MetaChat - Generation Xers: Help me list our life stories in film.

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02 March 2006

Generation Xers: Help me list our life stories in film. →[More:]So last night I'm at the pub with some friends. We were discussing the sad story of someone I know who's close to our age (we're all 34-36)who has just been diagnosed with a serious illness that is sometimes terminal. So we were talking about how this is the age when a lot of people start having health scares, health problems, and other sudden confrontations with mortality.

It made me think of 'The Big Chill'. That movie was huge for my parents' generation; and I suddenly realized that when that film came out, my parents were about my age, and it spoke to exactly what they were going through at the time. Which is one reason it was so huge (the great soundtrack and generational injokes were additional reasons, functioning as kind of a high school reunion for 60 million people). But anyway: it was their generations' cultural artifact about the midlife realization of mortality.

What's ours? It may be that we haven't got one yet. But I strongly believe that every generation tells its rites of passage in pop culture, whether in song, theatre, art, or whatever. As far as film goes, we were able to identify some of the iconic films that tell the story of Gen X rites of passage. For high school, there's The Breakfast Club. For post-college, Reality Bites. For adult relationship-forming time, there's High Fidelity. So is there a mortality flick? Or hasn't it been made yet? And what are we missing from the list?

post by: Miko at: 21:22 | 15 comments

Strange you should mention this, miko, as I've often thought that there's not yet been a film, really, that would be to X'ers as "The Big Chill" was to baby boomers.

However, as a gay man in his early 40s, I could list many mortality flicks for you. "And The Band Played On" still makes me cry like a baby. When Richard Gere looks out the window down at the Halloween parade in Greenwich Village and says, softly, "the party's over," my heart just shatters.

I also cried harder and was made painfully aware of my own mortality--more than one would probably expect--at "Untamed Heart". The use of the song "Nature Boy" in that flick just KILLED me. Not a "defining" flick, but there you are.

posted by WolfDaddy 02 March | 21:29

Heathers? ; >

Maybe that movie with Keanu? River's Edge? You guys aren't really old enough yet...you're only just now hitting middle age.

(i'm with Wolf tho--AIDS made mortality flicks a dime a dozen for us--but we're more cusp than pure genX)

posted by amberglow 02 March | 21:39

No, I know we're not 'really old', amberglow. But historically, the mid-to-late 30s is when most generations start saying hey, we're not getting out of this alive.

I do think AIDS has changed our view of mortality, and certainly we have seen that young people can die, too. But there may still be a distinction, in that the perception is that AIDS can be completely prevented by behavioral change, whereas cancer, heart disease, etc., may just strike you regardless of how you've lived. In other words, even people who have always felt invincible because their behaviors didn't put them at risk are realizing that we all have 100% risk of death anyway.

posted by Miko 02 March | 21:43

I told miko that I think it will be a few more years because we're just turning 40 and it takes a few years for movies to be made. I mentioned the book The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, in the sense that it deals with parents aging and dying, and I think that's what's going to hit us first, and make us realize our own mortality. But maybe I just speak for myself here.

posted by matildaben 02 March | 21:56

Harold & Maude will always be my mortality movie.

Donnie Darko could be another one for people our age, though it's not anout natural death per se, so maybe that's not mortality.

posted by BoringPostcards 02 March | 21:56

Everything John Hughes?

posted by mudpuppie 02 March | 22:02

Also, I know I'm a statistical outlier here, but I've (thankfully) made it to 41 and never lost a friend to AIDS. I do have one younger friend who's HIV+, though, so I know that day will come. :P

posted by BoringPostcards 02 March | 22:04

St. Elmo's Fire. As lame as it is, it's our Big Chill.

and yeah, I identify as gen X and not as boomer, because my way older boomer brother says I don't have a generation.

posted by mygothlaundry 02 March | 22:22

Less Then Zero.

Except I don't have a huge coke/valium habit, I don't drive an expensive car or wear expensive sweaters, nor do I have a bunch of superficial, self-created drama to whinge about.

Ok, so that one is out.

Slackers? Err, no. Amusing, but no.

The Breakfast Club? Ok, maybe, but, eh. Viewing that film now it's actually pretty difficult to identify with the story or characters. I don't even really remember what High School was truly like except for 4 years of dreary sucktitude. It certainly didn't involve any Molly Ringwalds or Ally Sheedys dancing around or otherwise looking so damn cute that they were edible, nay, a required nutrient.

I think that the thing that makes finding some identifying cultural touchstone so difficult is that more then ever gen x embraced individuality and became such strong-willed individuals that there is so much diversity in sub-culture, personality and individuals that there really is no touchstone to be found.

There is no center. No applicable labels. No catagory large enough or accurate enough to contain more then one person or, at the most, a few.

And frankly, I wouldn't have it any other way.

posted by loquacious 02 March | 23:06

I'm with mudpuppie. John Hughes defined our generation. However...

My Life Story Told in Film, from Birth to a Couple Years Ago
Look Who's Talking (heh)
The Little Rascals
Goonies
Taps (just kidding)
Sixteen Candles
Say Anything
Real Genius (not really, but I can't think of a good one for my college years)
Singles
High Fidelity

I'd go right up to today, but I can't think of a good one to fit my current situation.

posted by me3dia 03 March | 01:03

Four Weddings and a Funeral?

Slice of life contemporary set ensemble cast dramas are a bit out of favor, it seems. One could make a case for Fight Club or Gladiator as a defining Death Movie. And that could be a reflection of the conservative, militaristic phase we're going through at the moment. I could also mention Six Feet Under as dealing with these themes in a meaningful, contemporary way.

posted by rainbaby 03 March | 08:11

Sorry Miko, don't mean to be disrespectful of your sad situation, but it must be done:

bigchillbuns

posted by rainbaby 03 March | 08:12

Rent?

posted by sisterhavana 03 March | 09:41

rainbaby: OMG funny.

posted by Miko 03 March | 10:47

There is no center. No applicable labels. No catagory large enough or accurate enough to contain more then one person or, at the most, a few

Well, the same was true of the boomers and the WWII generation, regardless of the way we've lumped them together monolithically in memory. People have always been individuals. Still, pop culture is widely accessible and widely used. I don't really think we're as unique as we'd like to believe.

The odd thing with Gen X is that numbers are against us. In marketing terms, we have never been "worth" aiming a lot of product at. There are roughly 60 million baby boomers, and 40 million "Y-ers" or whatever they're called, but only about 16 million Xers, if I remember rightly. So Hollywood studios, record labels, clothing manufacturers, etc, have often not bothered spending a lot of money trying to capture our attention. In my opnion, that's one of the biggest reasons why our generation spawned the indie/small-time/zine/DIY thing...no one was doing much for us, so we had to do it for ourselves.

I realized that "Clerks" and "The Muppet Movie" should probably be on the list, as well.

posted by Miko 03 March | 10:50

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