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richardrushfield:

Reality Bites and the Coming of Age of the Deadbeat Hipster Boyfriend

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Q: At the end of the movie, Winona’s character ends up with Troy after a tortured courtship. If the movie was made today, would that still happen? Or would she end up with Ben Stiller’s ambitious TV executive?

A: You just hit the nail on the head. That movie was probably one of the last moments when the girl makes the decision to go with the poor, self-serious dude. A theme of the movie is how money and corporate thinking was taking over everything.  Today, I don’t think there’s a chance in hell they would end that movie with her and Troy together. The definition of integrity has changed. Now, if a person — or a movie — makes a lot of money, then it’s got integrity.

What Hawke misses is how much this choice has flipped in the past decade and a half. The dichotomy between slacker at the margins of society and soulless executive has completely evaporated.  The slacker’s descendent  (now termed “hipster”) is not a terrifying creature barely tolerated at the margins of society, he has become the arbiter of American culture and feels himself vastly entitled to all its wealth and rewards.  

If there was anything noble about my generation, it was the invention of slacking - captured in Reality Bites “Den of Slack.”  To the extent we made a statement in that era, it was a conscientious objection to enthusiasm about anything.  The most uncool thing you could be was excited - about success, career, relationships, friends, dinner.   We were not a generation waiting to be handed giant recording contracts and street marketing campaigns; we saying leave us alone, we’re trying to sleep. …

generational pride.