• Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    58·
    2 days ago

    Gen X here. The great slasher era of cinema started when I was a teen, and was morally inspired by Silent-generation commentary on the boomers and us. It was supposed to warn us If you indulge in sex and drugs and rock-&-roll (Satan approved!) and you’ll come to a bad end.

    So Friday the 13th (1980 with Kevin Bacon) was the same as Reefer Madness except for general debauchery and bacchanalia rather than just for cannabis. And mostly the silents were pissed that they didn’t get to party while young with sex and drugs, and instead drowned their sorrows with hard liquor and cigars.

    Curiously, the slasher format came not from classic horror but mystery. The Ur-slasher was And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, regarded as one of her greatest stories, from an author that was prolific like Stephen King.

    As per many of Christie’s novels, ATTWN was an experiment in defying the (alleged) rules of mystery writing (e.g. the detective must be beyond reproach ) and still being a valid whodunit. She’s had the story told by the killer before, and this time the narrative followed one of the victims.

    Crystal Lake was a closed circle much like Soldier Island, and the neighborhood of Elm Street was made inescapable because everyone sleeps.

    Remember also that Jason Voorhees was actually dead, and the slasher was doing the (double-plus grisly) murders for vengeance of camp councilors for their negligence, while they got high and got freaky. So technically it wasn’t about the sex, it was about being AWOL when duty called. (Says the latch-key kid with major depression.)

    Also, pre-internet, boobs on screen was one of the few times grown men people who like looking at boobs got to see some that were not their spouse’s / exclusive partner’s (or just their own), and people having sex on screen was an excuse for flying free. Truthfully, until the Skinemax era of late-night cable soft porn, the love scene and the nude scene were commonly different scenes. By the aughts, the obligatory horror titties became only optional and by the age of the internet they almost faded out entirely …until the age of subscription television series like Game of Thrones and Sopranos and nudity came back swingin’

    But this cartoon points to a curious reality in the United States: The birth-rate is imploding. Given in 2022, one of the justifications for the Dobbs decision was white babies as a commodity (seriously), they were expecting the new generations to keep churning out new generations of school kids to be indoctrinated into the next working / fighting force. But it’s not happening. Young men and women are just less interested in that old time romance. This is what has J. D. Vance (and his shadowy billionaire masters) freaked out about childless cat ladies.

    It’s no wonder, really. 80%+ of the households live in precarity. Employers are skipping the OSHA rules and Millennials and Zoomers are being worked like old-time miners on the truck system ( another day older and deeper in debt… ). Upward mobility is a joke. Wages aren’t enough to sustain one adult, let alone a family. The dream of a homestead? Gone. We can’t even afford a car. Everyone knows they’re going to work and be miserable until they drop dead from exhaustion, where’s the point in having kids? Tommy and Gina, are living on a prayer and on accumulated debt until their limit drives them out of their rental.

    Gen-Z doesn’t have time for Crystal Lake, and are glad for a weekend sleeping in. If it’s a holiday, they expect the boss will call them in and then forget to pay them holiday time. The horror zoomers have to face is not slashers in the dark, but the society gone dystopian, making it literally impossible to make ends meet, while tracking you like Big Brother from all the telescreens. Your horror isn’t Jason, but Ingsoc.

    And that’s before global agriculture collapses from water shortage, which is expected to happen when you’re middle-aged (in your forties and fifties), at which point your life becomes a Roland Emmerich film. Or Slaughterhouse Five.

    • booly@sh.itjust.works
      13·
      2 days ago

      I love the way you weave in the cultural context, including the culture war parts of modern political and policy debates, the business/corporate trends in entertainment, in your telling of this history. It’s clear you know your stuff, and you’ve helped me understand something new (the influences these slasher films drew from, from Agatha Christie), grounded in stuff I might have already known (the actual movies themselves and the cultural context they were released into, including how people looked at boobs before the internet).

      So thank you. This comment is awesome, and you make this place better.

  • Match!!@pawb.socialEnglish
    12·
    2 days ago

    gen z grew up under the constant possibility of school shootings, a slasher is tame by comparison

  • RobertoOberto@sh.itjust.works
    86·
    3 days ago

    I guess it was inevitable that my fellow millennials would carry on the age-old tradition of shitting on the younger generation’s new slang, styles, and behaviors. I don’t know why I thought we might break the cycle.

    • Zombie-Mantis@lemmy.world
      71·
      3 days ago

      True, but this example feels a lot less malicious than other “young generation” humor. It’s mostly just poking fun at the stark contrast between the youth culture of now vs. the 1980’s, rather than just denigrating the modern youth.

    • CuriousRefugee@lemmy.ml
      41·
      3 days ago

      I’ve found that as an Older Millennial, I actually relate to Gen Z quite a bit and get along with them well. It’s Gen Alpha that I never have any idea what the hell they’re talking about.

      L8er sk8ers!

      • BottleOfAlkahest@lemmy.world
        15·
        3 days ago

        Most of Gen Zs slang makes sense and you can easily figure it out from context. It even sounds better than older slang in conversation. Skibidi is an exception. W.T.F is that supposed to mean? Is it a verb? An adjective? Both? It sounds dumb and seems to mean nothing…

        • fallingcats@discuss.tchncs.de
          3·
          2 days ago

          It’s probably an interjection or an onomatopoeia, like all the other things people say that aren’t really words.

          Why it could be an interjection:

          • people just say it unprompted and without context.

          Why it could be onomatopoeia:

          • the word skibidi represents nothing except the sound you make while saying it

          Any other ideas?

        • shani66@ani.social
          1·
          3 days ago

          I saw a comparison and it feels like the good is getting gooder and the bad is getting way worse.

      • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
        3·
        3 days ago

        I think it’s my favourite!

        Watch a couple videos and it’s easy to see what vibe it’s gesturing at

  • isolatedscotch@discuss.tchncs.de
    7·
    2 days ago

    Gen Z definitely drinks a lot, at least in my personal experience, but studies agrees with the comic, so I guess it would depend on the country/age group

  • inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world
    15·
    2 days ago

    Millenal here, but yeah there are too many wildly unnecessary sex scenes in a lot of mediaLike, if it’s an earned thing as part of a romance movie? Sure. But if there are bouncing titties I the first 30 minutes I’m just annoyed and uncomfortable. Looking at you HBO, a conversation between two charcters isn’t helped by them banging while talking.

    Plz stahp.

    But, I’m also ace too… so maybe I’m biased 😂

    • BruceTwarzen@lemm.ee
      2·
      1 day ago

      When i grew up, i liked sex scenes in movies, because where else would you see it? There was no interet. Now i really don’t like sex scenes because they are pretty much always stupid and pointless, and i see more a creepy ass director jerking himself off. I started to see the same thing with feet and it just feels creepy. I don’t really like feet to begin with, but ever since i realised that a lot of people have a foot fetish, i’m starting to see it in movies, where there is no reason for people to be barefoot. Like in the earlier marvel movie where women just randomly walked around barefoot for absolutely no reason.

      Nudity is kind of the same and i find it mindblowing that it still works. I still hear dudes say that they like … Movie because … Shows her boobs. I find it even grosser, ever since i learned that nude scenes are usually shot first, so the actor is less likely to back out or they have leverage.

    • yuri@pawb.social
      10·
      2 days ago

      even when it’s earned, very rarely do i have to see exactly how someone does a fuck to understand the plot. like what am i supposed to feel, horny? because i certainly don’t get teary eyed and sentimental over what is essentially softcore porn lmao

      • inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world
        8·
        2 days ago

        Exactly!!! Porn exists and is easily accessible to anyone that looks. I watch TV and movies for story and charcters, not softcore. It’s just tacky and uncomfortable to make it part of an otherwise serious drama. Yes humans have sex and that’s nothing to be ashamed of nor hidden, but we don’t need tits and titillation to show these two characters are intimate.

    • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      10·
      2 days ago

      Not ace, am millennial, I also think there are too many sex scenes in movies. The kids are right.

  • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.worldEnglish
    23·
    3 days ago

    Tale as old as time. The new generations always have new slang and new cultural norms. All of us confused our elders.

    I remember when things like “dude” was a new trend in the late 70’s / early 80’s. My parents and grandparents used to say we sounded like cowboys.