Journal Entry #2: Mumblecore
This is the second in a series of ruminations of who/what/where/why I currently am. You can find part one here.
Last week, D recommended that I watch the 2012 movie Frances Ha. It was a great movie, though I was primarily lured in by a vista of Paris, which seemed to have more screentime in the trailer than the movie. After viewing, I dug around the Wikipedia page, looking for anything that I may have missed as I always do. I eventually found myself on Greta Gerwig’s Wikipedia page, the second sentence of which reads: “She first garnered attention after working on and appearing in several mumblecore films.”
Intrigued, I clicked through. Mumblecore, a “subgenre of independent film characterized by naturalistic acting and dialogue, low-budget film production, an emphasis on dialogue over plot, and a focus on the personal relationships,” seemed like something that I could really get behind, especially since one of my favourite movies, Before Sunrise was listed as an influence. Then, I continued reading:
“Mumblecore films tend to revolve around characters in their twenties and early thirties who are usually single, white, and fairly aimless in both their professional and personal lives. Plots are often concerned with difficulties in romantic relationships, exacerbated by the characters’ inability to articulate their own desires.”
This plunged me into part two of the Groundhog Day identity crisis. The “white” part notwithstanding, I had been reduced to a single, albeit niche, archetype. The characterization of me was blunt and accurate in a way that I never really considered. I got little work done for the rest of the day, and added so much to my Groundhog Day piece that I decided I needed a break and at least two posts to cover what I wanted.
I was never so delusional as to believe I was unique, the only aimless fool in their twenties. But at the same time, I believed I was a special kind of fool, wandering only because I was still searching for my true calling. A romantic old soul, still physically young, but already jaded. I was Amory Blaine, contemptuously too good for a job, terrible with money and investments, prone to indulging in alcohol, and falling in love at every double take.
After explaining this to others, I’ve been recommended Rebel Without a Cause, The Graduate, and Donnie Darko, but none of them spoke to me as much as This Side of Paradise, a book that I had rated 9/10 (for those of you who have been read my old book reviews, you’ll know it’s not a rating that I give out lightly). It wasn’t that I felt I was destined for greatness, that I felt robbed of the protagonist’s story arc media told me I should have. I would be fulfilled with a bit of respect in my field or job, doing something that I enjoyed, working hard, but not too hard. I just had to find out what it was, and how I fit into everything. Until I found out what that was however, I was condemned to pass my time in a mild melancholy, with a slight disdain for everything and everyone else. Fitzgerald had this problem too, I thought haughtily.
Though I sometimes felt lonely as the only dreamer within a city of driven young professionals, I took solace in my awareness, proud that I managed to pass as one of them while having greater aspirations than spreadsheet monkey. Seeing myself instead described as an aimless twenty-something unable to express my own desires was disconcerting, but learning that there were enough people who saw themselves this way to merit an entire movie subgenre was shocking.
I guess I did believe I was special in a way, reveling in my cynicism and scoffing at everyone’s futile pursuits. Perhaps I even thought I was better than those possessing a single-minded dedication towards their careers. There was more to life than work. There was no way people were passionate about peddling opioids and destablizing democracies, or at a more granular level, making slide decks and changing the size of virtual buttons. When I joined the workforce with a job that had a healthy work-life balance, I told myself that it would enable me to do other things on the side, and not turn into another corporate drone.
In a few months, I’ll have worked three years. In those three years, it was undeniable that I had fun on weekends and days off, enjoying the company of my friends and family. But I had nothing to show for “on the side”. I didn’t start my own business, publish a novel, or even make any new friends, as previously discussed. It wasn’t for lack of trying, but I never seemed to be able to get a handle on anything I tried.
It also wasn’t gifted kid burnout, a term that was suddenly much in vogue. Though somewhat precocious, and I will often joke that I peaked in high school, I had studied furiously back then, so my listlessness can’t be attributed to a habit of conceding without putting forth effort. Likewise, it wasn’t the rigidity of academic structure that I craved; I revel in initiative and open ended projects at work.
I know Amory Blaine, Jim Stark, Benjamin Braddock, and Donnie Darko weren’t written to be admired; at best they were young Byronic heroes, at worst they were unsympathetic caricatures of upper-class youth in their respective time periods. Yet every young man not only sees themselves in these caricatures, but wishes that they were more like them. Being able to watch those movies and see the protagonists for the entitled whining womanizers they are instead of a voice for youth angst and alienation has long been a litmus test of these sorts of bildungsroman.
Roger Ebert notably downgraded his original rating of four stars for The Graduate to three when he revisited it thirty years later. It bears mentioning that he had just started his career at the Sun-Times when The Graduate was released, at the impressionable young age of twenty-five. Though he comes short of saying how much he wishes he were Benjamin, Ebert describes him as possessing “acute honesty”, and that “we would act pretty much as he does, even in his most extreme moments”. In the revision, Ebert reflects on the “murky generational politics” that clouded his judgement, passes blame onto the zeitgeist of the sixties, and claims that The Graduate doesn’t stand up to the test of time.
I revere Mr. Ebert, up to the point of aspiring to be “a Roger Ebert for millennial readers” in my introductory book review post, but I challenge his interpretation of The Graduate; I posit that it wasn’t the movie that aged, but himself. He no longer saw the movie as “the funniest American comedy of the year, is inspired by the free spirit…”, but instead as “a movie about a tiresome bore and his well-meaning parents”. Did it not occur to Ebert that he was simply getting old, that he now saw “Benjamin not as an admirable rebel, but as a self-centered creep whose put-downs of adults are tiresome”, because he himself was now a tiresome adult?
Though the cognitive dissonance can be terrifying, the synthesis of these two opposing interpretations of The Graduate, or any good work exploring youth alienation and the generation gap, should be that alienation is an unavoidable part of development for many young adults, the mismanagement of which can lead to unpleasant ends, like those befalling Plato, Benjamin, and Donnie. These works provide solidarity to the often lonely youth and serve as a parable showing the consequences of sustained youthful angst, though the latter often goes above the heads of the intended audience, and is eagerly consumed by those denouncing youth delinquency.
Hemingway popularized the term “Lost Generation” to refer to his generational cohort, but it perhaps also succinctly describes many people in their twenties from every generation. Hemingway was 27 when The Sun Also Rises was published in 1926. Salinger was 25 when The Catcher in the Rye was serialized in 1945. Rebel Without a Cause (1955), The Graduate (1967), and Donnie Darko (2001) each spoke to the confused youth of a generation.
Despite all the movies I’ve seen and all the books I’ve read, in the end it only took a modest Wikipedia article for me to understand the thesis of these works. It’s okay to be confused about my place in the world and the place of the world in my life, but it’s immature to wallow in self-pity while indulging in this ennui. This melancholic self-awareness doesn’t make me special; many people have gone through the same experience as me and many more will.
I guess the next question is: how do I find fulfillment?
