2000-2009: The decade in pop culture
As the '00's end, what images will rock on long after the years roll?
Carlos Millan
Issue date: 1/28/10 Section: Arts & Entertainment
What will remain? What lasts throughout the years? Is it some game-changing artistic movement? Or is that just a cheap flourish? A book? Or a single movie? How about a single line in a single movie ("That's so fetch" - "Mean Girls")?
Of the billions of songs, books, talk shows, video games, and innovations that the decade encompasses, it will all collapse into a few flickering rays of light. It always does.
Many years from now, this decade will be picked apart and pulverized. It will be smoothed out like some marble statue, defined by a few predictably referenced points and given its final shape. When it has been reinvented and remembered as something simpler (something we would not recognize now), when it has been cut open and stripped of everything that meant anything these past ten years, how will this first decade of the twenty-first century be remembered?
The 1920s contain flappers and "The Great Gatsby"; the '30s had big bands written all over it, with the likes of Benny Goodman; the '40s had the Jitterbug; the '50s had Elvis; the '60s were the Beatles and Andy Warhol; the '70s were filled with "Star Wars" and disco; the '80s had Schwarzenegger and action flicks and rhinestones; the '90s were flannel shirts and "Seinfeld."
What of this past decade? What will it carry throughout the years? Keep in mind that many things worth remembering now are things that flopped during their time. For example: "The Great Gatsby" was published in 1925 and was a disappointment at first. F. Scott Fitzgerald, now synonymous with the '20s, slid into obscurity only to be seen as a literary genius after his death.
It is common that the buildup of a specific era is something simple. The most popular artists or masterpieces become the iconic holder of that decade. It could be a handful of moments and images that stand out through the decade. But it takes a generation or two for the true form of the decade to be revealed.
What the '00s have revealed to us is not the emptiness of a possible shape. We see that shape plainly and still wonder what we are looking at.
Of the billions of songs, books, talk shows, video games, and innovations that the decade encompasses, it will all collapse into a few flickering rays of light. It always does.
Many years from now, this decade will be picked apart and pulverized. It will be smoothed out like some marble statue, defined by a few predictably referenced points and given its final shape. When it has been reinvented and remembered as something simpler (something we would not recognize now), when it has been cut open and stripped of everything that meant anything these past ten years, how will this first decade of the twenty-first century be remembered?
The 1920s contain flappers and "The Great Gatsby"; the '30s had big bands written all over it, with the likes of Benny Goodman; the '40s had the Jitterbug; the '50s had Elvis; the '60s were the Beatles and Andy Warhol; the '70s were filled with "Star Wars" and disco; the '80s had Schwarzenegger and action flicks and rhinestones; the '90s were flannel shirts and "Seinfeld."
What of this past decade? What will it carry throughout the years? Keep in mind that many things worth remembering now are things that flopped during their time. For example: "The Great Gatsby" was published in 1925 and was a disappointment at first. F. Scott Fitzgerald, now synonymous with the '20s, slid into obscurity only to be seen as a literary genius after his death.
It is common that the buildup of a specific era is something simple. The most popular artists or masterpieces become the iconic holder of that decade. It could be a handful of moments and images that stand out through the decade. But it takes a generation or two for the true form of the decade to be revealed.
What the '00s have revealed to us is not the emptiness of a possible shape. We see that shape plainly and still wonder what we are looking at.
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