American Beauty for the ReGeneration

With the Oscars nearing closer everyday (like everything else in the future), I'd like to remind the Academy of a very important quality to look for in movies. This is especially important when they'll be able to choose from ten movies for Best Picture--probably Avatar, Precious, The Hurt Locker, Up in the Air, Inglorious Basterds, A Serious Man, Nine, Invictus, Up and Star Trek (dead serious). The cinematic virtue I'm talking about is longevity. Not running length--though many of these films have that in spades, too--but of cultural relevance to the year the movie came out in.

It's these movies that have cultural relevance that stick with audiences. It's these movies that are more than Best Pictures winners. They remain in the public consciousness years later. This is what separates Braveheart from The Last Emperor. Why do people still know the goofy accents from Fargo but can't name the writer, director or star of The English Patient? Audiences don't remember Forrest Gump because it won Best Picture. Likewise, audiences haven't forgotten about Pulp Fiction even though it lost.

So let's talk about 1999. The Cider House Rules, The Green Mile, The Insider and The Sixth Sense were all beaten by American Beauty. More than the others, I feel The Sixth Sense was a better film than American Beauty. Unfortunately, The Sixth Sense is crushed by its iconic twist ending and deemed unwatchable by many solely because "they know the ending." But we don't watch movies to get to the ending. If that was true, all movies would be as short as possible. 5 second movies would become the norm. Aside from making 20 minutes of previews all that more excruciating, this would also serve as a sad commentary on life. Are we going through life to get to the ending? No, we're not. And no, we shouldn't be watching movies just to know the ending.

Back to an earlier point though, American Beauty may still have been the best pick for that year as it serves as a great marker on American sensibilities of the time. The late 90s was host to a number of movies backlashing against the rise of white-collar culture. American Beauty was about Lester quitting his job and rejecting all the status symbols his family and neighbors had come to love (including an Italian sofa). Similar themes are found in Fight Club, The Matrix, Office Space, American Psycho, etc.

This rejection of "the system" was itself a backlash to group unification seen in movies during the early nineties and eighties. This period was marked by the end of the Cold War and America's confusion about the next big threat. As we had been faced with nuclear annihilation for years on end, we could only imagine the next threat to be similarly huge. This is why movies focused more on unify against a common enemy--for instance, the saucer-aliens from Independence Day (my god, is that movie really THAT old?).

As the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001 were arguably the biggest single-day event in American history, it should be of no surprise that they changed movies. All of a sudden it's the little threats that scare us. Batman/James Bond/whoever else fights street criminals, not traditional super villains. Now we aren't concerned about aliens blowing up the entire east coast (as a metaphor for nuclear destruction), but we're concerned about aliens being near our homes and families, as seen in Signs (2003). In Signs, alien ships hover above Mexico City, and presumably other major cities, but we only learn this information through the television. The audience, like the characters, are stuck in their homes and neighborhoods, completely vulnerable to a threatening enemy we cannot see or understand.

Now let's re-examine my Oscar nominees prediction. These movies, for the most part, are not an acceptance or rejection of "the system." Nobody is going rogue, nor are unconnected people unifying. Rather there is a different phenomenon. Characters are finding their voice within the system they are a part of. They do not feel like a pawn in the great scheme of things like the characters in the late 90s. Brad Pitt is most definitely a part of the Allied forces in Inglorious Basterds, but he is special within the group. Kirk from Star Trek needs the star fleet to do what he feels is his calling, despite having a different up-bringing.

I think this mentality will reverberate within my previously defined ReGeneration. We need the system, we need each other, to reach new heights but also need independence to cope and fight with the independent-based threats flooding society. Outside of movie-world, nobody can argue that Facebook hasn't opened up new ways of organizing; while at the same time emphasizing the individuals. And while movies about being made about the financial industry, the army and even Facebook, I am confident they'll all be instantly forgettable if they don't tap into this solidifying generation.

Sometimes working within a good group isn't enough. Sometimes being a good individual isn't enough. And, sorry Academy Awards, sometimes winning Best Picture isn't enough.