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Hulu, Take Us Back to the 90s!

Hulu, Take Us Back to the 90s!

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We watch a lot of streaming video, it can’t be denied. We’ve fully embraced the modern entertainment mode of binge-watching a television series. As a family we often watch shows together from beginning to end. For example, after finishing Better Call Saul, we just couldn’t help ourselves and rewatched Breaking Bad, all the way through, including the movie. Typically we watch a couple of episodes in a night, a couple of nights a week. You’d be surprised at how quickly you can go through multiple seasons of a series at that rate.

The girl and I have more time to watch other shows, when it is just the two of us, after the rest of the family has retired for the evening. We browse through our various streaming services, and pick a show we’ve heard good things about, or just try something based on the teaser. I like the mini-series format a lot; you can get a good story in without a huge time commitment. It’s a particularly good format for a mystery-type show – two that we’ve enjoyed recently are Bodkin (set in Ireland) and A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder (based on a young adult mystery crime novel).

When we like an ongoing show, we’ll tend to get caught up on it, but then we’re left hanging. We’re all caught up on Abbot Elementary (it’s just adorable, and set in Philly!) and now trying to figure out how to watch the last four episodes of Evil (you haven’t watched it? – it’s a hot mess but super fun!) but, as often happens, we find that we run out of content. We try some stuff out (there’s so much out there) but more often than not, a show doesn’t pull us in. There is a craft to good storytelling and a lot of what’s produced just doesn’t pull it off.

So then we go to YouTube and browse random informational videos, or watch the news which is just depressing (unless we watch it through the lens of late-night comedy shows, our preferred medium). How to overcome this television malaise?

Luckily, in this streaming era, it is possible to binge-watch old timey shows, from the good old days. You know the ones I’m talking about – the 1990s!

When we were still young, and life was full of promise.

The streaming platform Hulu is especially good for this kind of television watching, as they have the license to share a variety of old shows. We’re watching two from the 90s on Hulu now, depending on which group of family members is available for the evening.

One is The X-Files, for when we are all together. This is a show I actually didn’t watch much back in the day, so it’s mostly new to me. I just remember the general vibe of this show and its popularity then. It was pretty cutting edge in terms of graphic content for its time, which of course pales now compared to the 2000s stuff like Dexter. It has great writing and pacing, and an excellent score as well.

The other show we are watching, after Gavin has gone to bed, is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In this case, I have watched it all the way through, but Aileen and Tiernan have not. They own the whole boxed DVD set, but just kept stalling out in the later seasons when trying to watch it (I suspect they got bored at Season 4, which is understandable).

Buffy has a sly sense of humor, and oh so much heart. It’s a joy to re-encounter the beloved characters, like reuniting with old friends. With me having to bite my tongue to not reveal any spoilers about what happens to them. What makes the show so wonderful is how, despite its completly fantastical supernatural premise, it is ultimately about friendship, loyalty and love. It’s a very Gen-X show that way, in my opinion; like Friends, but much more interesting and clever.

There’s something about these shows that seems simpler, more innocent. I know, an odd thing to say about the 1990s. It’s just that they evoke an era when the world’s problem’s seemed less intractable, the stakes lower. Both of these shows – Buffy and the X-Files – deal with otherworldy powers with immense potential to harm humanity, yet the characters confront them in an easy-going manner, with tongue in cheek. We all know we’re just playing with the idea of apocalypse here.

Apocalypse doesn’t seem so playful now, and screen entertainment has gotten darker, and more earnest, in response to the changing times. We’re living through an era of real-life danger now, which calls for courage and resolution, faith and hope.

And sometimes, it calls for a little escape, to a safe harbor in which to rest our minds and hearts. In our case, to the television shows of our past.

The Time of Our Lives

The Time of Our Lives

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One of our patterns at home is that later in the evening, the rest of the family has retired and it’s just Aileen and I in the living area, and we would like to watch a little more TV before bedtime. As I explained in another post years ago, when you are watching streaming video with your family, you need different shows for different subsets of people, since you can’t continue watching any particular show without everyone you started watching it with being around. The latest show that we’ve picked for when it’s just Aileen and I has been Downton Abbey. This is a show which Aileen had watched some of in the past, but I had never seen. I am typically about ten years behind pop culture trends, but that’s OK because everything is conveniently saved on the Internet now.

This show is a delightful historical drama, set in a country estate in the 1910s and 1920s, and depicts the lives of both the aristocratic family that lives there, and of their domestic servants. There was a similar show in the 1970s (remade in the 2010s) called Upstairs, Downstairs that was set in London in the same time period, but we haven’t watched that one.

Period elegance on the set of Downton Abbey.

Downton Abbey, as far as I can tell, is historically accurate, and I enjoy recognizing historical moments and trends as they come up. I absolutely love the period costumes, especially the 1920s dresses – and, oh my, the automobiles – which are just gorgeous. The show is also quite sentimental, rather a bit of a soap opera, but that suits our late night viewing needs just fine. We’ve become very invested in the characters and their stories as we’ve blazed through the episodes (we’ve finished the last season already – good thing there are two movies to watch, too).

The show gives equal time to the aristocrats and to their servants, and focuses a lot on daily life. Yes, there are big differences in how characters live, depending on their economic class, but since we are binging the show so fast, I can’t help but notice how everyone, well – they just have their routines. Whatever their station in life, everyone just repeats the same behavioral patterns from episode to episode, only shifting into a new pattern if they experience a major life change, like a new position or a marriage.

Kind of like me, I think, as I go through my own routines. In my head I can hear the show’s opening theme, a stirring symphonic piece titled “Did I Make the Most of Loving You?” I’m not a servant getting breakfast ready for the household, or a countess being dressed properly by a lady’s maid before emerging from my chambers, but nonetheless I have my allotted role to play. Work from home computer guy, starts the day with coffee and the daily Quordle. Since the pandemic began, I am very much in the same pattern day to day, week to week. Not even switching jobs meant much of a change for me. Each week repeats the same cycle, another sweep of the second hand on the clock of life, ticking away to the last midnight.

It’s hard to believe it, but we’re already a third of the way through 2023. Did we binge the year too fast? Should we have tried to pace it better? The summer is almost upon us, though you wouldn’t know it from the cold rainy weather. I know it from the way some of our work is winding down. High school theater season has come to an end; there’s nothing left for the Philadelphia Independence Awards except for the awards ceremony itself. My work on Neil’s book is done. We need to get our garden planted – it’s a bit late, even for us. Did you know the kitchen gardens at Downton Abbey are quite impressive?

Our sweet sunshine kitty is holding on. Aileen is proud of her for staying with us, though it’s so hard for her to eat. We just keep giving her as much of the soft, pureed food as we can find. It’s clear that she wants to be with us, that she’s staying for love, and that we must make the most of it. What else is there to life? We’re just pushing through time, from one moment to the next, each inflection point marking out our story, until we get to the finale. How many seasons are left, and will we make the most of them?

The Rise and Fall of Drinking Culture

The Rise and Fall of Drinking Culture

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We’ve recently been watching Mad Men (available on Amazon Prime with our AMC+ subscription), a TV show about New Yorkers in the advertising business in the 1960s. It clearly is attempting to paint a portrait of what life was like in that bygone era, and how social mores were so much different back then. For example, everyone is constantly lighting up cigarettes, in any context, even in front of kids. The men unabashedly treat women like sex objects, and the women just accept it and learn to navigate what today would be considered a hostile work environment.

I know that a major premise of the TV show is to highlight these social differences between then and now. How accurate this portrayal of the period is, I can’t be sure, since I wasn’t there, but it seems plausibly realistic to me. And the show certainly has high production values, beautiful art design, and fine performances, making it a delight to watch.

What truly amazes me about the lifestyle of these advertising guys (as depicted on this TV show) is their capacity for consuming alcoholic beverages. They keep liquor in their offices, and take any opportunity to have a finger or two of scotch. If one of your coworkers comes into your office at, say, 10:30AM, well – it would be rude not to offer them a drink! It’s a much different experience than I’ve had in my work life, which has occurred since our society moved on from the casual alcoholism of these Madison Avenue men.

For the duration of my young adult life, it would have been unthinkable to have alcohol in the workplace, or even to have a drink during the work day. It’s possible that this is because I spent those years living in the South of the United States, which while certainly known for its hard-drinkers, is also known for puritanical restrictions on public life. Maybe up in the big cities in the North, people were still having three martini lunches. But I suspect the real reason my work life was so different is my generational placement in history.

I do recall one early work experience which was like a glimpse of the last vestiges of the older generation’s casual work drinking. When I was a college student in the mid-1980s, I was in a work-study program, and worked at a major government agency in the DC area. The director of our department had an office suite that was behind a frosted glass window, so I never saw inside. One holiday season he opened up his suite for a company party, and lo and behold, he had a fully stocked dry bar in there. I even had a glass or two of something strong (I was 19 at the time, so I believe this was technically illegal), feeling a little bit guilty since I had to drive home afterwards. I was already internalizing the safety messages about drinking alcohol that were becoming predominant in the culture.

Logically, the director who presided over this dry bar would have been from the same generation as the “mad men” on the TV show, just twenty years older (since it was the 80s instead of the 60s). The way generations work, a cohort of people born about the same time tends to retain the same attitudes and behavioral patterns throughout the lives, bringing those patterns with them to older and older age brackets as time passes. This old timey office executive wasn’t going to give up his liquor, unless they pried it from his trembling fingers.

By the 90s and 00s, the tenor of public life had changed. America was in a social era in which the Baby Boomer generation – a profoundly moralistic generation – was entering midlife; while my generation, Generation X – an opportunistic but disorganized generation – was entering adulthood. Society became safety-obsessed and health-obsessed, and drinking on the job was counter to this new values focus. While my generation may have chafed under the emerging neo-Puritanical values regime, we weren’t about to collectively do anything about it. We would just deal with it.

A similar dynamic occurred in an earlier era: the Roaring ’20s, when Prohibition under the terms of the Eighteenth Amendment was in place. In that time the midlife generation was the moralistic Missionary generation, while the young adults were the free-wheeling Lost generation. Prohibition didn’t exactly stop drinking, but it did drive it underground.

The Eighteenth Amendment was repealed around the same time that the Great Depression started. In the new social era that emerged, the generation that came of age – the Greatest Generation – developed a reputation for collegial drinking and smoking. These behaviors became associated with recreational pleasure in a context of sociability and solidarity, never mind all the health problems they were destined to lead to down the road.

This pattern of casual drinking and smoking in public continued into the postwar era in which the Mad Men live(d), until further generational change led to a more health-conscious society, and those habits fell out of favor. So the cycle goes. The era of the executive with a ready a supply of liquor at the office came to an end.

During my young adulthood, drinking on the job became an underground activity, as during the Prohibition era. I say that because I do recall having a boss who was a bit emotionally unstable, in my opinion, and heard through the grapevine that he drank during the day. One time I found an empty bottle in a staircase, and took it at as sign that the rumors were true.

At a different job I had, there was a programmer who reputedly came to work drunk. His fate was to be sent to rehab; the company actually gave him a month off to clean up his act. I think they might have even paid for the rehab. He was really good at programming so I guess they couldn’t let him go. It just goes to show how much attitudes had shifted, and how drinking alcohol had become understood to be more of a pathology than a pastime.

Time has continued to pass, and I am no longer a young adult. Our society has recently gone through a financial crisis which can be likened to the 1929 stock market crash that was followed by the Great Depression. Has there also been a shift in attitudes towards drinking alcohol in the workplace, where it is now more acceptable as a social lubricant and source of conviviality, rather than being perceived as a personal moral failing?

I think so, at least to a limited degree, based on my experience in the workplace. In my recent positions, it has been common for the company to host parties where alcohol is served, sometimes but not always with a cap on the number of drinks per person. I’m not sure if age limits are enforced; it’s not impossible that an intern under the age of 21 has been able to sneak some drinks in. It isn’t exactly Mad Men, but it is an acceptance of drinking in the workplace, at least under controlled circumstances.

Media reports from the past decade or so have also suggested that this is happening, with the emergence a new kind of startup culture where drinks are a perk, available in the break room. Not that I’ve ever had the luck to work at a place like that, but then my startup days were during the dot com era, long ago.

That drinking at work may be on the rise makes sense in this social era. Instead of having moralizing Boomers in middle age, we now have practical Gen Xers, who will do whatever it takes to boost productivity and retain employees. Instead of having lone wolf Gen Xers in young adulthood, we now have sociable Millennials, who favor group activities, for which alcohol – since it lowers inhibitions and elevates mood, albeit temporarily – is a natural fit.

It must be noted, though, that the long term trend is that younger generations are drinking less than us oldsters did at the same age. The party days of my Gen X youth are in the past, and today’s youth are more cautious, and more conscious of their future. In fact, it’s those crazy Boomers who are drinking the most these days. That is the real story behind the controversy over the “woke” marketing campaign by Anheuser-Busch: a major corporation is desperately trying to generate sales among the young demographic, and finding that their only customers are uptight old farts. “Anti-woke” alcoholism is for a generation that is currently in its sunset years.

It’s probably for the best that, in the long term, we are drinking less as a society. The harmful effects of alcohol, such as the health problems it creates, and its contribution to car accidents and to domestic violence, outweigh its benefits. Prohibition might not have worked (no one likes to be told what and what not to do), but behavior can still change with time as beliefs and priorities change from generation to generation.

The question is, will this trend eventually reverse for future generations, in a future social era in which living for the present and taking chances with one’s health become fashionable once more? It’s hard to envision a completely alcohol-free future, given humanity’s long relationship with the pleasures and perils of consuming fermented beverages.

Please Don’t Stick That in My Brain: Some Thoughts on the Past and Future of Cyberpunk

Please Don’t Stick That in My Brain: Some Thoughts on the Past and Future of Cyberpunk

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I’ve recently enjoyed a little foray into cyberpunk fiction. I watched the Netflix anime series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, and also read the book on which it is ultimately based. Technically, the TV series is based on the video game Cyberpunk 2077, which is itself based on the tabletop RPG Cyberpunk. But the creator of the RPG has acknowledged that he was heavily influenced by the book Hardwired, by Walter Carlos Williams, which is the book I read. I could definitely see the influence, traced all the way back through this pop culture pedigree – in concepts, style, and even a little bit in content.

Typically, a story in this genre features protagonists who are marginalized outcasts, and also stylish and cool (that’s the “punk” part). They make a living as outlaws, and probably party hard in their free time (that’s the “edge” part). They have expertise with advanced technology, and interface with it using direct neural connections (that’s the “cyber” and “hardwired” parts). Their adversaries are powerful corporate conspiracies in a futuristic setting where multinational (or even multiplanetary) corporations have eclipsed governments. Think Blade Runner. It’s something about the zeitgeist of the time period when cyberpunk began (the dawn of the Reagan era) to imagine corporations replacing governments as the rulers of Earth. You might even think of it as sci-fi authors being characteristically prescient.

The anime series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners has all these genre features, in a slick, stylized package with a kind of pastel-colored 1980s aesthetic. To me watching it felt very much like sitting in on RPG sessions where a motley crew of adventurers go on missions, collect loot, and buy ever more powerful upgrades to their fancy cybernetic enhancements. In that sense it’s a fitting adaptation of the tabletop game and video game that are its ultimate source material. That’s not to say there’s no bigger picture or meaningful plot; there is an over-arching story and there is depth to the show. It’s very well executed, making it both an artful and an entertaining series. I should warn you, though, if you plan to watch it, that it depicts extremely graphic violence, as one would only expect from a roleplaying game (I’ve RPG’d a lot, and trust me, gamers love to live out their violent fantasies around the gaming table).

The signature element of the cyberpunk genre is undoubtedly the cybernetic implant – some sort of machine enhancement of the human body. Maybe it’s a weaponized appendage. Maybe it’s enhanced senses, like eyes that can see infrared. Or maybe it’s a chip in the brain that let’s you interface directly with computer systems, hacking into them in a virtual reality mode where you become a digital avatar travelling through cyberspace. In the original cyberpunk tradition, you typically have ports, in your skull or perhaps at the base of your neck, where you jack in to cyberspace by plugging in wires. These stories were all dreamed up before there was ubiquitous wifi, so it makes sense that writers would assume that was how to connect to a network. It’s like how in 1970s sci-fi people in the far future are using computers with monochrome CRT monitors. You could always argue that a direct wired connection would be faster and more reliable than a wifi connection, so it would still be desirable to have a USB port in your head, even in a cyberpunk future saturated with wifi networks.

In Cyberpunk: Edgerunners you have all these kinds of cybernetics. The specific ones that a character uses define a sort of character class for them; whether they are combat oriented – which could mean being strong and fast for hand-to-hand combat, or just very accurate with long range weapons – or a computer hacker, sneaking into the corporate networks while the combat characters watch over them or create a distraction. Sometimes drugs are needed to work with these cybernetics; specifically, in this anime, a character has to take immunosuppressants to prevent his body from rejecting his implants. In the book Hardwired, the characters took a stimulant drug which helped their nervous systems to interact with their hardware.

This sort of transhumanist idea of replacement cyborg parts has been around for decades now, but how close are we to neural implants in real life? We really only have implants which provide minor electrical stimulation for medical rehabilitation purposes; they sort of help an organ by giving it a little kickstarting jolt. Implants directly into the brain have been used to treat neurological or mood disorders, but all they are doing is alleviating symptoms with a tickle of electricity. They are a far cry from science fiction human-machine interfaces that link the mind to digital space. For that, we still have to rely on our old-fashioned senses, and put on a set of VR goggles. As for cybernetic body parts, well, the closest we have is myoelectric prostheses, which can pick up electric signals from the muscles, thus enabling the user to control the prosthetic. But this signal is picked up from the surface; no implant is needed.

The idea of direct neural connection to electronics, merging human consciousness with machines, remains a far-fetched sci-fi fantasy, like sentient androids or colonies on other planets. But it’s one which science fiction keeps revisiting. You may have encountered it recently in episodes of the anthology series Black Mirror, where people have devices in their brains or eyes which record everything that happens to them, or interface them with an augmented reality social network. These are simply used as vehicles for plots involving crime, troubled relationships, or people struggling for social acceptance. These stories could have been told without including imaginary technology, but the point is to look at modern life by extrapolating from current trends.

Today we engage with social media platforms on our pocket computer devices; will we someday be doing it via chips implanted into our brains, with a thought and a flick of the eye instead of a swipe of a finger? I’m going to say no, no we will not. But I guess it’s not impossible. Just not going to happen in our lifetimes, if ever. And if something like that did become available in our lifetimes, I would have to say nope, no thank you. I do not want a chip in my brain.

I do think it’s interesting how cyberpunk dystopias in the Blade Runner style – where edgy, marginalized protagonists use their cybernetic implants for leverage in high stakes, high risk adventure stories – have evolved into a style more like Minority Report, where boring dystopia participants meander through garish commercial hellscapes, desperate to find meaning in their existence. The awesome short video Hyper-Reality, reminiscent of a Black Mirror episode, captures this milieu perfectly:

This isn’t the dystopia I signed up for.

I see this new kind of cyber-setting as a reflection of the overall shift in the zeitgeist – away from the free-wheeling times of my Gen X youth and toward the Millennial era, with its emphasis on group participation and consensus-seeking networks. It’s a friendlier, if more banal, kind of cyberspace. The stories are no longer the picaresque adventures of original cyberpunk, but instead Kafkaesque social commentaries, where the individual is stripped of all agency, and the audience is invited to gaze in horror at the bland nightmare that modern society has become.

The setting of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners could be seen as a holdover from the early days of cyberpunk, a place where some kind of individual achievement is still possible, like the video game worlds that are increasingly the domain of older generations. If only in our imaginations, technology can make us better. But even this anime has a warning about technological hubris, about which I won’t elaborate lest I spoil the show. I’ll just make this statement, though it is a cliché: if we rely too much on technology to enhance our capabilities, we risk losing touch with our true selves.

The Walking Dead Finale and How This Show Captured the Zeitgeist

The Walking Dead Finale and How This Show Captured the Zeitgeist

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Tonight the series finale of The Walking Dead will be broadcast on AMC. I have been a fan of this show since it began way back in 2010, which seems like a lifetime ago. When it premiered, I was living in North Carolina, and watched it with my roommate at the time. I found it to be a compelling, immersive horror story. It gave me the creeps and made me want to lock up the house and peek out the windows to check for zombies. But I still looked forward to new episodes every Sunday; as Bob Calvert sings, we like to be frightened.

Over the years, my roommate moved out, and so I watched the show alone. Then I became a cord-cutter (that is, I cancelled my cable subscription), so I had to wait for seasons to come to Netflix before I could catch up on episodes. I also started reading the comics, and I loved to compare and contrast the comics with the TV series. For example, of the four characters depicted in the series finale promo shot above, one is never in the comic, and one dies early on. Of the other two, one wanders off and is never heard from again, and only the last one actually remains relevant to the story all the way to the end.

It’s understandable that the writers of the TV show would want to deviate from the comic series storyline, to keep fans guessing. The writers also didn’t have much choice, for two basic reasons. One is that the actors playing the children aged faster than the story timeline; there’s no way their characters could have a story arc to match the one in the comics, over a 5 or 10 year period IRL. The other reason is that sometimes the stars just wanted to leave the show.

The main character, Rick Grimes, had to be written out of the TV show because the actor playing him wanted to spend more time with his family. In my opinion, this was a grave blow to the series, since the comic’s basic story is how Rick Grimes manages to build a community out of a ravaged post-apocalyptic society. The comic series has a kind of triumphal ending, after dragging the reader through all sorts of harrowing hell. Can the TV series accomplish something similar? I guess we’ll find out soon enough. But I think the TV show kind of got lost at times, because all it could do was recycle plot lines with new sets of characters, as actors came and went. It just didn’t achieve a strong overarching story arc, as the comic does.

Another interesting difference between the comic and the TV show is that the comic is actually much more violent, and also has foul language and sexual content that is absent from the TV version. This, of course, is because the TV show is on basic cable; AMC content is not TV-MA rated, as far as I know. As I recall, the TV show is as edgy as it is at all only because it comes on late at night. The comic also, as a rule, has more interesting zombies, since it’s easier to draw animated corpses in various states of decay, than it is to construct them with prosthetics or paint them with CGI. The TV show has hordes of fully clothed, barely decayed zombies – that is, extras wearing face makeup – whereas the zombie hordes in the comic have bones poking out and guts hanging out every which way.

The difference in the intensity of the violence on the TV show became very significant about halfway through the show’s run. This was around the peak of the show’s popularity, at the end of season 6 and beginning of season 7. At this point, I was watching new episodes at a movie theater in North Carolina. Yep, this theater showed them as they premiered, and free of charge. The theater was next to a college campus, and would be packed full of young people. I would usually go by myself (though I did convince a friend to join me a few times), and would have a couple of beers while I watched. It was a lot of fun.

Season 6 ended with a cliff hanger, and there was all this buzz and excitement when season 7 started. But in the first episode of season 7, a beloved character was brutally murdered. I still remember the shockwave through the audience when it happened. The next Sunday, the crowd was maybe half the size. That moment practically killed the show; it’s popularity plummeted after that. But the irony is that in this instance, the TV show was being completely faithful to the comic book. The same exact murder happens in the comic, and because of that I wasn’t surprised by it at all. And as for the brutality of it, well, the comic had always been that violent; it was like the TV show was catching up. But this was too much, I think, for most fans, and the TV series never recovered it’s viewership levels after that.

When I moved to Pennsylvania, I finished reading the comic books, and continued watching the TV show with Aileen. At this point, in order to stay current, we purchased the seasons on Amazon prime (yeesh), and then eventually got an AMC+ subscription. Tonight, we’ll be able to watch the last episode, on our streaming smart TV. I’m very curious to see how its ending compares to the one in the comic series.

While I do think the comic books are better, because they have a more coherent story and actually have a point, I have enjoyed the show, and its creators and producers deserve kudos for their achievement. 12 years (11 if you consider the pandemic break) is an amazing run for a television series. It’s been quite a journey for the characters who survived this long, and for the audience that has stuck with the show to the end.

Aileen and I have discussed why this show is popular. She says it’s because it reminds people that no matter how bad their lives get, it’s nothing like what the characters in The Walking Dead have to go through. And she agrees with me that the series captures the mood of the Fourth Turning. As I’ve blogged before, it’s like the reckoning that Gen X has been waiting their whole lives for, finally coming to pass. It parallels the state of our world today, with everything falling apart, and group pitted against group. I just hope that in the show, and in real life, the good guys win.

A Millennial Learns the Hard Way to Act Her Wage

A Millennial Learns the Hard Way to Act Her Wage

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Recently we enjoyed the Netflix limited series Inventing Anna, based on the real-life story of a young woman who scammed New York high society for a good while during the 2010s. A lot of the show focuses on the high life – international travel, high-end hotels, designer clothes, expensive food and drink.

It reminded me of how movies from the 1930s were often about the well-to-do; everyone is in top hats and tails or fancy dresses with low cut backs, attending parties with ever flowing champagne. What Great Depression?


Ernst Lubitsch’s Trouble in Paradise is a delightful pre-Hayes code 1930s film about con artists travelling in high society.

Those movies were a form of escapism, and I got a similar vibe from this show, with its Millennials living like the Kardashians. But that’s not the norm for Millennials, right? Millennials are suffering in this economy, right? From watching Inventing Anna, you’d barely know – there are no gripes about student loans or the impossible cost of living, just young people living large. That’s why it struck me as a parallel to the films of the 1930s; it’s entertainment obsessing and focusing on the lives of the wealthy, while pushing the troubled nature of the economy out of sight.

It might not be fair to say that the titular character Anna was simply a con artist. Aileen and I had a discussion about this after we finished the show. In my opinion, she wasn’t a straight-up scammer in the Jimmy McGill sense. She was self-deluded and trying to accomplish something using sheer gumption and wishful thinking; she was trying to “fake it until you make it.” She was living way beyond her means while attempting to get a huge loan for a business venture, for which purpose she engaged in some technically fraudulent activities. She got caught because she exhausted her credit, and was charged with crimes, convicted and sentenced to prison (she has since been released).

But what if she had pulled off her scheme? What if she had somehow gotten the loan and started the business and made it profitable and joined high society for good, to the point that she had a cadre of fancy lawyers who could clean up her little bit of fraud behind her. Fait accompli. Then she just might have been another highly successful “art of the deal” type scammer. Like, you know, the guy who was President of the United States at the time.

My Man Godfrey is another 1930s film set in high society, which actually addresses class issues and The Great Depression.

Critiques of the show and of the magazine article on which it is based have tied the story to the class issues facing Millennials, as well as to the erosion of standards of truth and honesty that characterized the previous administration. Young adults today see the lives of the rich and famous plastered all over media, even while the chance at upward mobility is denied them, with economic opportunity available to fewer and fewer people as income inequality worsens. Why shouldn’t they do whatever it takes to make it?

Anna Sorokin had none of the qualifications for entering the world of fashionable socialites, but the lure of that lifestyle was irresistible to her. So she invented the qualifications; she created a “German heiress” persona and she attempted to insert herself into high society simply by acting like the people there do. What’s astonishing is that, for a few years at least, it worked. All she had to do to become a socialite was to act like one.

You might say that Sorokin didn’t act her wage, and for that paid a high price in reputation, and even lost her freedom (though I understand she got a handsome payout from the Netflix series production). What does it even mean to act your wage? This question leads me to the concept of “Hidden Rules of Class,” which I learned about in a workshop called “Bridges out of Poverty” that was held at one of my workplaces.

The concept of the hidden rules of economic class is that living in a particular socioeconomic class means having certain attitudes about and approaches to dealing with life’s basics. For example, with respect to money: when you live in poverty, money is simply something you need to survive. Easy come, easy go. But when you are middle class, money is something you have to manage – you have to tend it the way a farmer husbands livestock. When you are wealthy, money is now something to conserve. It’s more than a means to live, it’s a legacy.

If you’re wondering whether you are middle class or not, just ask yourself if you have to manage your money. If you have no savings or income surplus to work with and are just living hand to mouth, then, sorry, you are poor. But if you have the ability to live within your means, so long as you budget, and have enough leftover income after paying for necessities to plan how to use it – to save for big purchases or vacations (or retirement!) – then, congratulations, you are middle class. You might live in one of any number of tiers of the middle class, defined by the size of your house and the fanciness of your car and the cost of your vacations, but if you have to pay attention to your income and expenses, then you are middle class.

Only if you are truly in the wealthy class can you live like Anna Sorokin tried to live, casually travelling to anywhere on Earth and spending money on expensive luxuries without any thought. In that socioeconomic class, there is no concept of work-life balance, because you don’t work to live. You don’t go on vacation, you just live on the planet wherever you want, and naturally you choose pleasurable locations which for the middle class are occasional vacation destinations. You aren’t managing money at this point to get by, you are managing connections and exclusive memberships – your status is what you groom, not your account balances. The money takes care of itself.

That is how Anna lived, with incredible chutzpah, even though she wasn’t in the right class. And because she did it so naturally, she pulled it off – for awhile. It couldn’t last, of course, because there was no actual capital backing her up, just imaginary capital. I say she must have been self-deluded, because how else could she convince so many others of the reality of her delusional persona? Whether she realized it or not, she was taking advantage of the hidden rules of class to roleplay someone in the class she wished to be in, for as long as she could get away with it.

A Not So Fun Sandman Fact Check

A Not So Fun Sandman Fact Check

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This post contains a mild spoiler about the Netflix series “The Sandman,” which we just started watching. If you don’t want a spoiler, don’t read any further! Stop now while there’s hope!

…

First I’ll just say that The Sandman on Netflix does an excellent job of capturing the spirit of Neil Gaiman’s comics, though I’m recalling that spirit through a very hazy fog of memory, since I read the comics decades ago. I am thoroughly enjoying the dark fantasy aesthetic of this new TV series, as well as the signature Gaiman storytelling style, which I would describe as forgivably clichéd.

While watching the first episode, I had a curious moment of synchronicity. One element of the story is the outbreak of “sleepy sickness,” or encephalitis lethargica, which occurred from roughly 1917-1927. In the fantasy show it is attributed to the imprisonment of Morpheus, the King of Dreams. Basically, if you mess with the immortal power behind sleep and dreams, you’re going to mess with people’s sleep cycles pretty hard.

My synchronicity experience was that I had literally just read an academic paper about this outbreak, earlier that same day. This article was examining historical evidence for sequelae (abnormal conditions resulting from a previous disease) to earlier pandemics which are similar to long COVID.

Here is a relevant quote:

The Spanish Flu Pandemic (1918-1919) and Encephalitis Lethargica

The long-term neurological effects of the Spanish flu pandemic
of 1918 and 1919 included Parkinsonism, catatonia, and
“encephalitis lethargica”. The term encephalitis lethargica
was first used by the Austrian neurologist Constantin von
Economo in 1917 after he identified an increased number of
patients in Vienna with meningitis and delirium during the winters
of 1916 and 1917. In 1918, disorders that were similar
to encephalitis lethargica were reported elsewhere in Europe
and the United States, with a peak in cases in 1923 and a decline
over the course of the decade. Ravenholt and Foege
showed that in Seattle, Washington, clusters of deaths from
encephalitis lethargica significantly increased a year after the
winters of 1918 to 1922. Importantly, they also showed that
in American Samoa, which largely escaped the 1918 and 1919
influenza pandemic, there were very few cases of encephalitis
lethargica. In comparison, in Samoa (formerly known
as Western Samoa), where 8000 influenza deaths occurred,
there were 79 deaths due to encephalitis lethargica between
1919 and 1922.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7924007/pdf/medscimonit-27-e931447.pdf

In other words, sleepy sickness wasn’t the result of a supernatural mishap. It was “long Spanish influenza!”

It is understandable for this fantasy story to associate sleepy sickness with its main character’s fate, since there is such a strong thematic connection. But in reality, the disease is likely an effect of viral infection or exposure, a more mundane explanation but also one that is very relevant to us in these pandemic times.

There seems to be a wish or urge to put the COVID pandemic behind us, even though the virus is still circulating and still killing. The lesson of past pandemic sequelae is that the effects of COVID will be with us for years to come.

Homelanders in Hell

Homelanders in Hell

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We recently watched an excellent zombie horror TV series called All of Us Are Dead (one season so far available on Netflix). It’s set in a high school, so it’s also a coming of age show, with accompanying side stories about fitting in and surviving bullying and whether or not to reveal your feelings to your crush. Not to say too much, but you can probably guess from the title that things don’t go very well for most of the students.

One theme that runs through the show is the expectation that the kids have of being aided or rescued by adults as the zombie apocalypse rages through their school, but ultimately being disappointed. There are heroic adult characters in the show, as well as cowardly ones, but for the most part the high school students are left to their own devices and it’s up to them to save themselves. The fantastical circumstances don’t allow for many options.

This is common enough in zombie shows; they always end up as survival against all odds stories. But in the case of this show there is an overarching sense of cluelessness and irresponsibility coming out of the adult world, while it’s the kids who end up paying the price. In fact, the zombie virus origin itself is tied to a subplot involving both negligence and recklessness by adults.

It’s a depressing show, and watching it I couldn’t help but compare the fate of these fictional schoolchildren with those who in the real world have been victimized in their classrooms by horrific mass shootings. They too should have been protected, but were abandoned instead. It’s an unmistakable parallel which aligns the young characters in this show with the Homeland Generation in the United States. You might say that this show belongs to a new genre I will call “Homelanders in Hell.”

What do I mean, “the Homeland Generation?” In terms of Strauss-Howe generational theory, this is the generation, born since 2005, currently in childhood and filling the halls of middle schools and high schools. By their age location in history, as children during a Crisis Era, their role is stay out of the way, protected by adults who are doing the hard work of managing multiple unfolding catastrophes.

Except, tragically, when adults fail them, overwhelmed as they are by the magnitude of the disaster. Then their role is to be mourned in death, and in death to be held up as an inspiration for adults to find the courage and strength to do better.

A still from the TV series All of Us Are Dead
Is This TV Show Peak Gen X?

Is This TV Show Peak Gen X?

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Lately we’ve been getting into Peaky Blinders (available on Netflix), a very artfully crafted period crime drama set in Birmingham, England in the 1920s. It’s dark and brooding, ruthlessly violent, and bristling with attitude. It has occurred to me while watching it that it exemplifies the qualities of Generation X, and may well reflect the peak of Gen X influence in today’s entertainment world.

Now, I realize that the show is British and therefore not technically Gen X, since that is a name for an American generation. And I realize that the creator, Steven Knight, would be a Boomer if he were American, and that the younger actors on the show would be Millennials – if they were American.

But the principal actors, the ones who make the show so tough and gritty, and so cool, are Gen X. I mean, they would be if they were American. They are superbly skilled and nuanced in their performances (particularly Helen McCrory, God rest her soul), portraying characters that are stylish and brash, with a hard shell of bravado that disguises a vulnerable soul.

The setting is the criminal underworld in an industrial town, just after the First World War. In fact, the older criminal gang leaders are all veterans of the war. In other words, their characters are from a generation that matches Gen X in archetype – hard-hearted survivors in a rough and exploitative social milieu.

The beautiful costumes and sets, and the brilliant cinematography, with everything shot in dark lighting with a gray and grimy color palette, contribute to my judgment that this show is an epitome of the new golden age of dark and harrowing television. On top of that, the show features a soundtrack of modern indie/prog/hard rock. It’s completely anachronistic, but it works, much better than in other shows or films that I’ve seen try the same thing. It just cements the affinity between the Lost Generation characters and the punk Gen Xers who play them, their archetype resounding across a hundred years of history.

That’s why I say Peaky Blinders isn’t just peak TV, it’s peak Gen X.

Gen X Creatives in Film and Television

Gen X Creatives in Film and Television

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Recently we’ve been on a kick of watching movies and series on streaming video that are made by two particular Generation Xers, just because we like their stuff so much.

The first Gen Xer is Mike Flanagan (b. 1978), probably best known for the horror miniseries The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix. He’s also done another great horror show on Netflix called Midnight Mass, as well as a couple of film adaptations of Stephen King stories: Gerald’s Game and Dr. Sleep. We’ve watched all of these. His work is moody and atmospheric, with brilliant technical design and camera work. It includes, as horror typically does, shocking and bizarre supernatural elements, and even some good jump scares, although the latter is not what Flanagan has a reputation for. Rather, he is known for his cerebral, character-driven stories and his creative themes. He’s like an indie darling of horror film, and his work has an unmistakable signature.

The other filmmaker we have been getting into is Jeremy Saulnier (b. 1976). He makes these gritty, gripping, true to life thrillers, set in ordinary run-down parts of America, featuring characters who are ordinary people you might recognize from your own life. His films are plot-driven, very tense and suspenseful, and punctuated with extreme violence. They always make me think of Straw Dogs by Sam Peckinpah (b. 1925). Like Flanagan, Saulnier has an unmistakable style. We’ve watched Blue Ruin, Green Room, and Hold the Dark, and they all come highly recommended.

I’ve noticed that a signature style tends to stand out in the works of Gen X auteur filmmakers like these, more so than for older generations. Boomer filmmakers like Steven Spielberg (b. 1946) are more likely to genre-hop and try their hand at different kinds of films. It’s as if they want to prove that they have the creative chops to do anything (a really good example of that is Ang Lee, b. 1954). Gen Xers, on the other hand, carve out a niche and cultivate a distinct, individualistic look and feel.

Probably the first Gen X filmmaker to make waves was Quentin Tarantino (b. 1963), with his break-out film Reservoir Dogs in 1992, followed by his instant classic, Pulp Fiction, in 1994. His work is famous for its dark sense of humor, its artful violence, and its plot twists that shift character loyalties. Tarantino has perfected the art of the lurid crime B movie. Another Xer who came on the scene early is Kevin Smith (b. 1970), of Clerks fame, who tends to make crass comedy films. He’s another B movie all-star.

In the decades since the rise of Generation X in the early 1990s, numerous film makers from that generation have made a mark, crafting bodies of work which have a distinctive style to them. Many have won Academy Awards, and some have smashed box office records in the current era of blockbuster sci-fi and superhero action adventure movies. For example, there’s Christopher Nolan (b. 1970) with his Dark Knight trilogy, and J. J. Abrams (b. 1966) with his Star Wars movies. There’s other big names, but I’m more interested in this post in bringing to light some of the (perhaps only slightly) less prominent Gen X directors and their idiosyncratic styles.

If this brief list leaves anyone out, it’s only because of my particular exposure and preferences. It’s interesting how their birth years are clustered in the late 1960s (same as me, hmm) and how so many of them got their start in the late 1990s.

Joss Whedon (b. 1964) created the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series, and the much celebrated sci-fi television series Firefly, among others. I think his writing perfectly captures the peer personality of Generation X – sardonic, scrappy, at once defiant and full of self-doubt, independent and fiercely loyal to their friends. He’s created many lovable ensembles of characters, caught up in implausible science fiction and fantasy plots, fighting the good fight with panache and a lot of witty banter.

Wes Anderson (b. 1969) has created a unique style that’s been called “deliberative,” with very literal narrative exposition, and acting which is intentionally stilted and mechanical, like the characters are clockwork toys methodically enacting the story. His movies are whimsical, bordering on absurd, but under their farcical surfaces lie warm and heartfelt messages. My favorite of his movies is Moonrise Kingdom.

Darren Aronofsky (b. 1969) makes very weird psychological films, with touches of both insanity and the supernatural. His debut film was Pi, about a number theorist with severe mental health issues. His best known work is probably Black Swan, but my favorite is The Fountain, with its conquistador subplot and its occult references.

The Wachowskis (b. 1965 & 1967) are best known for The Matrix movies. They’ve made a number of adaptations of comics and novels, and the original story Jupiter Ascending. They go for big production values, visual extravagance, elaborate settings and complex plots. They have a reputation for flair over substance, but personally I like their stuff. My all time favorite is Cloud Atlas, based on a novel by David Mitchell (b. 1969).

Sofia Coppola (b. 1971) has made more down-to-earth dramas and comedy-dramas than the other creators on this list, starting with the film The Virgin Suicides. Her work is influenced by her background in the fashion industry, and has even been accused of being “too feminine.” Her best know work is probably Lost in Translation.

Spike Jonze (b. 1969) has a relatively short director filmography compared to others on this list, but boy are his movies weird and creative. He is definitely a boundary-pusher, going for odd stories that make you think. You might have seen his intriguing interpretation of Where the Wild Things Are. For story idea and social commentary, I really liked Her.

Zach Snyder (b. 1966) has had considerable success making adaptations of comics, including several films in the DC Extended Universe, most famously Justice League (you’ve probably heard of the “Snyder cut“). His style includes extensive use of slow motion and speed ramping in his action sequences, making battle scenes into works of 3D art, like the comics on which so many of his movies are based. I really like Suckerpunch, which is based on an original concept.

Reviewing this list, it’s plain that I like sci-fi/fantasy a lot, as well as weird indie films. And I do think it’s fascinating that so many of these auteur directors are about my age. Is that a selection bias coming from my personal preferences, or is there really a cluster of highly successful filmmakers among my immediate birth cohorts? Patterns like that do happen. In any event, I hope you enjoyed this list and will consider watching some of the work by the creative lights of my generation.