Slacker Hell

The mid-90s was a great era for movies from a slacker generation that wanted to define itself by being as messed up as possible, but still worthy of love. Thus, many of them ended with two or three people huddled together crying, speaking in lilting voices about how they were terrible and vile and different and rebels, but everything was gonna be okay.

This sort of sentiment doesn't really exist in movies that much anymore, although it pops up from time to time in indie films. Of course, the mainstream version of this is the rag-tag bunch of misfits that ends up prevailing against the wealthier, more organized little league team. Proof that individuality is more important than status.

However, I'm starting to wonder if that sort of thing is alright in real life.

From time to time I see situations cropped up where members of my generation throw up their hands and accept that certain things about their lives are messed up. While I understand that outside forces are impossible to control, it seems odd to completely acquiesce when things aren't easy. Let alone to embrace troubles or issues as "being individualistic". You've shaved your head, won't speak to your parents and are thinking about moving in with your 50-year-old manager, but things are okay, because you're an individual. And you can't break the cycle.

Does that mean that we're all damaged goods?

Some of you might not relate to this, but I imagine we've all had things in our lives that profoundly changed us for better or worse - things that galvanized and adulterated us into maturity. Things that were, in the 90s way of putting things, really messed up, man. But from time to time we'll have to question how deeply those events affected us. Let's put me on the couch really quickly.

My brother was diagnosed with a fatal illness when I was 7. From then on, my parents devoted a large amount of time caring for him which left me without a lot of parental attention. I ambled through middle school, becoming suicidal at one point because I had exactly zero friends, failed at mostly everything in my life and was ridiculed openly when I succeeded. I decided to survive because it would have destroyed my family - especially my mother - to add to their plate. In high school, my pendulum swung to the other side, renouncing my religion, experimenting with drugs and acting like a general pompous ass to the opposite gender.During those years I skated, went to punk shows, played in a band and got high a decent bit of the time - I also did this while being an able student, holding down several jobs, acting as Senior Class President and being generally liked by teachers and parents alike. During my senior year, my brother died, and my close friends felt like I never dealt with it directly. These were my formative years.

I agree that there is nothing that bad in my history - especially compared to others' - but even still, I never feel like my life is careening out of control or that I don't have a decent handle with dealing with my past.

A friend of mine told me that she never speaks with her ex-boyfriends. I asked her whether she felt like that was healthy or if they still had an impact on her life because she hadn't reconciled comfortably with them. She didn't really know.

On one hand, the films of the 1990s are rubbish - a group of people that will be cradling each other once a week when the next person's nervous breakdown comes, never really dealing with their issues, always seeking consolation in their uniqueness while masking how alone that makes them.

On the other hand, it makes a strident point - that no matter how low life brings you, you deserve love.

And even though I think we should all be working toward a sense of comfortable normalcy (whatever that may be for each of us), I still see being huddled in a corner, crying, surrounded by our friends as a fundamental right that we can take advantage of from time to time. Just don't be too counter culture about it or it'll end up on film.