Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Action Park may be a theme park that actually existed from 1978 to 1996.
The 1980s was probably the last decade of unsupervised fun for kids, the documentary notes.
There was no such thing as free range parenting, because free range parenting was just called parenting.
Our parents werent even looking for us.
Youre nostalgic for freedom.
Youre not nostalgic for being hurt.
Youre nostalgic for everything else.
In other words, youre nostalgic for an idealized version of a reality that wasnt quite the reality.
With that nostalgia comes a sense of pride and identity associated with surviving that unencumbered environment.
The 1980s at Action Park is the ultimate example of a moment when recklessness was affirmed.
Real human beings, whose losses are still being felt, did.
But when theyre with their shrink, its just about how fucked-up it was.
But it is truly and literally dangerous to ignore that fact.
We dont realize who the speaker is until later in the film when Esther Larsson says those words.
That phrase jumped out at me.
I wrote it down in my notes.
Then, in parentheses, I added a question afterward: Isnt that also America?
