by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Being old sucks. You can’t date cute 24 year old women without seeming like a creepy old man. You face ageism at every turn. And you’re left with a lot of wistful memories about this or that thing you could have done better or different a decade ago.
And, yet, at the same time, being older does give you some perspective on life. You start to be old enough to see macro trends that were once completely obscured. So, let’s talk about pop culture over the last, say, 50 years.
For me, the “Modern” media world starts with the films of the late 1970s and early 80s. That was Modern. I was too young to understand what was going on, of course, but those films like Being There, Annie Hall, Manhattan, The Empire Strikes Back and All That Jazz established the “modern” world. Such films established what was “real” for my little developing mind.
On a personal level, it wasn’t until Neo took The Red Pill in The Matrix that we entered the modern post-Modern era of media. (I say this only because, as I understand it, the original post-modernism happened in 1968 when the French intelligentsia grew disillusioned with Communism after the invasion of Czechoslovakia.)
After The Matrix, I would say the modern post-modernism was epitomized by The Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind. What a great film.
The point of all of this is, because of the Rona, it’s at least possible that we’re in for something of a reset in media. There will be the New Modern as opposed to the Post-Modern. There are a shit ton movies that have been delayed because of the Rona, so it’s possible that as all those movies get unclogged from the system that one of them might be That Movie that makes a huge impression on the tinder minds of Gen Z and starts the whole process over again. I would note in passing that one might point to the extreme post-modernism of Fleabag as a sign that such a reset is just about to happen.
Or not. Who knows.
But the Rona is such a huge macro event that has put a pause on the media world, it definitely seems that if any such reset is going to happen, right about now would be a great time for it to happen. And if you throw in the ultra-extreme post-modernistic nature of the Trump Era — and it’s rather abrupt conclusion, that, too might indicate Something Big in pop culture is happening.
It make take us years to see it, though.
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