What's with All the Freakin' Ninjas?

[monroe at mpm.edu]

>From Chuck Klosterman, "What Warren Sapp, Darryl Hannah, and Dave Eggers
Have in Common: Or, What's with All the Freakin' Pirates?," Esquire, Vol.
141, No. 2 (February 2004): 56-58 ...

   "Maybe you haven't noticed, but we are compltely immersed in a pirate
renaissance.  At the moment, there is nothing cooler than pirates.  This
sort of thing happens periodically; you may recall the ninja reniassance of
the mid-eighties.  That was a dynamic era, punctuated by films like Ninja
Academy, American Ninja, and Ninja Phantom Heroes, not to mention the
popularity of the G.I. Joe action figure Storm Shadow, a supercool
white-clad snow ninja who worked as a terrorist for the sinister Cobra
regime.
   "Now, the reason behind the rise in ninja power was always completely
clear: The faceless stealth and absolute freedom of the 'rogue ninja'
symbolized the last bastions of counterculture within the bloated
commercialism of Reagan-era autocracy.  We loved ninjas for the same reasons
we loved Husker Du, the USFL, and the early work of Jason Bateman
(particularly his NBC sitcom It's Your Move).  The ninja could never be
tamed; the ninja gave us hope.  However, things aren't so cut-and-dried with
this pirate rediscovery ...." (p. 56)

http://www.keepmedia.com/pubs/Esquire/2004/02/01/348727