Edges

Every generation has its own name. Because we as a species cannot help but file, index, label, categorize and compartmentalize everything, including ourselves. Thus was my mother a member of the Silent Generation, born in the Depression, raised during World War 2, a child in the days when children were to be seen but not heard and girl-children were expected to carry on as all the women had done before them: marry, breed and die. My father was an Early Baby Boomer, spoiled and indulged, eager to spend and consume. My sister was a Late Baby Boomer, coming right before the bust. She grew up headstrong and entitled, but limited. Her entitlement turned to bitterness and anger, and eventually curdled into contempt and resentment. She'd been born too late, deserving - in her opinion - of everything that the Boomers had been handed. But it was like being invited to a feast and arriving in time to pick up the crumbs from the floor. It was all gone by the time she got there, spent, consumed, stolen and drained. 

And then I came along, not expecting anything. I sat in the car with my parents while we waited in long lines at the gas stations during the oil embargo. I lived in an industrial, blue-gray colored world ruled by a Cold War. There were always new words to learn, like Reaganomics, Chernobyl and cocaine. I was born into twilight, enjoying a brief, sunny period before the darkness descended. I was Generation X, and I saw no point in hoping for anything great. My sister could seethe, but I would simply shrug and learn to say "Whatever." 

I had a brief conversation with my friend Dan Schneidkraut the other day, who had posted on his FB page about the 1986 film River's Edge, a film I had seen on the big screen when it first came out, which I had owned for many years on VHS and which had all but slipped my memory for the last ten years or so.  Dan had opined: "I feel like all these kids who fetishize growing up in the 80s (the Stranger Things generation) need to watch this movie to get a more accurate picture of what a bummer it was." And while I enjoyed Stranger Things, I agreed with Dan. I enjoyed Stranger Things for highlighting the good things about growing up in the 80s - John Carpenter movies, mostly - but for the most part, the memories are false. You can re-tint those old Polaroids all you want, but we still have the originals and we know they're sepia as fuck, and were when we took them originally. 

River's Edge was truly film for Generation X, by Generation X, and which defined the X Generation long before it was labeled with that huge, nihilistic X. 

Previously, (Generation X) had been referred to as Post-Boomers, Baby Busters, New Lost Generation, Latch-key kids, MTV Generation, and the 13th Generation (they were described as the 13th generation since American independence).

Demographer William Strauss observed that Coupland applied the term to older members of the cohort born between 1961 and 1964, who were sometimes told by demographers that they were baby boomers, but who did not feel like boomers. Strauss also noted that around the time Coupland's 1991 novel was published the symbol "X" was prominent in popular culture, as the film Malcolm X was released in 1992, and that the name "Generation X" ended up sticking. The "X" refers to an unknown variable or to a desire not to be defined.

Every generation has a song, or a film, or both, that defines it. I don't know which or what applies to Silents or Boomers anymore than I know what defines Millennials or whatever the hell comes after Millennials. I only know mine and my sister's. And I only know my sister's because she was there when I was growing up. And I'm pretty sure she'd tell you that her defining film was Over The Edge, released in 1979, which played on a loop on HBO or Showtime or whichever the hell one we had access to in the early 80s. It starred an unknown Matt Dillon. It featured a quasi punk soundtrack. It was cited by Kurt Cobain as one of his favorite films as a kid, and the inspiration behind the video for Smells Like Teen Spirit. It was also lost and pretty much forgotten for a long time, until the subject of River's Edge came up, and I suddenly remembered this playing on our living room TV nearly every day for weeks. 

Oh vandalism, you seem so cute now. Almost as adorable as your predecessors, Juvenile Delinquency and hooliganism. But you see, this is the story of what happened when JD and Hooli grew up, got married and realized that their own idyllic upbringings were nothing to sneeze at, so they tried to recreate it with plastic and steel. They moved to the suburbs, bought station wagons and backyard barbecue grills, installed swimming pools, sighed self satisfied sighs and murmured to themselves: "Damn it feels good to be a Boomer." 

"Anybody seen my legs?"

But they had spent so much time and effort and money in buying themselves homes and toys and cars for themselves that there was nothing left over for their children, the Late Boomers/Bust Cuspers. They'd been brought  out and dropped into pristine perfect suburbia and just expected to be happy and grateful. But they weren't. They were bored as fuck. There was nothing to do and nowhere to go. Everything was for the adults. A single paltry Rec center stands in exile, offering outdated amusements for the now teenaged children. Plans for a movie theater/skating rink have been scrapped in favor of an industrial park, and it's just the last straw for the kids. Their parents are hogging all the toys. And when the Rec is closed down by the cops when one of the kids is caught selling hash (HASH! Omg, does anyone even smoke hash anymore? Snerk, hashish...it reeks of genie bottles and macrame owls, how 70s!) the kids blow up. Literally. Led by Carl and his girlfriend Cory, the kids lock their own parents inside the school during an emergency PTA meeting and trash the school, burn some cars and end up getting bussed off to a juvenile detention center while Valerie Carter croons "Ooh Child" over the end credits. Oh and Matt Dillon gets shot and killed by a cop and he wasn't even black. 

So, in a nutshell, this film is a dramatization of the Great Boomer War. The Early Boomers took everything, used it all up and left nothing. The Late Boomers expected everything, were given nothing and felt cheated, so they destroyed everything that the EB's were still greedily keeping all to themselves. But they weren't really blamed. I mean, they were just kids! Spoiled, entitled, affluenza-infected kids who were suffering from what Fenriz once termed "the exhaustion if easy life." We gave them a slap on the wrist and waited for them to grow up and funnel their frustrations into less violent pursuits, like real estate and six figure salaries. 

Not that Generation X was much better. But by the time we came along, all of the outrage that had accompanied teenage rebellion had turned to weary, glassy-eyed acceptance. It was a stage we were expected to go through, so lets buckle down, get it over with and get through this. Go ahead, spray paint a few vulgar things on the underpass, bleach your hair, smoke a cigarette beneath the bleachers after school, it's fine. We'll wait. You'll get over it soon enough. So we as a generation had to get inventive. We decided...like, whatever. 

Released not even ten years later, River's Edge took place in almost the exact same geographical location (Sacramento/Milpitas) as Over the Edge (Foster City), both of which were were also fairly close to the town where I had spent my own formative teenage years (Castro Valley). Again, a group of bored teenagers wander listlessly about their small town, smoking pot, cutting class and ignored by their parents. But this time, it's one of their own that robs the community. Bored with weed and casual sex, John strangles his girlfriend to death one morning. He wanted to feel alive for a change, but quickly becomes disinterested with his crime. His friends are kind of "meh" about it too, even after trekking out to the river's edge of the title to see her naked, bruised and stiffening corpse. Yeah, okay, so, she's dead. So? They wander home and don't tell anybody, because they figure no one would care anyway. Their parents don't even care about them, so why should they care about somebody else's kid? 

Not that apathy reigns totally supreme. Tweaker Lane takes it upon himself to cover up the crime and put John into hiding, seeing himself as a Macho Bandito. Trouble is, John doesn't give a shit if he's caught or not and is therefore not really helpful in aiding in his own escape. Guilt finally pierces through the fog of pot smoke and strikes Matt (Carl), who reports the murder to the police. Once again, the police are no help at all and blame Matt, his friends, his stoner clothes, his lifestyle and - holding himself up as a shining moral example - his entire generation. All Matt sees is another shallow post Boomer once again trying to pass the buck. 

The idealized and coveted Clarissa (Cory) eventually comes around too, having sex with Matt in a sleeping bag just like Carl and Cory eight years previous and standing up to Lane at long last and calling him out on his shitty judgement and lack of ethics. The body is recovered, John is shot and killed and everyone attends the funeral of the girl. Nobody cries. Public outrage is absent. Once again, the bar has been reset and the unspeakable has become the usual. Life goes on. 

So, were the Late Boomers more successful in making a statement, leaving an impression? Or was Generation X even more rebellious by donning the armor of apathy? I don't know. And ultimately, it doesn't matter. We both got screwed. However, I strongly recommend at this point that someone show a double feature of these flicks in the most dilapidated suburban movie theater they can find.

There's a fucking statement for ya.