I have to say SO emphatically that the hunger games franchise is the most gen z shit of all time. I was born in '94, the tail end of millennials - so I was a senior in high school when the first one came out. It didn't even occur to me to see the rest of the series (and I read the books!). Now the people hyped up on the prequel are all younger than me. And you're saying it here - Boyhood chronicles younger millennials' exact childhood and we were all obsessed with Harry Potter. Hunger Games has no nostalgia value for our generation. The one thing millennials DID grow up on that was pretty specific was the teen movie/later cohort romcom canon - I've seen John Tucker Must Die, 10 Things I Hate About You, Bring It On, Easy A, Blue Crush, Charlie's Angels, Easy A, Seventeen Again, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Friends with Benefits all 1000x. The thing about being a millennial and having an offline childhood is that the script we were given for adolescence was offline - as evidenced in most of these movies. That's what's so disorienting about it - then we grew up and everything was very much online. Hardly anything released in the 2010s really reflected how our lives were - the true ur milllennial movie is LADY BIRD - released in 2017 but set in 2002 because filmmakers have largely lost the thread on how to reflect society back to its actual contemporaries (Greta Gerwig b. 1983). How many movies have been made where two people meet and fall in love on Tinder? Almost none? Meanwhile half the weddings I go to are Tinder and Hinge matches. The true "millennial canon" for better or worse might be the Marvel movies - the first Avengers movie came out almost exactly when the first Hunger Games did and we've been drowning in Marvel ever since. It seems the Marvel reign might end soon (which I'm glad about!) but ultimately a big chunk of our lives has been dominated by Marvel! Also if we're just naming any old franchise, I would say National Treasure is a big millennial movie that we all adore. Are the generation that's hyper obsessed with Nic Cage? Food for thought. Love this type of post.
MUCH to discuss here, thank you for engaging with me on this important issue.
i was so wrong to overlook LADY BIRD. LADY BIRD BELONGS ON THE LIST.
i can get behind hunger games in generakl as a gen z thing -- apparently gale/peeta is a big thing for them -- but jennifer lawrence is a millennial icon and i will never release her! the kids can have zendaya.
the high school movies and romcoms you mentioned are IMHO in the clueless category where they are so archetypal that anyone can relate to them. kinda like how the breakfast club is extremely 80s but also timeless?
i refuse to believe the avengers are our movies they arent movies theyre....i dunno, something else, a big project. i mean it was nice the way they united everyone in the monoculture, like game of thrones? now im off on another topic.
i think every generation gets a nic cage. moonlight nic cage, national treasure nic cage, what will be the next nic cage? i cant wait to see.
youre right that no one has cracked the dating app rom com. master of none on netflix got close ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I was born in 1970. This post and comment have given me so many movies to watch and things to research. I’m fascinated. I did enjoy Easy A and have recently been thinking about rewatching Friends with Benefits. I’m a late comer to JT.
I have to say SO emphatically that the hunger games franchise is the most gen z shit of all time. I was born in '94, the tail end of millennials - so I was a senior in high school when the first one came out. It didn't even occur to me to see the rest of the series (and I read the books!). Now the people hyped up on the prequel are all younger than me. And you're saying it here - Boyhood chronicles younger millennials' exact childhood and we were all obsessed with Harry Potter. Hunger Games has no nostalgia value for our generation. The one thing millennials DID grow up on that was pretty specific was the teen movie/later cohort romcom canon - I've seen John Tucker Must Die, 10 Things I Hate About You, Bring It On, Easy A, Blue Crush, Charlie's Angels, Easy A, Seventeen Again, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Friends with Benefits all 1000x. The thing about being a millennial and having an offline childhood is that the script we were given for adolescence was offline - as evidenced in most of these movies. That's what's so disorienting about it - then we grew up and everything was very much online. Hardly anything released in the 2010s really reflected how our lives were - the true ur milllennial movie is LADY BIRD - released in 2017 but set in 2002 because filmmakers have largely lost the thread on how to reflect society back to its actual contemporaries (Greta Gerwig b. 1983). How many movies have been made where two people meet and fall in love on Tinder? Almost none? Meanwhile half the weddings I go to are Tinder and Hinge matches. The true "millennial canon" for better or worse might be the Marvel movies - the first Avengers movie came out almost exactly when the first Hunger Games did and we've been drowning in Marvel ever since. It seems the Marvel reign might end soon (which I'm glad about!) but ultimately a big chunk of our lives has been dominated by Marvel! Also if we're just naming any old franchise, I would say National Treasure is a big millennial movie that we all adore. Are the generation that's hyper obsessed with Nic Cage? Food for thought. Love this type of post.
MUCH to discuss here, thank you for engaging with me on this important issue.
i was so wrong to overlook LADY BIRD. LADY BIRD BELONGS ON THE LIST.
i can get behind hunger games in generakl as a gen z thing -- apparently gale/peeta is a big thing for them -- but jennifer lawrence is a millennial icon and i will never release her! the kids can have zendaya.
the high school movies and romcoms you mentioned are IMHO in the clueless category where they are so archetypal that anyone can relate to them. kinda like how the breakfast club is extremely 80s but also timeless?
i refuse to believe the avengers are our movies they arent movies theyre....i dunno, something else, a big project. i mean it was nice the way they united everyone in the monoculture, like game of thrones? now im off on another topic.
i think every generation gets a nic cage. moonlight nic cage, national treasure nic cage, what will be the next nic cage? i cant wait to see.
youre right that no one has cracked the dating app rom com. master of none on netflix got close ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I was born in 1970. This post and comment have given me so many movies to watch and things to research. I’m fascinated. I did enjoy Easy A and have recently been thinking about rewatching Friends with Benefits. I’m a late comer to JT.
enjoy!!!! JT's best work is the social network