![]() Mel Brooks would frequently break the sets of his films, drawing attention to their status and exposing them as artifice, and the Daffy duck cartoon ' Duck Amuck' showed that deconstruction was common even among childrens cartoons. If you're still unsure, or interested, I'll now break down different examples (including other Media that contributes to this) to try and reflect what I'm trying to say.Īlthough Metacinematography was nothing new, and had already been thoroughly expanded upon (Felini's 1987 film Intervista was a recent example of a postmodern film), the 1990s where a decade where this sort of self-aware narrative and style of film making became accepted as normal, and thus easy to produce/export. I that makes sense at this point, that's the broad outline of my argument. In being aware of its position within a cultural Meta-narrative, media sought to comment on its own existence, and thus 'take control of its own future'. This can manifest as Irony, Skepticism and Cynicism. Postmodernism is a much older critical tradition, but one which requires a deconstruction of previous norms and classifications. Because of this tendency to reflect back on our past, postmodernist position was adopted by a great deal of media content, which naturally translated into a wider cultural trend (both organically and commercially, in response to what was considered the traits of an emergent generation). The 1990's, in anticipation of the coming millenium, was a naturally introspective period of time for culture, including film. I know people like the choice between a succinct answer and in informed one, so in the spirit of that I'll start with TL:DR An attempt at a position on this takes in sources from broader cultural fields however (Comics, Music.) and as such is quite broad. From the above comments, I think System Down kind of nails it with his comment īut I think the point bears repeating/expanding. ![]() I think as a wider cultural malaise set in sometime around the early-to-mid 90s, it became perceived as 'cool', and thus was capitalized upon in a less grass roots, more commercial way: which helped perpetuate it, although it was not neccesarily 'an organic' cultural trend by this point. ![]() It's hard to quantify how something can be received as wholly cynical, and it also assumes a certain amount of intention on the creators part. I was reluctant to be the first at an attempt to answer this, as it's going to be quite subjective. So why the perception that the 90's were gloomy? And if that attitude/perception came from music, then how can there be SUCH a wide gulf between music and the output of movies/TV? And it's not that I'm looking at a freakishly small sample set of movies - I'm talking about some of the most popular movies and TV shows of the 90's. Even drama such as The West Wing seemed perfectly optimistic, with hopeful music, and an optimistic pompousness/righteousness that was distinctly 90's to me. Frasier, 3rd Rock from the Sun, were ones I liked but there were SO MANY other sitcoms on TV. Happy Endings all the way.Įven the more artsy, thoughtful movies I have seen of the 90's later-on have the same vibe. So it's not just nostalgia) is tinged with a warm fuzzy hue, and filled with hope and optimism and a message "We can always be better" or "Things can always be better". Practically every movie I've seen of the 90's (even today, catching up on TV or Netflix. There were enough comedies and totally earnest "family" movies (Father of the Bride, Home Alone!, etc) around. Has-beens from the 80's were still operating. Most of the stuff I watched back then were mostly Spielberg-inspired big-action blockbusters. ![]() Hence this question.įrom what I've read in these places, I understand a lot of this has to do with music, but my cultural consumption (as an outsider) was primarily of the movies, and I LOVED it back then. This is especially visible in some retrospective articles on the 90's and MEDIA in the 90's (in America) in the second set of Google results. But why were the 90's considered such a cynical time? I personally do NOT perceive it this way, but a few random reads led me to a Google search for "90's optimism" which instead redirected me to a whole bunch of links on 90's CYNICISM. I didn't grow up in the US so I don't have a perspective of this.
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