Some friends and I were recently discussing movies from the 1990's (hey, it happens), and someone brought up Singles, Cameron Crowe's 1992 Gen X update of the 1980's teen flick formula. "Singles is okay as a film, but as a socio-historical document it is magnificent," was my assessment, which led to the usual talk about the film's popularizing of Seattle's grunge scene.
That's true, I suppose, though I don't think it's as cut-and-dried as some Monday morning popcult quarterbacks would have you think. It's one of those "chicken or the egg" scenarios, capitalizing on emerging hot trend even as it -- or, more accurately, the film's soundtrack -- heightened the masses' interest in the same. (The film spent some time in release date limbo before the studio execs realized that there was some marketing synergy to be had with the buzz coming from the PacNorWest.) However, it wasn't Singles' relationship to the flannelmania scene that I was referring to when I gave it props as a historical document, but rather the how the movie managed to perfectly capture the spirit of the moment.
I was twenty in 1992, drifting listlessly through my sophomore year in college...or maybe my "second" freshman year....the traditional definitions don't really work with the whole seven year plan thing. Every generation feels that they occupy a place of singual importance on history's stage, but at the time it really felt as if we were on the edge of something huge and important, a fundamental break with our Boomer parents' vision of society. The fourth floor of Wheatley Hall, home to UMass Boston's student clubs and organizations, was abuzz with such sentiments, but even outside that rarfied atmosphere, the world at large seemed poised for a tectonic shift.
ACT UP, Queer Nation, PETA, Irish Northern Aid, third wave feminism, Sister Soulja, Body Count, the L.A. riots, the end of the Cold War, next-gen environmentalism, the lingering effects of the late 1980's recession, the 1992 presidental election -- a multitude of forces were in motion and the beach was just a few small paving stones away. Out with twelve years of Reaganism and Reaganism Lite and in with the new...or at least the different.
Then the DotCom boom hit, and my generational peers swapped out nose rings and Doc Martens for Gap clothes and 401k plans and fiscal conservatism and condo associations. The Soundgarden albums kept their places on the CD rack, but Dave Matthews and the Goo Goo Dolls got the heavy rotation. I don't fault them (okay, I do, but I'm trying to be charitable) but how did "I won't be like my parents" turn into "I will be exactly like my parents, only with an affected sense of irony and a thin veneer of hipness"?
Then, to add insult to injury, the Republican Revolution swept in to mock the corpse of ideals abandoned.
Watching Singles isn't just an exercise in undergrad nostalgia for me, it's a painful, poignant reminder of a world that was and could have been, had it not been tripped up by its own shallowness and solipsistic apathy. This is why I can't help but discern a familiar tune whenever I come across Gen Y or Gen Z or Gen Whatever-the-fuck-is-the-sexy-letter-demographic-now diatribes about being the "voice of change" and the fulcrum on which a new world will slide into place.
Youthful sincerity is by definition an ephemeral phenomenon, and the counter-revolution is just a glib joke and revenue-sharing plan away.
The musical annotations for this post probably should have run toward the grunge end of the spectrum, but my dislike of the genre has only grown with the passing of years. I instead offer this representative pair of tracks from my circa 1992 playlist...because some things -- such as superlative Welsh punk rock and radical Marxist postpunk -- never go out of style.
The Partisans - The Money Rolls In (from The Time Was Right, 1984)
Gang of Four - At Home He's a Tourist (from Entertainment! 1980)
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6 comments:
Excellent stuff.
I really should watch Singles again, I remember watching it at the time and just thinking cheese.
Maybe time has been kinder too it.
I quite liked some of the stuff coming out of Seattle at the time.
But give me the Partisans over that every time.
J
"... and I don't mean this in a Eddie Haskell-ish way."
What is your asessment of Reality Bites now? I just recently tried to make my way thru it and it was too painful.
On the subject of punk - have you read 77 Sulphate Strip? Keep an eye out if not, It's one of the best punk books I've ever read, and I've read a ton of 'em.
I've always thought of Nik Cohn’s Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom as the Ye Olde Testament of punk and Jon Savage’s England’s Dreaming as the New Testament. Reading 77 SS is like discovering the Dead Sea Scrolls of punk.
I was 9 years old in 1992. But I got into the whole Northwest sound in high school after it had pretty much died out. (I will always associate Mudhoney with prom night), and my date at the time emulated Matt Dillon's style down to the thermals and the leather jacket.
I remember watching singles and thinking that even though the cameos from Eddie Vedder are entertaining, it just seemed so, well, marketed?
while the grunge bands in turn led me into the earlier underground sounds, I'm glad that you've put any nostalgia I may have had for a bygone era to rest.
I also find that I get very cynical whenever I hear people talk about my generation (I guess I'm "Y") doing all these great things because I just don't see it...
Singles is a lightweight film, for sure, but it's one that perfectly captures a certain moment in time...unlike Reality Bites, which is pure shit.
John: My LP of The Time Was Right has been worn into semi-translucence through countless repeated plays.
PM: I must track that down. It sounds like a winner.
thatgirl: My entire life has been spent surfing the wake of the curve, so I totally understand.
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