musical skills. Outlets like MTV, however, repeatedly
exposed viewers to the rich visual references the
band employed. The group’s resulting popularity re-
sulted in its videos receiving coveted spots in the ca-
ble network’s roster of frequently repeated songs.
The band also experimented with several perfor-
mance gimmicks. It created a character named Booji
Boy, a childlike clown persona who sometimes ap-
peared on stage to sing at the end of concerts. Later,
Devo introduced “Dove, the band of love,” a concept
that had Devo open its concerts in the guise of a
Christian rock band.
The popularity peak for Devo came with the video
that accompanied its catchy 1982 tune “Whip It.”
The video was riddled with sexual innuendo and a
surreal Old West setting that summed up the ability
of the band to manipulate and recycle pop culture
icons. After “Whip It,” the popularity of Devo waned.
Devo was consistent, almost relentless, in exploiting
a narrow musical style, and modern music fans are
fickle in their search for novelty. What had been
shocking in 1976 was mild by 1986, and New Wave
music on MTV gave way to heavy metal and mega-
stars like Prince, Madonna, and Michael Jackson.
Devo went on hiatus in 1990, with Mothersbaugh
working on children’s television projects with Pee
Wee Herman and theRugratsshow on the Nickel-
odeon network.
Impact Devo flourished briefly in a pop culture
marketplace where its intelligent wit ultimately
proved to be a liability. Unlike durable pop stars who
periodically reinvent themselves, the group chose to
pursue a unique creative vision and eventually got
left behind as a footnote in the musical history of the
1980’s. At a time when punk and New Wave were
small niche markets, Devo employed simple, catchy
tunes and sophisticated marketing to reach a wide
audience. The band’s success paved the way for
other edgy bands to claim a share of recognition in
the volatile pop music scene of the 1980’s.
Further Reading
Brendan, Masar.The Histor y of Punk Rock. New York:
Lucent Books, 2006.
Reynolds, Simon.Rip It Up and Start Again. New York:
Penguin, 2005.
Michael Polley
See also Music; New Wave music; Pop music; Talk-
ing Heads.
Diets
Definition Regimens of sparing or targeted food
consumption designed to reduce weight or
increase healthInterest in diets and slimmer bodies grew during the 1980’s,
as did belief in the importance of healthy eating habits,
which were not always compatible with popular diets. De-
spite this interest, the number of overweight Americans also
increased.The 1980’s saw the intensification of an interest in
thinness that had been growing since the 1960’s.
Americans spent an estimated $10 billion a year on
diet drugs, diet books, special meals, weight-loss
classes, and exercise videotapes during the 1980’s.
Runway models, actors,Playboycenterfolds, and
beauty queens shrank, as the American ideal of
beauty altered to favor increasingly smaller, thinner
figures.Weight-Loss Regimens of the 1980’s Americans,
both thin and not, turned to diets to shed pounds.
Many diets of the 1980’s, even those promoted by
physicians, were nutritionally unsound and too low
in calories to be sustainable. Weight-loss diets rou-
tinely made best seller lists throughout the decade.
Regimens that had been popular in the 1970’s con-
tinued to find devotees. The low-carbohydrate, high-
protein Atkins diet; the heart-healthy Pritikin pro-
gram; and the Scarsdale diet, which required the
dieter to adhere to a complex two-week plan based on
particular combinations of food groups, remained
popular during the 1980’s. New diets of the decade
included the Stillman diet, which emphasized un-
limited amounts of low-calorie, lean proteins; Mar-
tin Katahn’s rotation diet, which alternated three
plans of varying calories in order to keep the metab-
olism moving; and the Beverly Hills diet, which al-
lowed dieters to eat only fruit for the first ten days.
Storefront weight-loss centers also began to spring
up to compete with the long-established Weight
Watchers. Both Jenny Craig and Nutri/System set
up shop in the early 1980’s.
In addition to diets, calorie-conscious consum-
ers who did not want to change their eating hab-
its resorted to new, reformulated low-fat or low-
calorie products that promised taste without guilt. A
close reading of product labels revealed, however,
that manufacturers frequently compensated for de-288 Diets The Eighties in America