Losing the Loser

May 10, 2010

I didn't love Greenberg.
 
I think that our generational character was better captured in Say Anything, Slackers and the Before Sunrise films. In those movies we were pictured as tender, tough and even a little naive, not the social predators older Boomers were afraid of or the drop-dead losers of Reality Bites or -- later -- Greenberg.
 
(Those were masochistic mirages -- the id fear of our worst tendencies. Masochism and irony will be our greatest obstacles as we move ahead.)
 
Gen X middle age IS going to happen, of course, but I don't think we've held on to adolescence or are the do-nothing losers media still wants to paint us as... I'm proud of my cohort who struggled against an irresistible tide of futility, debt and meanness on a scale that's difficult to comprehend.
 
In a very real sense we are exactly what this age is going to need.