# Do kids today still watch The Royal Tenenbaums? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 3, 2016, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-today-still-watch-the-royal-tenenbaums/751027 "2016-04-03T03:37:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![GovernmentMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e9c0ed/32.png) [@GovernmentMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GovernmentMan)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2016, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-today-still-watch-the-royal-tenenbaums/751027/1 "2016-04-03T03:37:18Z")
When I was in high school (mid 2000s) all the white kids in my school looked like they took their whole aesthetic from The Royal Tenenbaums, and all the white girls looked like they wanted to be Margot Tenenbaum. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2016, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-today-still-watch-the-royal-tenenbaums/751027/2 "2016-04-03T04:10:39Z")
> [@GovernmentMan](#): > > When I was in high school (mid 2000s) all the white kids in my school looked like they took their whole aesthetic from The Royal Tenenbaums, and all the white girls looked like they wanted to be Margot Tenenbaum. Really? That’s a bit weird IMHO. The twee-artsy Wes Anderson seems like an odd prophet to glom onto and that film in particular seems like an odd choice ( _Rushmore_ I could maybe see ). Did you go to some snooty upper-class boarding school or something? In my day it was John Hughes and he had a lot more mass appeal I’d think, despite his interest being primarily upper-middle class teens in suburban Chicago. But at any rate if TRT was ever touchstone for teens I can’t imagine it lasting for more than twenty minutes._shrug_ But I’m not a teen, so what do I know? ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2016, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-today-still-watch-the-royal-tenenbaums/751027/3 "2016-04-03T04:38:44Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > But at any rate if TRT was ever touchstone for teens I can’t imagine it lasting for more than twenty minutes._shrug_ But I’m not a teen, so what do I know? I can’t speak to the OP’s school, but I don’t remember this movie having a major impact on youth culture. I was in college at the time, and saw the movie in the campus theater. It’s my recollection that of my friends who saw it then more liked it than disliked it, but it wasn’t something everyone was buzzing about and had no influence on fashion that I noticed. I can easily remember other movies released around the same time that my friends and classmates seemed a lot more interested in, like _Legally Blonde_, _A Knight’s Tale_, _Moulin Rouge!_, _Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back_, and the first _Harry Potter_ movie. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2016, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-today-still-watch-the-royal-tenenbaums/751027/4 "2016-04-03T04:48:06Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > The twee-artsy Wes Anderson seems like an odd prophet to glom onto and that film in particular seems like an odd choice ( _Rushmore_ I could maybe see ). > [@Lamia](#): > > …it wasn’t something everyone was buzzing about and had no influence on fashion that I noticed. The buzz developed later, it seems. [“Fantastic Mr Wes Anderson: how Tenenbaum chic took over the catwalks”](http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2015/aug/24/fantastic-mr-wes-anderson-how-tenenbaum-chic-took-over-the-catwalks) That’s from just last year. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2016, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-today-still-watch-the-royal-tenenbaums/751027/5 "2016-04-03T05:18:26Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > The buzz developed later, it seems. > > [“Fantastic Mr Wes Anderson: how Tenenbaum chic took over the catwalks”](http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2015/aug/24/fantastic-mr-wes-anderson-how-tenenbaum-chic-took-over-the-catwalks) > > That’s from just last year. Huh. Who woulda thunk it? Not me and I should note I _like_ about 50% of Anderson’s twee-artsy oeuvre ;). Not TRT though - that one kinda left me cold, much like _The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou_. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2016, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-today-still-watch-the-royal-tenenbaums/751027/6 "2016-04-03T15:15:45Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > The buzz developed later, it seems. > > [“Fantastic Mr Wes Anderson: how Tenenbaum chic took over the catwalks”](http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2015/aug/24/fantastic-mr-wes-anderson-how-tenenbaum-chic-took-over-the-catwalks) > > That’s from just last year. That’s interesting, but the OP said all the white kids at his high school were dressing this way a decade or more ago. That is not how I remember youth fashion of the time, and the Guardian article is presenting the Wes Anderson look as a new (for winter 2015) trend among big name designers, not a long established mainstream teen fashion. At the time _The Royal Tennenbaums_ was released it’s my recollection that people were still basically wearing late-90s fashions, and by the mid-2000s the “hot” new youth fashion trends were very un-Wes Anderson-like things like trucker hats, Ugg boots, crop tops, and low-rise jeans worn with thong underwear. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2016, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-today-still-watch-the-royal-tenenbaums/751027/7 "2016-04-03T17:41:52Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > That is not how I remember youth fashion of the time, and the Guardian article is presenting the Wes Anderson look as a new (for winter 2015) trend among big name designers, not a long established mainstream teen fashion. Yes. I really can’t picture any _set_ of teenagers dressing like that at any time between then and now. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2016, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-today-still-watch-the-royal-tenenbaums/751027/8 "2016-04-03T18:25:21Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > Yes. I really can’t picture any _set_ of teenagers dressing like that at any time between then and now. At a small school I could buy that some non-mainstream style became a big trend thanks to the influence of the local “in-crowd”, but if the OP’s memory is correct then I think this must have been a very local fad. Even people I knew who were into retro/vintage fashions at the time weren’t interested in _Royal Tennenbaums_-esque '70s stuff. ---
**Author:** ![GovernmentMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e9c0ed/32.png) [@GovernmentMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GovernmentMan)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2016, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-kids-today-still-watch-the-royal-tenenbaums/751027/9 "2016-04-04T04:49:43Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Really? That’s a bit weird IMHO. The twee-artsy Wes Anderson seems like an odd prophet to glom onto and that film in particular seems like an odd choice ( _Rushmore_ I could maybe see ). Did you go to some snooty upper-class boarding school or something? In my day it was John Hughes and he had a lot more mass appeal I’d think, despite his interest being primarily upper-middle class teens in suburban Chicago. No! I went to an inner city high school. Though it was located in a really nice leafy neighborhood, most of the students were from the surrounding areas and were non-white (like me). It was less than 10% white (not counting Armenians, of which there were a lot). But most of those white students were of the twee/artsy/hipster(whatever you wanna call it) kind. Whenever I went to any of their houses and rooms and see all the vintage stuff and designs, I would think, “Man, this kinda reminds me of The Royal Tenenbaums.” Some of their fashion choices were clearly influenced by it. Heck, one Halloween a group of them went to school dressed as Team Zissou from The Life Aquatic.