Month: May 2024

As I get further away from my childhood I find myself ever more drawn to revisiting films and TV shows from my past. Once upon a time I tried to put the 90s behind me and focus entirely on new movies and shows but lately with all the splintered streaming services and movies priced out of my reach I found myself reverting back to rediscovering things from the past I once left behind. 

I started with taking a deep dive into discovering 80s horror movies I missed out on previously. Every once in a while I come cross a hidden gem I missed out on in my youth but more often than not I find myself wondering how much coke you have to be on to make sense of some of those flicks. This has been a long running gag among horror fans and film aficionados in general that the 80s were the coke fueled era in Hollywood. I am not sure how true that is but it is the stereotype that has become the norm in our modern culture. 

This cannot necessarily be said for the films from the 90s. As I rewatch childhood favorites I wonder if the reason the 90s were so tame compared to the 80s truly  is because Hollywood collectively coming off the coke high of the previous decade or if it was a renewed sense of cynicism that took over pop culture in the 90s. Oddly enough I have heard Millennials describe the 90s as a time of optimism as the Cold War ended but 9/11 hadn’t happened yet. I am not entirely sure I agree with this assessment. The music, especially grunge and rap music of the 90s is decidedly NOT optimistic. In fact if you listen to most music of the decade you get a sense of pending dread with songs like “Its the End of the World As We Know it” and similar bleak song like Beck’s “Loser” or Cake’s Never There or even Liz Phair’s depressing ditty “Polyester Bride” to the pessimistic “Stupid Girl” by Garbage or “No Shelter” by Rage Against the Machine. Music in general was just depressing back then. 

As I revisit movies from that period I notice the same thing. Where as the 80s had movies like Back to the Future, The Breakfast Club and Indiana Jones lighting up the sales charts, the 90s were considerably more grounded in reality for the most part. Sure we had Jurassic Park and Tremors but even those had a more somber and realistic tone than the monster movies of the 80s. Gone were the chaotic evil Gremlins replaced by the boring  dinosaurs. Even teen movies like Encino Man, She’s All That, 10 Things I hate About You or Can’t Hardly Wait have depressing undertones with the main characters offering a world view of the future that has them regretting facing their future rather than excitedly anxious to get started on their careers.  Take Pretty In Pink and you have a fairy tale about an underprivileged girl getting her fairy tale Prom. Now contrast that with Can’t Hardly Wait’s main character seeing his last night of high school as the end of the road before he settles into a bleak future sans the love of his imaginary life. 

Even horror movies were less fun in the 90s than they were in the 80s. Gone were the cheesy B movies with silly characters and over the top acting such as Sorority Babes in the Slime Ball Bowl O Rama or Night of the Creeps. Instead we had darker less cheesy movies like Species, Silence of the Lambs or even the endless downer that was Se7en. The fun Friday the 13th flicks with Jason hacking and slashing promiscuous teenagers was replaced by body hopping demons in Jason Goes to Hell. The half comedian, half serial killer MTV icon Freddy Krueger was no longer cracking one liners and entrapping his victims in elaborate Alice in Wonderland inspired dreamscapes. Instead we got Wes Craven’s New Nightmare which replaced the comedian Freddy with a dark and malevolent force hell bent on spreading pure evil.

What about videos games? Same story. In the 80s you had primitive but cartoony Super Mario Bros, Mega Man, Castlevania and Contra whisking you into fantastical worlds with pure optimism to spark your imagination. The 90s saw a darker turn there too. Mario 64 removed the whimsy of the NES era with a more sinister Bowser. Mega Man took a dark twist with the Mega Man X series which undid all the progress the Blue Bomber made during those first 6 8-bit adventures. Castlevania went from a linear side scrolling adventure hunting vampires to a dark and brooding Symphony of the Night with depictions of abuse, rage, and adult themes I won’t spoil for those who never played it. Even the imagery was darker and bloodier than what we had in the 80s. The light hearted beat em ups of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Double Dragon were replaced by the more realistic and gorier Mortal Kombat where the fate of the world was at threat by a demon and his half human dragon underling. That franchise went to darker places than any video game in the 80s dared dream of going. 

Even the happy go lucky mascot games were darker and edgier. Sonic had attitude and was facing a vile foe enslaving his friends. Donkey Kong Country was certainly edgier than the DK games of the past. Even the Legend of Zelda took the fairy tale world of Hyrule and replaced the threat of an evil wizard hell bent on world domination with an angry moon hell bent on total annihilation. This is just the kid friendly games! I haven’t even touched on the lawless world of Grand Theft Auto, the post apocalyptic nightmare that is the Resident Evil franchise or the literal trip to hell with Doom or Nazi German in Wolfenstein 3D.

Video games, music, movies and TV was taking a more cynical turn if not full on darker and edgier than what had dominated the 80s. In the 80s you had an alien puppet named Alf spreading hijinks or the optimistic and up beat Punky Brewster with it’s quirky child lead getting into trouble scamming her surrogate parent. Instead we had to sit through the sarcastic Daria with her negative outlook on life to Full House which thrust us head first episode one into the throes of a single dad struggling to overcome his own grief to find a way to be a rock in his daughter’s lives. Everything in the 90s screamed the future is going to suck and boy howdy was it not wrong.

In the 80s sitcoms were all about fairy tales. The Huxtables, The Keatons and Sam Malone and company were all living decent Middle to Upper Class lives finding the joys in life. Instead the 90s gave us the lower class Conners on Roseanne, the single mother construction worker on Grace Under Fire or the literal show about nothing, Seinfeld with it’s constant barrage of who cares week after week. Even the biggest hit of the decade, Friends, centered on an out of work actor, an under paid waitress, a single dad, a man facing trauma while navigating a dead end job and a woman with obsessive compulsive disorder struggling to pay rent. The optimism of the 80s were firmly gone replaced with an attitude of “life sucks get over it” 

Even cartoons were darker and edgier. In the 80s cartoons were the heroes triumphing over evil. GI Joe defeated Cobra, the Autobots destroying the evil Decepticons, the Care Bears defeating depression with love. In the 90s we got Exosquad, an adult themed cartoon tackling slavery and human rights. We got X-Men a cartoon centered on a government using advanced weapons and hostile legislation to target a minority group struggling for civil rights. Instead of the laugh out loud Monday’s suck but hey we got Lasagna with Garfield and Friends we now got Hey Arnold facing bullies week after week. Cartoons set in fantastical worlds like He Man’s Eternia or Thundera’s Thundercats. Now cartoons were firmly planted in our reality with the same grounded rules we faced in our day to day lives. Recess, Dough, Beavis and Butt head, Daria, and Hey Arnold had kids facing every day situations rather than having super heroes fighting imaginary evils. 

Every where you turn in the 90s rather than finding hope, optimism or pure escapism you are bombarded with constant reminders that life sucks and it ain’t getting any better. I think the 90s are probably the worst decade in pop culture and I say this despite having nothing but pure nostalgia for the decade.