The backlash to Ryan Reynolds’ 1980s comments found its viral moment.
A post from X user Kate (@kate_p45), quote-tweeting Variety’s clip of the remarks, is blowing up Thursday â and it goes right at Reynolds’ standing to talk about the decade at all.
“Ryan Reynolds wasn’t American, wasn’t an adult in the ’80s, and wasn’t anywhere near the decade he’s now narrating like a Ken Burns special,” the post reads.
“He was a Vancouver kid. The Cuban Missile Crisis was over before he could tie his shoes. What he ‘spewed’ isn’t memory. It’s press-tour homework for a movie set in a country and a childhood he didn’t have.”
“The ’80s in America were an epic time,” it continues. “Music, movies, sports, cars, comedy, invention, swagger.”
The post ends with the lines getting passed around the most: “Nobody in 1985 was walking around going, ‘Still pretty fresh off the Cuban Missile Crisis.’ That’s a man reciting a Wikipedia sidebar between mint-promo takes. Leave the American ’80s to the people who were there, Ryan.”
Reynolds was born in Vancouver in 1976, making him 13 when the decade ended.
What Reynolds Said
The comments came from Variety’s interview at Tuesday night’s Mayday premiere, where Reynolds said ’80s nostalgia works “almost like you pave over all the trauma with puppy dogs and ice cream.”
“The 80s was a brutal, brutal time for people,” he said, pointing to sociopolitical tensions and the Cuban Missile Crisis being only 15 to 20 years in the rearview.
Dan Bongino, Spencer Pratt, and Sage Steele piled on earlier Thursday, and Reynolds answered the wave with a Nightmare on Elm Street joke, posting an Elm Street sign with the line “I guess my street was different.”
The Movie Behind All This
The reason Reynolds was talking about the ’80s at all: Mayday, his Cold War action comedy with Kenneth Branagh, is set in the decade.
It streams Friday, September 4 on Apple TV.
