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Ronald Reagan’s $8million dollar first inaugural reflected the mentality of the decade. Aesthetics, showmanship and imagery were held in extremely high regard by American society and money was the means by which it was achieved. The eighties gave birth to a new age of narcissism whose consumptive, materialistic and self-absorbed values were best represented by the “Yuppies”. A young urban professional’s primary goal was to achieve the American dream regardless of the cost. The old adage “the end justifies the means” is best illustrated in Oliver Stone’s film “Wall Street”. If there is one word that could best sum up the thinking of the decade, it would be “greed”. Movie theatres were filled with films like St. Elmo’s Fire, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink and Less Than Zero which mirrored the materialistic and egotistical attitudes of the thirty something yuppies of the eighties. And for a number of years, the stars of the same blockbuster films like Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald, James Spader, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson and Demi Moore made headlines both on and off the screen. True to the characters they portrayed on the big screen, they lived life on the fast lane, wore designer jeans, cool shades, and drove fast sports cars on their way to Rodeo Drive.
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