When I was a little kid, the 1960s were considered this glorious decade, and it seemed that all the grown-ups thought it was a wonderful time. Of course, this was the early 80s, and most of the grown-ups I knew were pretty liberal baby boomers, but “The 60s” were also a big theme in pop culture in general well after they’d ended. These days, a lot of the shine has worn off, and the 1960s are seen in a far more critical light.
Now that I have kids, I wonder how they will see my generation’s defining decade — the 1990s. People don’t really talk about “The 90s” like they used to about the 60s, so I’m starting to wonder whether that decade will even come in for any scrutiny. I think it should. The 90s marked the culmination of a lot of what took off in the 60s, and was the decade in which the new West really took root. In many ways it was a heady time — people were wealthier than ever in the West, the US had emerged victorious from the Cold War, and markets exploded as the price of oil dropped so low you could fill up your tank for ten bucks.
In the meanwhile, feminists were marching victorious in the streets, new, draconian measures against men were signed into law, and the cultural attitude became very hostile to the traditional man. The fact that the men who tended to suffer from this were not usually traditional types didn’t seem to matter much: “the man” was the enemy, and convenient scapegoats, such as boys shoved out of college in favor of girls, urban poor tossed in prison for falling behind on child support and ordinary guys who were set upon by vicious wives, would do just fine as stand-ins.
It’s really no wonder that the decade ended with a spate of school shootings by boys and young men.
Just to give readers an idea of what was considered hip and cutting-edge at that time, I thought I ought to post another video, this time from Bikini Kill, the original Riot Grrrl band. The Riot Grrrl phenomenon started in Olympia, Washington, and was closely tied to the grunge scene. Aside from music, the people involved tended to share similar politics, which were actually almost indistinguishable from the 60s leftist ideals, just overlaid with this nihilistic militance and an entirely different style of clothing and music. It was as though the “Peace, Love, Equality” chants of the parents became screams and demands from the children, and boy were they children. A lot of what passed for thought in the grunge scene was so infantile that it’s a good thing you usually can’t understand the lyrics.
So here’s Bikini Kill doing a concert in DC in ’92, screaming about how “women are dying” from the capital of the most prosperous, female-centric nation on the planet at the time:
Pretty awful isn’t it? Makes the 60s look positively genteel in comparison.
