Word: earnestness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Washington scandal does not yet have a memorable name, but it does have a face. It is a boyishly all-American face, the clear-eyed, clean-cut face that might be that of the second leading man in a 1940s war movie -- the intensely earnest but good-natured copilot who refuses to bail out under enemy fire. A face that appears, at first glance, to be a map of old-fashioned American virtues...
...good thing that can be said of staid morality, however, is that it is the perfect target for parody--a fact that did not escape the wittier Victorians. Some of the brightest comedy ever written--for example, Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest--was forged during this era of moral gloom...
...Hodel approves the plan, as is expected, it will go before Congress, where supporters of the two interest groups will clash in earnest. "It is an enormous land-use decision," says Fish and Wildlife Spokesman Phil Million. "At stake is the largest remaining U.S. reserve of oil (and) a fragile ecosystem. The issue will be the environmental battle of the late...
...more than enough to raise dread echoes of the word so often tossed around in hyperbole, so rarely in earnest: Watergate. The parallels might be exaggerated -- this scandal, after all, was announced by the Administration rather than forced out by the courts -- but they were there just the same. Once again there were rumors of documents being destroyed (by North and Poindexter). Once again the White House was resisting demands for a special prosecutor (now called independent counsel) put forth by Congressmen who did not trust the Administration to investigate itself. Once again congressional hearings were getting ready to launch...
...beginning was Gentleman's Agreement, in which Nice Goy Gregory Peck pretended to be Jewish, the better to write an earnest indictment of anti- Semitism for a magazine. Now, almost 40 years later, comes Mark Watson (C. Thomas Howell), overdosing on tanning pills and learning what it feels like to be black. But Mark is no gentleman: short of funds, he is out to obtain a scholarship to Harvard Law School intended for a black student. And the only agreement the filmmakers have reached is to aim for safe mediocrity...