Impact During the 1980’s, the members of Genera-
tion X began to develop their own generational
identity, largely in reaction to the baby boomers that
preceded them. That identity was unique, but it was
not coherent: Generation X was often represented
as merely reacting against the values of the preced-
ing generation without developing values of its own.
Children of the 1980’s rebelling against the values of
the 1960’s became a frequent subject in popular cul-
ture, in such television programs asFamily Ties(1982-
1989) and such feature films asRiver’s Edge(1986).
Subsequent Events The 1980’s ended without nam-
ing the generation it had seen come of age. This
was short-lived, however. Canadian novelist Douglas
Coupland’sGeneration X: Tales for an Accelerated Cul-
ture(1991) produced a name for which the media
had been searching. By the time the novel came out,
the generation had been featured on the cover of
the July 16, 1990, issue ofTimemagazine, under
the label “twentysomething.” That cover showed a
group of black-clad individuals, all looking past one
another in various directions, emphasizing the lack
of coherent self-identity of the new generation.
Further Reading
Craig, Stephen C., and Stephen Earl Bennett, eds.
After the Boom: The Politics of Generation X. Lanham,
Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997.
Owen, Rob.Gen X TV: The Brady Bunch to Melrose
Place. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press,
1997.
Rettenmund, Matthew.Totally Awesome 80’s: A Lexi-
con of the Music, Videos, Movies, TV Shows, Stars, and
Trends of that Decadent Decade.New York: St. Mar-
tin’s Griffin, 1996.
Thau, Richard D., and Jay S. Heflin, eds.Generations
Apart: Xers vs. Boomers vs. the Elderly. Amherst, N.Y.:
Prometheus Books, 1997.
Broderick, Matthew
See also Breakfast Club, The; Business and the econ-
omy in the United States; Cabbage Patch Kids; Cable
television;Challengerdisaster; Children’s television;
Education in the United States;Empire Strikes Back,
The;E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial;Family Ties; Fashions
and clothing; Film in the United States; Marriage
and divorce; MTV; Multiculturalism in education;
Music; Parental advisory stickers; PG-13 rating; Pop
music; Slang and slogans; Teen films; Television;
Toys and games; Video games and arcades.
Genetics research
Identification Scientific investigations of the role,
function, and manipulation of the biochemical
mechanisms governing heredity and variation
in organismsThe 1980’s represented a transition period in the field of ge-
netics, a time during which techniques and technologies de-
veloped in the previous decade were applied to human re-
search. Subsequent applications were at the level of the
genome itself.Scientists’ understanding of the nature of deoxyri-
bonucleic acid (DNA) in general and the genome in
particular dated from the publication of a proposed
structure by James Watson and Francis Crick in- The following decades saw development of
molecular research techniques, first in understand-
ing how DNA encodes genetic information for an or-
ganism, then in beginning to understand how a spe-
cies’s genome is expressed and regulated. The study
of mutations in bacteria and bacterial viruses pro-
vided an overview of the manner in which changes
in an organism’s DNA result in alterations within the
organism itself. Applications of this principle to
more complex biological entities, including humans,
were not immediately possible, given the size and
complexity of these organisms.
Genetic Mapping During the late 1960’s, it was dis-
covered that enzymes obtained from bacteria could
be used to cut strands of DNA at specific locations.
These so-called restriction enzymes were found to
generate specifically sized fragments of DNA based
upon the specific sequence of nucleotides of which
the strand of DNA being cut was composed. Muta-
tions in DNA would result in variations in the pat-
tern of fragmentation generated by these enzymes.
Such “markers” could serve as surrogates in deter-
mining the region in which DNA defects might have
originated, as well as indicating whether or not a spe-
cific mutation was present. Further, linkage maps
were generated, indicating the positions of numer-
ous genes relative to one another.
In 1983, applying these surrogates, James Gusella
and his collaborators demonstrated that the muta-
tion that results in Huntington’s disease was located
near the tip of chromosome 4. As a result, it became
possible to determine whether or not a tested indi-
vidual carried that mutation. In later years, the sameThe Eighties in America Genetics research 407