Monday, December 22, 2008

On the eve of Valkyrie, revisiting Tom Cruise in Risky Business. - By Stephen Metcalf - Slate Magazine

On the eve of Valkyrie, revisiting Tom Cruise in Risky Business. - By Stephen Metcalf - Slate Magazine: "The '80s did for money what the '60s did for sex. They told a miraculously tempting lie about the curative powers of disinhibition. It took AIDS, feminism, and sociobiology a while to catch up to our illusions about free love. It has taken cronyism, speculation, and manic overleveraging a while to catch up to our illusions about free money. Now that Ponzi capitalism is collapsing in on itself, the perverse disjunction, of saying 'what the fuck' and thereby securing your 'future,' is simply no longer tenable. Risky Business tried to be clear on the fate of the homely virtues once implied by the label 'conservative.' Thrift, patience, deferred gratification, self-reliance—all were about to be swept aside like a cobweb, lost as pitiably as Joel's sexual innocence."