Boomer Validation Movies
I’m far from the first person to observe that Baby Boomers are the most entitled generation in American history; it’s a commonplace observation. What’s really interesting, though, is that Baby Boomers have an entire subgenre of films devoted to telling them that they are good people.
What I call Boomer Validation films are movies, sometimes quite good movies, that are all about telling Baby Boomers that their particular generational angst du jour is valid and real and that they, the Boomers, are nonetheless pretty great individuals.
One of the first big landmarks in the genre is THE BIG CHILL, addressing that early-80s Boomer crisis of conscience: Weren’t we going to change the world? Why the fuck did I just vote for Reagan? Fortunately, the movie tells us that selling out doesn’t make you a bad person, you still listen to Motown so you’re cool.
CITY SLICKERS is another classic of the genre, here dealing with the male Boomer mid-life crisis. Validation is provided by surrogate father-figure Jack Palance and a realization of boyhood fantasies through a lens of American mythology.
FORREST GUMP is, of course, the most enormous and obvious example. Forrest, metaphorical representation of an entire generation, is responsible for basically every single cultural memory the generation retains. It’s like a narcissistic “We Didn’t Start The Fire”, only longer. Here, again, we see the singular importance of Baby Boomers reaffirmed, along with the vital fact that they are good.
AMERICAN BEAUTY is a wonderful film, but still falls into this subgenre. It, like CITY SLICKERS, is the fantasy version of the mid-life crisis. It tells Boomer men Your emotional reactions to middle age are totally valid, that guy your wife has the hots for is a complete tool, and that cockteasing little cheerleader really does want to sleep with you but you won’t indulge her because you’re just too good a man.
Perhaps my favorite, though, is SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, the only movie I can think of whose central message is “I’m sorry, daddy, I tried to be good!” William Goldman said that the movie starts out saying “War is hell” and ends up saying “War is a neat learning experience for Matt Damon”, but I think he missed some of it. Context, for one thing. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN came out soon after Tom Brokaw’s big push to rename what was once called “the G.I. Generation”. That whole “Greatest Generation” hoopla, the campaign for a WWII veteran’s memorial, all of it was largely Baby Boomers canonizing their parent generation as saints. Whether they had a point or not, that’s the key to understanding Spielberg’s WWII opus: Ryan represents the Baby Boomers. He’s the one the whole war (in the context of the movie) is being fought for. All the sacrifice and blood and death we see in the characters is all so that he can live in a nice safe America and have a decent life. The movie is the long, graphic version of the speech Baby Boomers all heard from their dads when they were bad. In case it was too subtle, there’s a very good scene where this essential tradeoff is explained, and of course the scene where a dying Tom Hanks tells Ryan to “earn it.”
Well, okay, Platonic-ideal-of-citizen-soldier, how shall we, the Baby Boomers, earn it? What standard must we meet, and good lord, have we met it? Please, tell us, so that we can sleepcomplacently soundly at night.
“Am I a good man?” Ryan asks his wife. “Yes,” she replies.
And bam, a whole generation is validated like a parking stub.
This is far from a complete list. It’s just some of the big hits, and it’s overwhelmingly about male Boomer validation. If you think I’ve overlooked some good examples, or if you think I’m full of shit, let me know.
What I call Boomer Validation films are movies, sometimes quite good movies, that are all about telling Baby Boomers that their particular generational angst du jour is valid and real and that they, the Boomers, are nonetheless pretty great individuals.
One of the first big landmarks in the genre is THE BIG CHILL, addressing that early-80s Boomer crisis of conscience: Weren’t we going to change the world? Why the fuck did I just vote for Reagan? Fortunately, the movie tells us that selling out doesn’t make you a bad person, you still listen to Motown so you’re cool.
CITY SLICKERS is another classic of the genre, here dealing with the male Boomer mid-life crisis. Validation is provided by surrogate father-figure Jack Palance and a realization of boyhood fantasies through a lens of American mythology.
FORREST GUMP is, of course, the most enormous and obvious example. Forrest, metaphorical representation of an entire generation, is responsible for basically every single cultural memory the generation retains. It’s like a narcissistic “We Didn’t Start The Fire”, only longer. Here, again, we see the singular importance of Baby Boomers reaffirmed, along with the vital fact that they are good.
AMERICAN BEAUTY is a wonderful film, but still falls into this subgenre. It, like CITY SLICKERS, is the fantasy version of the mid-life crisis. It tells Boomer men Your emotional reactions to middle age are totally valid, that guy your wife has the hots for is a complete tool, and that cockteasing little cheerleader really does want to sleep with you but you won’t indulge her because you’re just too good a man.
Perhaps my favorite, though, is SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, the only movie I can think of whose central message is “I’m sorry, daddy, I tried to be good!” William Goldman said that the movie starts out saying “War is hell” and ends up saying “War is a neat learning experience for Matt Damon”, but I think he missed some of it. Context, for one thing. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN came out soon after Tom Brokaw’s big push to rename what was once called “the G.I. Generation”. That whole “Greatest Generation” hoopla, the campaign for a WWII veteran’s memorial, all of it was largely Baby Boomers canonizing their parent generation as saints. Whether they had a point or not, that’s the key to understanding Spielberg’s WWII opus: Ryan represents the Baby Boomers. He’s the one the whole war (in the context of the movie) is being fought for. All the sacrifice and blood and death we see in the characters is all so that he can live in a nice safe America and have a decent life. The movie is the long, graphic version of the speech Baby Boomers all heard from their dads when they were bad. In case it was too subtle, there’s a very good scene where this essential tradeoff is explained, and of course the scene where a dying Tom Hanks tells Ryan to “earn it.”
Well, okay, Platonic-ideal-of-citizen-soldier, how shall we, the Baby Boomers, earn it? What standard must we meet, and good lord, have we met it? Please, tell us, so that we can sleep
“Am I a good man?” Ryan asks his wife. “Yes,” she replies.
And bam, a whole generation is validated like a parking stub.
This is far from a complete list. It’s just some of the big hits, and it’s overwhelmingly about male Boomer validation. If you think I’ve overlooked some good examples, or if you think I’m full of shit, let me know.
Labels: movies
I don't know enough to say either, but it was a good read.
Posted by
West |
7:40 PM