Earlier this year, the American media introduced a new phrase into the pop-culture lexicon: Generation X. With the release of the movie "Reality Bites" -- about a group of recent graduates trying to come of age -- and then the tragic suicide of Kurt Cobain, this fringe label went mainstream, and newspapers and magazines created a bandwagon for the whole world to jump on.
Yet, I never felt the idea of Generation X was properly explained to me. Is it about feeling "vaguely crummy and disoriented," as a writer in The New Yorker put it?; is it about being jobless, futureless and hopeless?; is it about self-absorption and petty angst?
I certainly wasn't going to find out from "Reality Bites," a meandering, movie about people who smoke and drink Big Gulps. Was that all there was to Generation X -- being bored and having nicotine fits? Nor have I been able to get a true sense of Generation X from the countless stories in Newsweek or Time, all of which seem to be written by men or women well beyond their post-college years, and all of which seem intent upon exploiting the popularity of Kurt Cobain or Pearl Jam to sell their magazines.
I bring all of this up not to jump on the bandwagon, nor to attempt to define and convey the feelings of Generation X myself. Instead, I want to point out that, in my opinion, there is a film which has given me a full sense of what it means to be a member of Generation X. Even if I don't feel as if I'm a part of it, the youth culture portrayed in the film "Naked" makes a whole lot of sense to me.
The film, which will be shown this weekend in the Loew Theater, is about a bitter young man named Johnny who, jobless and broke, embarks upon a strange odyssey through the streets of contemporary post-Thatcher London. Johnny mostly talks, be it long philosophical conversations or misogynistic ranting; and all the while he seems inexplicably bitter, angry and tortured.
When I first saw the movie I was both saddened and troubled. It is a deeply cynical work, suggesting we live in a world of avarice, violence and sin that goes unpunished. But in the months since I've seen the movie, it has continued to linger in my mind, and whenever I hear the words Generation X, I think of this small, independent British film made by Mike Leigh, a man in his late forties.
"Naked" has it all -- angst, rage, apathy. What makes "Naked" so worth seeing though is that it not only depicts these feelings but it accounts for them as well. Watching David Thewlis as Johnny, you begin to understand the source of all of his rage and cynicism. By the end, you may not like him very much, but you feel his generational angst.
The irony of this film is that it was made in England by a director almost two generations older than most college graduates. The lessons to be learned from this are twofold: firstly, the confusion of a dissolute youth culture at odds with its government, society and place in the world is not uniquely American, and secondly, if a man as old as Mike Leigh can capture the spirit of Generation X, then maybe the generation gap and the feelings of alienation which Generation X articles often speak of aren't as daunting as we think.
The lesson then to be learned from "Naked" and from all of the past dialogue about Generation X, is this: despite differences in age or nationality, we all share a common ground, a place in a world uncertain of its future. Maybe all we need is more communication -- a few more movies like "Naked" to explain things more clearly -- between the generations and between nations, a chance to explain to one another why we're feeling so lousy.
