80s Die Hard: On Hot Rod & Pop Culture Nostalgia
[Spoiler Alert!]
Hollywood does not want you to forget about the 1980s. In the last decade they have banked hard on nostalgia with countless - and largely forgettable - reboots like Ghostbusters, The Predator and the upcoming Rambo: Last Blood. The sights and sounds of American pop culture have been regurgitated in the form of Stranger Things and Ready Player One. It’s a nostalgia that permeates all Western media, from live TV remakes and popstar biopics, to Marvel’s $2.5 billion grossing Saturday morning cartoon. Like The Terminator, the 80s simply won’t die.
It’s easy to see why. Aided by Hollywood’s unprecedented global reach and the VHS boom, the US created an image of the 1980s as a time of innocence. The Reagan era’s cultural export remains one of the undisputable symbols of ‘better days’: of childhood, and of escapism. It’s an illusion of course, and Hot Rod understands this perhaps better than any other film.
Nobody would blame you for thinking that Hot Rod is a period piece. At first glance, its entire visual identity screams late 80s, yet by all accounts it is set in the present day. People drive modern cars. They use the Internet. This shouldn’t make any sense. Even on paper, Hot Rod has nothing to do with high waisted jeans and Giorgio Moroder.
The film’s original screenplay, written in 2004 by Pam Brady (South Park, Team America: World Police), is hardly rooted in pop culture references, the only exceptions being a Genesis-scored montage and a title sequence described as “Stylized. In a seventies font”. At the time, Hot Rod was to be a Will Ferrell vehicle (yup) about a stunt-obsessed man-child and his loyal, aging crew. It never took off. After gestating for a year at Paramount, SNL creator Lorne Michaels convinced the studio to hand over the project to a then up-and-coming comedy trio. The Lonely Island were suddenly trusted to star in, direct, and completely rewrite a $25 million movie. The core story remained the same: Rod Kimble must perform a death-defying stunt in order to raise enough money for his step-dad’s heart surgery (then finally kick his ass). ‘All of that’, as Akiva Schaffer once put it, ‘the main thread of the main plot, never changed.’
So how do you replace a 40 year old Ferrell with a fresh-faced Samberg? How do you visualise Rod Kimble’s arrested development, now that he’s no longer in mid-life crisis? The Lonely Island found the answer by looking back at the tropes and images of their own childhood. Footloose, The Karate Kid, and the BMX racing film Rad became Hot Rod’s cardinal points.
However, their influence doesn’t stop at overdramatic narrative beats or the absolutely banging soundtrack. Rod’s immaturity and attachment to the past are expressed entirely through 80s iconography. His moped, his karate headbands, his big luscious head of hair. Even his coping mechanisms are 80s-themed: when faced with the impending death of his step-father, he runs off to the forest to channel Kevin Bacon. But this backwardness isn’t limited to the protagonist. It is reflected in the world and people around him. Suburban Town, as it’s only known in Brady’s screenplay, seems to have been at a standstill for 30 years. Its inhabitants are all scared of change - whether it’s losing family, friends, or radio listeners - and find refuge in constancy. Summer vacation at Kellerman’s Resort may have come to an end in Dirty Dancing... but not here.
In the crucial scene when Rod learns that his late father’s exploits were only a story, the bubble bursts. No longer able to glorify the past, he has no choice but to grow up, and the world follows. Shirts, ties, alcohol, SUVs. The whole vibe is off. The night is dark and the lights are hard. For a little while, time finally catches up with Suburban Town.
More than a mere parody or tribute, Hot Rod is a also a loving eulogy to the coming of age cinema of the 80s. It is one of the rare films to actually recapture its feeling of sincerity. Maybe this is because unlike Hollywood’s recent output, this film never pretends to make the 80s new again. It knows they are long gone. It knows there is nothing healthy in idealising the past and wanting to relive your childhood. It knows we have to move on.
We were raised by the 80s, and now we gotta kick their ass.
