“Reimagining” old cult movies & TV shows: BSG, Doctor Who, any 1970s horror or sci-fi movie.
The proliferation of police procedurals. Even though the original “Law & Order” was already turning into a dinosaur when the new decade began, the real mania for such shows didn’t start until after CSI.
Pop Tarts: As exemplified by a certain massively overexposed, but underwhelming young woman named for a prominent continental European city (but shall not be spoken by me!)
9/11 and the Iraq war. Not ‘pop culture’ of course, but it certainly looms large over every aspect of this decade.
Men with facial hair. Beards are cooler now than they have been since the early 70s.
That (IMO) dreadful streaky-haired look that Christina Aguilera helped popularize. Yuck! I am counting the minutes until that look goes out of style.
Gay couples going the “traditional family” route - getting married & having kids.
If we’re looking at the whole decade then dominance of fantasy movies (LOTR, Matrix, Pirates) can’t be overlooked. Fantasy and sci fi have been big on TV too this decade. I’d include “Lost” as a fantasy show.
and I think Owen Wilson is Luke Wilson on a bad nose day. (sorry).
Maybe the flatbiller thing never caught on big back east but it’s huuuuuuuuge out here. Nautical stars, No Fear clothes, hats, and stickers, Volcom, Tapout, Affliction, Metal Mullisha, Famous Stars and Straps, lifted trucks (mostly Fords and Toyotas), etc. Huge. It’s by far the dominant style in the 18 to 25 crowd.
Highlighted hair is so ubiquitous that it’s almost unnoticeable. I haven’t counted, but I’d guess that half the women (under 45) I see at the grocery store have prominently streaked hair.
It’s not necessarily ugly, but the undigested trendiness of it bothers me. I understand that women don’t want their hair coloring to be solid, because that looks artificial, but in a few years today’s prominently streaked hair is going to seem as ridiculous as beehive wigs.
Not just that. Within the 00’s, Britney’s career reached its apex (Oops… I did it Again), fell into decline (post-Britney), experienced a resurgence (In the Zone), completely and utterly bottomed out (Blackout), and experienced another big comeback (Circus). She’s been news one way or the other for almost the entire decade.
Musically, I’d say that “Get Low” by Lil Jon and the East Side Boys was the biggest landmark by far. That song was everywhere from 2003-2005 and has hugely informed pop music since.
Other songs I could easily see in an 00’s period piece decades from now are “Golddigger,” “Lose Yourself,” “My Humps,” “Hey Ya!,” “Umbrella,” “Don’t Cha,” “Crazy” (Gnarles Barkly), “Hollaback Girl,” “Sexyback,” “Unwritten,” “Crazy in Love,” “Hot in Here,” “In Da Club,” “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” “Since U Been Gone,” “Hips Don’t Lie,” “Fergalicious,” “Crank That,” “Lollipop,” and “Rehab.”
Wow, I guess American youth culture is still more regional than I thought. That style is ubiquitous out here. Since I grew up out east I thought it was weird when No Fear made a comeback a couple years ago. I wonder if it was popular out here the first time around.
Flatbillers look like this and drive trucks that look like this.
Waitaminute!! That’s not ironic ‘faux-redneck’! That’s ACTUAL redneck!!
You don’t see a lot of that stuff in NYC. There was one year where flat brim trucker hats were everywhere but that didn’t last long.
’Metrosexual’ seems to be the way to go out here.
Speaking which, I would add **American Idol **and **Ryan Seacrest **to the list.
I’d also add **24 **and anything else having to do with kicking the crap out of terrorists. Much in the same way the 80s were about kicking the crap out of Russians.
Stiller had a cameo in Anchorman and Will Farrel played the villain in Zoolander with Stiller and Owen Wilson. Stiller also played the villain in Dodgeball with Vince Vaugn. It’s not just about Old School.
I was going to come here to say they same thing. What’s sad is that’s one of the only things that come to mind, (others listed). I haven’t been on this Earth for too long, and perhaps I’m associating the whole decade with all the bad shit that’s happened, or that I’ve only ‘experienced’ two others so far, and this is sort of my first ‘go’ as a full adult. With adult concerns.
It may be that I’m getting older, but life seems to be getting a lot more boring. I remember my father and mother adapting quite well to the 80’s a 90’s as far as art and entertainment’s concerned, especially when it comes to music. Right now I feel like every new song that comes out these day’s I’ve ‘heard’ in some way before. TV “HDed”… I’m waiting for the “Wii” of TV. Something all together new, (now that we have a ‘perfect’ picture). I can’t go out to see movies because I don’t have the money to spend these days, but nothing’s enticed me to go these days, unlike the 90’s which really drew me in. I don’t know who the latest teen idol is who will eventually let the pressures of fame get to him/her, start drinking and using, get fired from acting gigs/or music gigs, and do a reality TV show as a last result to salvage any value as an entertainer they have left inside of them.
And we still haven’t named it! I mean, “the 00s” just sounds silly and “the 2000s” would apply to the whole 21st Century. And what are we going to call the coming decade?
I’d say TV changed pretty drastically this decade. Moving from single-episode plots to complex continuing stories on TV dramas (The Wire, Lost, The Shield, Damages) was the biggest thing I noticed (it may have started in the 90s - don’t remember when The Sopranos came out - but it didn’t become ubiquitous until this decade. And The Sopranos itself had plenty of single-episode story arcs).
For sitcoms, this decade, for the most part, killed off the laugh track completely, and a couple shows (Arrested Development, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) followed the dramas’ lead and went with continuing storylines (or at least subplots). There’s still plenty of archaic dreck (Two and a Half Men, According to Jim), but the best comedies of the 2000s can stand as among the best ever.
I honestly don’t think that Obama is going to be on a '00s list. He’ll be a key talking point when talking about the '10s - when his policies start taking shape and coming into fruition (or spiral us into chaos - whichever your political stance dictates). But politically, a discussion of the 2000s will be dominated by Bush and the war on terror.
