in 1987 was as far west as one could stray from the Soviet Union. The man’s carefree grin beamed through the screen’s barbed tracking lines and into our imaginations. “I can’t sit here while I go nowhere,” sang Patti LaBelle as he drove down a sundrenched street of endless palm trees and flashing designer labels, bewildered as we were at this sparkling city where people smiled for no apparent reason. His name was Eddie Murphy, an actor playing a Detroit cop — transported, in his own way, to the American dream factory.