Luke Perry Will Always Be My '8 Seconds' Hero
The phenomenon that is Beverly Hills, 90210 is admittedly a blind spot in my pop culture repertoire. And while I love Riverdale, I haven't kept up with it as closely as I'd like. So when the news of Luke Perry's passing popped up in my notifications, I wasn't shaken at the loss of Dylan McKay or Fred Andrews. I'm in the smaller group of people who remembers him as Lane Frost-the admirable protagonist in a decidedly not-great movie. But to a five-year-old with a (momentary) dream to be a cowboy, Luke Perry was the end all, be all. And even though I'm more in line these days to write about fictional cowboys as opposed to ever being one, the passing of Luke Perry still feels a bit like a losing a hero.
Growing up in Tennessee, I was pumped at the idea of 8 Seconds, a rodeo movie that followed the life of bull rider Lane Frost. East Tennessee is more of a land of mountain dwellers as opposed to cowboys, but the hype felt transferrable. In the bull riding circuit, Lane Frost was a bit of a prodigy. He managed to land qualifying rodeo scores on Red Rock, a bull notorious for never allowing a rider to get a full eight second ride in. But Frost met his surprisingly and untimely death in 1989 after getting rammed in the back by a bull.
Five years later, Frost was immortalized in 8 Seconds. Perry played the prolific bull rider, flanked by costars like Stephen Baldwin and Carrie Snodgrass. Renée Zellweger landed one of her first film roles in the movie as a character named "Buckle Bunny." In short, 8 Seconds wasn't going to go on to win any awards, but it's the kind of movie you idolize as a kid. The '90s were a time when the Hollywood legend of the American cowboy was starting to be overshadowed by more popular characters and plots; Lane Frost (or at least Perry's depiction of him) felt like the tail end of an era.
I missed the 90210 window by a few years, but the image of Perry as a cowboy, gesturing to fans with waving fingers, is one that's seared in my brain. I wasn't old enough to fully understand what happened to Lane Frost, but I knew that this cool guy in '90s Western wear was who I wanted to be. Lane Frost was the pinnacle of American cowboy to me, and until I was taught later on to nitpick and criticize film, 8 Seconds remained one of my favorite movies.
I decided to turn 8 Seconds on in the background when the announcement of Perry's death came through during work yesterday. That was my connection to the '90s icon-and that's how I wanted to remember him, you know? The cheesier parts of the movie hit you a little harder when there's been a few years between viewings. Lines like "His legacy is rodeo, cowboy is his name" are especially easy to laugh at, but as the movie came to an end, the parallels between Lane Frost and Luke Perry didn't seem as farfetched as I might have originally thought.
Lane Frost was only 25 years old when he died at the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo, and yet, he did so much more with that short amount of time than most people could. In the same vein, 52 years-old feels like too soon to say goodbye to an actor that did so much for some many people's lives. There are still teen icons and people teens worship on social media, but with the passing of Perry also comes the passing of a particular '90s fandom in the way we remember it. With such a short amount of time under his belt, Luke Perry managed to create a legacy that spans across generations-whether you know him as Dylan McKay or Fred Andrews, or the oft-forgot Lane Frost.
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