Responses to Gen Y /Gen X
Sorry about the delay all, the last weekend was completely hectic with handling things and working on new projects. However, lots of interesting responses have come in to the Gen X/Gen Y article, the most comprhensive of which is one by the un-fatiguable Matt McFarlane. I've posted his response below and I'm working on a counter-response presently.
Enjoy!
Also: To the Umbrella Political Team, we will be working on setting up a meeting presently. E-mail will be forthcoming (probably this afternoon).
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Hey Tim...I wrote this as a response to your "note" but it said it was too long to post. anyways...here it is.
I'd like to add that it insofar as it is the nature of art for the art of one generation to extend and expand the art of the prior generation, it doesn't seem at all odd that the genY filmmakers to take the door of angst and frustration that the genX filmmakers had opened, and walk right through it, taking awkwardness and alienation and portraying them the essence of teenage experience, rather than the unfortunate consequence.
An interesting aspect of this transition, however, is that characters who abandon that "deeper desire for purity" also seem less human. Take Smith's characters Randall and Dante: no doubt they are frustrated and angst-filled by their place in the world, but there is nothing of resignation or acceptance of a lesser status. Rather than acknowledge their own lowly position, they enhance it by denouncing everything outside of them as empty and superficial. There's an anger, an "I'm right and everybody else is wrong" about their attitudes; these are not men who are excluded from the adult world, but who reject it, who, as you say, are bitter towards it, which is, I think, the natural reaction for a human being in a situation like that. If there is a mode of appreciation that ranks you poorly, you don't accept it and move on, you denounce the scale outright, find one in which you come out on top, and cling to it, defend it with all your might.
As a sidenote, this has recently been theorized (see latest scientific american) to be a significant element in the impression of the importance of "innate ability" -- kids that, for one reason or another, are good at one thing, tend to spend much more time doing that thing, because it gives them self-satisfaction Tthis allows them to quickly become much better at said task than the kids who get off to a slow start and get discouraged, not because they are innately better at it, but simply they, like all humans seek out the activities that fullfill us, and getting really good at something requires the practice that only time can give. In rejecting the outside world as empty and superficial, Dante and Randall construct a world in which they have status.
Anderson's characters, by contrast, do no such thing. Rather than reject the world around them, favoring their own viewpoints and vision, they accept it, and their place in it, and without this spark...this rejection of any establishment that would give you a low ranking. As a result, I think, they seem much less human, like empty melancholy shells of human beings with lives devoid of purpose or meaning (i.e. Garden State).
Enjoy!
Also: To the Umbrella Political Team, we will be working on setting up a meeting presently. E-mail will be forthcoming (probably this afternoon).
--------------------
Hey Tim...I wrote this as a response to your "note" but it said it was too long to post. anyways...here it is.
I'd like to add that it insofar as it is the nature of art for the art of one generation to extend and expand the art of the prior generation, it doesn't seem at all odd that the genY filmmakers to take the door of angst and frustration that the genX filmmakers had opened, and walk right through it, taking awkwardness and alienation and portraying them the essence of teenage experience, rather than the unfortunate consequence.
An interesting aspect of this transition, however, is that characters who abandon that "deeper desire for purity" also seem less human. Take Smith's characters Randall and Dante: no doubt they are frustrated and angst-filled by their place in the world, but there is nothing of resignation or acceptance of a lesser status. Rather than acknowledge their own lowly position, they enhance it by denouncing everything outside of them as empty and superficial. There's an anger, an "I'm right and everybody else is wrong" about their attitudes; these are not men who are excluded from the adult world, but who reject it, who, as you say, are bitter towards it, which is, I think, the natural reaction for a human being in a situation like that. If there is a mode of appreciation that ranks you poorly, you don't accept it and move on, you denounce the scale outright, find one in which you come out on top, and cling to it, defend it with all your might.
As a sidenote, this has recently been theorized (see latest scientific american) to be a significant element in the impression of the importance of "innate ability" -- kids that, for one reason or another, are good at one thing, tend to spend much more time doing that thing, because it gives them self-satisfaction Tthis allows them to quickly become much better at said task than the kids who get off to a slow start and get discouraged, not because they are innately better at it, but simply they, like all humans seek out the activities that fullfill us, and getting really good at something requires the practice that only time can give. In rejecting the outside world as empty and superficial, Dante and Randall construct a world in which they have status.
Anderson's characters, by contrast, do no such thing. Rather than reject the world around them, favoring their own viewpoints and vision, they accept it, and their place in it, and without this spark...this rejection of any establishment that would give you a low ranking. As a result, I think, they seem much less human, like empty melancholy shells of human beings with lives devoid of purpose or meaning (i.e. Garden State).
posted by Tim at 9:58 PM
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