[TV] The 80's - Documentary

[The Clamp]

Really enjoying this from 2016.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07p0f9y/the-80s-with-dominic-sandbrook-2-under-pressure

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Really enjoying this from 2016.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07p0f9y/the-80s-with-dominic-sandbrook-2-under-pressure

Have a look at the weird history channel on you tube, they do a 20 minute programme on each year in the 80s

It’s from an American POV so slightly different

 

[Yes Chef]

Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland have a superb podcast called 'The Rest Is History', I stuck a link on the Prime Minister thread last week but it's well worth seeking out. It's fairly new to me too, so have started seeking out other stuff they've done, so I'll definitely give this a go

 

[mikeyjh]

Been watching and enjoying it - I like, but don't always agree with, Sandbrook's willingness to challenge existing assumptions, a couple spring to mind. Firstly he implied that Thatcher's 1983 election victory had nothing to do with the Falklands war and cited polls of the time as support. It may be the case that people claimed they were voting tory for jobs and the economy but then they're quite unlikely to say they were driven to vote a certain way in an at of patriotism and because 'we' won the war, right?

Secondly, that the boom in consumerism in the 1980s was driven by people not policy Nah.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Watched the episode on the late 80s the other night. Momentous times. Dominic Sandbrook's light touch is excellent

 

[highflyer]

Been watching and enjoying it - I like, but don't always agree with, Sandbrook's willingness to challenge existing assumptions, a couple spring to mind. Firstly he implied that Thatcher's 1983 election victory had nothing to do with the Falklands war and cited polls of the time as support. It may be the case that people claimed they were voting tory for jobs and the economy but then they're quite unlikely to say they were driven to vote a certain way in an at of patriotism and because 'we' won the war, right?

Secondly, that the boom in consumerism in the 1980s was driven by people not policy Nah.

100%.
This was EXACTLY my reaction. It's good entertainment, but he's getting away with murder with some of his sweeping statements. Wrong in both those cases. Especially the second one.

 

[Brian Potter]

There has also been a series on the 80's running on Sky Arts. Tom Hanks is one of the exec producers. Each week has looked at a differing topic (TV , Music (in particular the rise of MVT) and last week AIDS), the next one is politics (so essentially Regan). Obviously an American viewpoint, but that makes it interesting to see things from their perspective. I saw the Sandbrook ones when they first came out.

 

[Stato]

I watched this series when it was first on and Sandbrook drove me up the wall. He is consistently wrong about a lot of stuff that happened in the eighties and seems more motivated by a desire to say things about the decade that have not been said before than by a need to be accurate. When you have lived through things and then watch a historian who was at primary school at the time tell you what happened, you realise that history is no more reliable than contemporary journalism and far more subject to the ideological whim of the writer.

 

[Official Old Man]

The opening prior to getting in to iPlayer, 'do you have a TV license?'
Does anyone say No?

 

[highflyer]

100%.
This was EXACTLY my reaction. It's good entertainment, but he's getting away with murder with some of his sweeping statements. Wrong in both those cases. Especially the second one.

To back up the point about individual choice alone (not) driving increased consumerism through the 80's - here's an interesting essay (trigger warning - it's in the Guardian AND by George Monbiot) with a bit of a local link. Well, I found it interesting anyway:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/15/age-of-obesity-shaming-overweight-people