Hands Across America

I just saw the movie Us today and now I can't get that "Hands Across America" song out of my mind. The song isn't actually played in the movie, but I looked it up on You Tube and watched the video. Clearly, that was a mistake. If you've seen the movie, you know that whole Hands Across America thing from 1986 is a big part of the film. For you kids who weren't alive in 1986 or don't remember it, some guy put together a charity thing and wanted people across America to hold hands in unity and, lo and behold, people did it. This is the kind of thing that would never work today, but back in the 1980s, people were big on things like this. We had Live Aid and We Are the World. People actually came together to raise money for various causes like feeding starving people in Africa. There's too much cynicism and division in the country today for something like this to work now, but back then, this kind of thing was huge. And there was no Internet or anything, so people organized things the old fashioned way, through advertising on television, radio, and print media.