Random header image... Refresh for more!

“Hello, You’ve Reached the Winter of Our Discontent”

by Scott H. Payne

The question from last night’s excellent drunken move night that still vexes me (which I posted on twitter last night and am reposting here): if Reality Bites is the quintessential movie of Generation X, what is the quintessential movie of Generation Y?

Update: Garden State has been suggested by a couple of people, which seems like a good call. To be honest, I’ve only ever seen bits and pieces of Garden State, so I’m a poor judge.

For my own money, I would throw either of the Harold and Kumar movies out as contenders, which isn’t a slight against Gen-Yers at all. There were a bunch of reviews of H&K Escape from Gitmo that talked about how subtley smart the films actually are and what nuanced social commentary they contain. I think that speaks a great deal to the sensibility of millenials who like any generation question the assumptions and point out the blind spots of their predecessors. But as icons of their generation, Harold and Kumar have dropped the obligatory angst and handle what comes their way with a sort of cool aplomb.

Besides, Harold and Kumar heralded the mighty return of NPH, and for that alone they surely deserve a place in history

Share and Enjoy

Random Posts...

Tags | Generation X, Generation Y, reality bites

13 comments

1 talboito { 02.28.09 at 6:29 pm }: Clearly nothing can be more instructive of the power of self absorption
as Garden State.
2 Scott H. Payne { 02.28.09 at 6:42 pm }: Yes, Garden State was one of the contenders mentioned last night. I should also mention that I’m not sold on the idea that Reality Bites is the Gen-X movie. There remains a very warm place in my heart for The Breakfast Club, which I think often gets unfairly relegated to the sub-genre of “Best 80’s Movies”.

You simply cannot beat John Bender as an anti-hero.
3 Mark Thompson { 02.28.09 at 7:11 pm }: How are you defining Generation Y? Anyone born after 1981, which is the standard definition (and which magnificently leaves you and I in neither Gen X or Gen Y!)?
4 Scott H. Payne { 02.28.09 at 7:53 pm }: Yep, standard definition. How’s that us falling into neither?
5 Mark Thompson { 02.28.09 at 8:25 pm }: As I always understood it, Gen. X was anyone who graduated high school in the 80s, although I’ve also seen it defined as anyone born after the end of the Baby Boom but before 1980 or so.

Anywho, I always was a big fan of Singles as the Gen. X movie, even if it’s not necessarily one of my personal favorite movies.

For Gen. Y, Garden State is the only one that jumps out. Beyond that, the best I can come up with is maybe the American Pie trilogy….but it’s a stretch to say that a raunchy comedy ought to be the movie that reflects a generation.
6 Max Socol { 03.01.09 at 6:55 am }: the problem with garden state is that it is an awful movie. i don’t know how far ‘generation y’ extends but i’d submit a movie released last year: Gus Van Sant’s ‘Paranoid Park.’
7 Rortybomb { 03.02.09 at 1:38 am }: Bleh Garden State.

If we want to use the definition that you were in your late teens to late 20s throughout the Bush 43 Years, it’s clear that the definitive is one of three:

- Royal Tenenbaums
- Lost in Translation
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

All three of them are the next iteration of a Reality Bites movie, though filtered through the issues of they Generation Y’ers (and much, much better).
8 Mark Thompson { 03.02.09 at 4:10 am }: Rortybomb – While both Royal Tenenbaums and Lost in Translation were two of my favorite movies of the last ten years or so, I’m not sure they really get at the issues of Generation Y (I’ve not seen Eternal Sunshine, so I can’t speak to that one). The main characters in those movies were for the most part older, and I’m not sure the focus of the movies is really geared towards defining the younger generation.
Rushmore, maybe?
9 E.D. Kain { 03.02.09 at 1:41 pm }: 1. Donny Darko.
2. Clerks. (or is this too old?)
3. Scream.
4. The Blair Witch Project.
5. Kids (again, too old?)
6. Braveheart (I know, too obvious…)
10 MikeF { 03.02.09 at 6:24 pm }: I’ll second Eternal Sunshine. Mark’s age criticism might be applicable here but I think thematically it’s a Gen-Y film much more so than Royal Tenenbaums or Lost in Translation.
11 Rortybomb { 03.02.09 at 7:34 pm }: OMG

1. Donny Darko.

There was this time period in the early naughts where every girl I knew (and a fair amount of the boys) thought Donny Darko was the best movie-that-spoke-to-them. Brilliant call.

I stand by Lost In Translation and Tenenbaums, only because the naughts have a kind of cynical, childhood nostaglia (think McSweeneys) where it is perfectly acceptable to see yourself mirrored in a washed-up slumming 50-year old Bill Murray character at age 23.

Or at least I did.
12 Rortybomb { 03.02.09 at 7:37 pm }: Seperately re: Donnie Darko – one of my favorite things to do at a hipster bar with an internet jukebox is to play the original Tears For Fears version of “Mad World”, and watch all the arty girls get pissed off that it isn’t the Gary Jules version.

If you haven’t heard the original, it is terrible in a great way.
13 Chris Dierkes { 03.02.09 at 10:17 pm }: Honorable Mention as predicting the black-white blending:

Eight Mile.