Repo Man. Repo Man. Repo Man. What to do with you? Are you the anti-Regan era rejecting the nostalgic notions of the conservative 50s and a backhand to the resurgence of the Cold War anxieties? Are you a postmodern "youth culture" film about how there is no ideological point-of-view? Or are you a crazy, campy 80s film that was only a small budget over from becoming a Troma or one of the other extremely low budget scifi punk films a la Return of the Living Dead? Something tells me that you have become a hybrid beast of all of the above, Repo Man. But still,what to do with you?
What have low budget B-movie films of the past taught us? Don't judge a really outlandish and poor production value as something dismissible with nothing to say. Repo Man has plenty to say in a short 90-some minutes. For starters, aliens are among us and killing us all! The other is yet again introduced to us, this time it is channeled back to the 50s, an era Reganites would be proud of, or would they? Taking the fear of the other and making them comical (a glowing alien in the trunk of a car evaporates you. There. Is. No. Way this is supposed to be taken seriously) completely negates the anxieties and frankly makes anyone who ever believed in them look stupid. Bring in Regan, who according to the article, was campaigning the idea that the Communists were an evil empire and brought production of the neutron bomb, which would not destroy buildings, only people. This idea of buildings not being destroyed ties to the 80s submergence of mass consumerism. Hey the people might be dead but at least there's still malls to shop in! The bomb is tied to a scientist who just had a lobotomy and drives around like a mad man with alien bodies in the trunk. Resurgence of anxieties of the other and atomic warfare are flipped on their heads. Pair that with the idea that this car, a Chevy Malibu, is being tied to a $20,000 reward and I'd say the 80s culture is being packaged and satirized nicely with a neat little bow. The ultimate goal of the repossession characters is not to get behind what devious plot the government is planning or stop the a war, or bring down the other. It is to get a sweet car and a boatload of cash.
Then we have Otto and the rest of the punks. Past youth culture films like The Wild One that deals with delinquents, but they are delinquents that have a goal. The ideal world for Marlon Brando's character is the open road, freedom, and the girl. In Repo Man there does not seem to be an ideal. Yes, they are out for money. But they also are doing things just to do them. The apathetic attitude Otto has towards his job most of the time gives the feeling that he could care less if he was fired. The punks just want to commit crimes. Yes money is involved but they do things just to do them. They do not have a hierarchy of ideals. They are lost. They do not find anything serious. They embody the postmodern 80s youth.
To wrap up, it seems that playful nature with Regan nostalgia and the rebel without a cause or care oozes with postmodernism and wants to showboat the silliness of the anxieties the 50s and 80s allowed to become overwhelmed in. Apathy is cool, man. Now, let's go commit some crimes.
