Right, so the Empire Records thread inspired me to think about movies portraying Gen X - of which I am a solid part, for the record - and our generational ways.
So I went looking at some lists and I’m seeing some oddball things. Like ‘Dazed and Confused’ ends up on several of the lists but I’m seeing that as a Boomer movie, myself. Set in 1975 even the early runs of GenX wouldn’t have been of age to graduate high school there.
Also, there’s a solid break in Gen X films where they show high school and later ones about early working years. While both The Breakfast Club and Reality Bites are easily classified as Gen X movies, it’s not difficult to distinguish between the two in the conflicts the characters face.
So let’s try to put together a definitive list of Gen X films and then we’ll debate it but not too hard because, hey, nevermind, right?
I’ll start. As I already mentioned,
The Breakfast Club
Reality Bites
Grosse Pointe Blank
Aside, I think Cusack’s character in GPB is far more exemplifying of GenX that in Hi Fidelity. But that may just be that I found Martin Blank a lot more relatable than the whiner idiot in HF.
You see, I’m really looking for films that try to define the generation here. The sorts of things that show Gen X and our communal personality.
For instance, from your list I’d argue that both Top Gun and Rain Man are really boomer-era Reagan style movies. While we were teens in the 80s we weren’t fighter jocks or whatever sort of hustler Tom Cruise played in Rain Man. Not unlike how we could like The Police but couldn’t really identify with Sting singing ‘Born in the 50s’.
I never really thought about it that way… “Encino Man” probably is a good candidate for a “good Generation X movie” in the sense that it’s about the only snapshot of high school life for that subgroup of Gen X that wasn’t straight-up 80s or 90s and straddled the decades in high school.
Swingers defines the decade and my 20s for me, and I never even lived in LA, aspired to be an actor, learned how to swing dance or dated a girl named after a quiche.
Son in Law is surprisingly good for a Pauly Shore film. But that’s a pretty low bar. Carla Gugino pretty much saved it.
What time frame are we talking about here?
In terms of actors, Wynona Ryder had a canonical run in Beetlejuice, Heathers, Mermaids, Edward Scissorhands, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. 88-92. Is that too early?