Make My Day: Movie Culture in the Age of Reagan

As we endure a presidency born of the dominant cultural forms of the early 21st century—reality television and social media—let’s reflect on another presidency inspired by the dominant medium of the 20th century, that of Ronald Reagan and the movies! A former Hollywood actor who parlayed a finely-tuned ability to hit his mark into a political career that led from the governorship of California to the White House, Reagan fused spectacle and politics to seize hold of the American popular imagination and consequently shape the world we inhabit now. In his latest riveting cultural history, Make My Day: Movie Culture in the Age of Reagan, J. Hoberman surveys the psychic landscape of Reagan’s America from the child-like nostalgia of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to the painful reckoning with Vietnam in the violent action fantasies starring Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. One of our foremost film critics, Hoberman weaves a magisterial account of the era’s transformative events together with incisive readings of its pop cultural touchstones to craft a galvanizing take on Reagan and his legacy. The Archive is pleased to host Hoberman for this two-night series including a book signing before each show beginning at 6:30 p.m. in the lobby of the Billy Wilder Theater.