Subject: Ryan Reynolds.

I like Ryan Reynolds. Terrible Green Lantern, lousy in the remake of “The Amityville Horror,” but he radiates likability and good humor, and that’s a gift. I especially liked his performance in “Woman in Gold.” But Ryan, who has a new movie out, is being roasted on conservative media and by social media Maga-ites, because of his recent statement about the 1980s.

“Mayday” is Reynolds’ first major movie since “Deadpool & Wolverine” (a disappointment, from my perspective) over two years ago. It’s set as the Cold War was ending thanks to Ronald Reagan, and Reynolds stars as a U.S. Navy pilot who, trapped behind enemy lines, forms a friendship with an eccentric ex-KGB agent (Kenneth Branagh) who loves ’80s American culture. Reynolds told an interviewer that the warm nostalgia surrounding the decade, embodied in shows like “Stranger Things,” misrepresents the turbulent nature of the era:

“When you get far enough away from a time period that’s quite distinct, there’s always a lovely feeling associated with it, almost like you pave over all the trauma with puppy dogs and ice cream. The 80s was a brutal, brutal time for people. It was a fucking mess and people forget that…It was a tremendous strife. Socio political tensions everywhere. We were still pretty fresh off a Cuban missile crisis, which was only 15-20 years before. It’s a tumultuous period, but you look back at it now and you’re like, ‘Oh, yeah. ‘Top Gun.’ Cocaine!’ Like, ‘No!’ It was really scary.”

The mockery has been flying thick and fast. Much of it is unfair and deliberately misrepresents what Reynolds said. Here’s “Not the Bee”: