Former reality television personality Spencer Pratt, an unsuccessful Los Angeles mayoral candidate, posted a reply after actor Ryan Reynolds described the 1980s as a difficult era during promotion of his Cold War film Mayday at its New York premiere. Reynolds, born in 1976, turned 14 as the decade ended, while Pratt, born in 1983, had not yet reached his teens.

Pratt argued that Reynolds sees that period opposite to how most people recall it, because films then treated villains as villains rather than recasting wrongdoing or mental illness as sympathetic, and he contrasted traditional hero pictures such as Top Gun with Reynolds work as an antihero.

Film critic Christian Toto told Fox News that Pratt comment points to a real split in American culture over whether recent movies and shows that invite audiences to cheer hit men and other villains have harmed society.