For anyone who did not live those years, it is difficult to understand what it was like to be modern in the 1990s. At that time, new models of masculinity and femininity and new generational ways of being and of being in the world that today we take for more than amortized , but they were revolutionary in their day. And Hollywood cinema, which was still the cultural industry of reference and the undisputed epicenter of the pop constellation, consolidated in record time an
alternative
star system
consistent with the values and vision of the world of the so-called generation X, generation key or generation MTV, the
late
boomers
born between 1965 and 1980.
Just watch, from today's perspective, movies like
My Private Idaho
(1991),
Singles
(1992),
Who Does Gilbert Grape Love?
(1993),
Reality Bites (
1994) or
Before dawn
(1995) to understand to what extent that recent past has already become for the vast majority of earthlings in a foreign country. Moreover, it is enough to see in action on the big screen (or any screen) River Phoenix (1970-1993) the James Dean of the last
boomers
, who died of an overdose in 1993, to get an idea of how extreme, intense and visceral that was all that and how far we are now from that generational storm of fragility and nihilism.
In a recent article, the writer Sunny Grace explains how her generation tried to live fast, because they had no faith in the future, and ended up reaching their fifties "depressed and exhausted", without the energy to continue drinking alcohol and fed up with tranquilizers and anxiolytics. For her, the X generation is the
daughter of the
crack
of Wall Street 1987 financial catastrophe that gave shelve the prosperity of the eighties (false?): "Our dreams of
yuppies
burned in a generational fire whose fuel was music Nirvana".
Grace adds that "we all felt like Winona Ryder in
Reality Bites
, with university degrees, but without decent jobs, wanting to make the dream we were promised a reality, but with little material possibility of achieving it." In the writer's opinion, Ryder's kleptomania was nothing more than a symptom of how much the actress resembled her character: "We were not surprised that she was caught stealing: we all grew up with a deep sense of lack." Lost generation, generation without horizons, generation that lived its golden years with the certainty of an imminent disaster, those generation X had a bedside book (for many quite mediocre,
Generation X
, by Douglas Coupland, subtitled in English
Tales of a fast-paced culture
), a soundtrack (
grunge
, replaced years later by
indie
or
britpop
),
a somewhat shabby dress style, and a series of movie idols that today are mostly old glories or broken toys, despite how hard they have tried to stay in the limelight.
Johnny Depp poses for the press at a gala in Monte Carlo in September 2020 SC Pool - Corbis / Corbis via Getty Images
And the scandal became public
Johnny Depp (Owensboro, Kentucky, 58 years old), just 48 hours ago collected a Donostia award that recognizes a career in which he has received the applause of critics and the public and has alternated independent projects with big box office hits. He is, of his entire generation, probably the most highly regarded star. Or it was. In his speech of gratitude he alluded to his current situation: "A single sentence against is enough to sink you, and there is no defense." The Kentucky actor is not going through a professional hot streak. The award he collected in San Sebastian has not been without controversy, his latest film,
The Minamata Photographer
, has no release date in the United States and the two franchises that had contributed the most to fattening his checking account in recent years,
Pirates of the Caribbean
and
Fantastic Animals and where to find them
, will run their course without him.
The one who was still one of the most sought-after actors on Hollywood's A-list just five years ago is now poison for the box office.
For Brian J. Robb, author of the biography
Johnny Depp: A modern rebel
, something has undoubtedly had to do with his personal problems (especially those derived from his divorce proceedings with Amber Heard, who accused him in 2016 of physical abuse and psychological), but his main problem is that he has ceased to interest a new generation of viewers who perceive him as a "relic", an outdated survivor of a time that perhaps was neither better nor worse than the current one, but yes very different.
Depp's example raises the extent to which those idols that broke in at the turn of the millennium are still valid. Winona Ryder (Minnesota, 49 years old) is an example of how to successfully recycle from assumed modesty. The protagonist of
Bitelchús
or
Heathers
(in Spain
School of Young Assassins
, both released in 1988) came of age as a star, thanks in part to her fragile appearance but rampant modernity. Her courtship with Johnny Depp, with whom
Eduardo Scissorhands
(Tim Burton, 1990)
coincided at the generational blockbuster
, contributed to making her an icon of the
Hollywood
generation X
. In later years he had partners as well chosen as Matt Damon (a member of generation X who never pretended to be) or David Pirner, singer of Soul Asylum. In parallel, he established himself among the elite with a splendid film career in which the prestigious independent films (
Night on Earth
, by Jim Jarsmusch, released in 1991) coexisted with huge successes such as
Bram Stoker's Dracula
,
Little Women
or
The Age of innocence
(all of them released in the first half of the nineties).
The turn of the century surprised her embarking on first-rate projects, such as
Celebrity
, (her obligatory stop in the Woody Allen universe in 1998)
Innocence interrupted
(1999) or
Autumn in New York
(2000), but her image suffered a setback in December 2001, when he tried to steal the equivalent of just over $ 5,000 worth of branded clothing and accessories from a Beverly Hills boutique.
That kleptomaniac Ryder, with addiction problems and emotional balance, broke into the media pulverizing the little less than angelic image that the Minnesota actress had forged in previous years.
The scandal was settled with a fine and 480 hours of community service.
Winona Ryder at the premiere of 'The Plot Against America' in 2020. John Naicon / GTRES
But even in that dark hour, Gen X fervently embraced their broken toy.
As an example, the
Free Winona
campaign
, a solidarity initiative with its point of postmodern irony, no doubt, but which, as Angela Campbell explains in an article in
The List,
shows “the extent to which the Xs were willing to be lenient with their generational icons , to take even its most shocking flaws as a sign of vulnerability and authenticity ”.
The rest is history: Winona has ceased to be the
youthful
it girl
with an impeccable image
forever
, but she has remained afloat already in middle age and has managed to connect with a new generation of viewers thanks to
Stranger Things
, whose first season is premiered in 2017.
Flowers from another world
Something similar could be said of generation companions with as much survival instinct as Keanu Reeves (Beirut, 57 years old), Ethan Hawke (Austin, Texas, 50 years old) or Robert Downey Jr. (New York, 56 years old). Reeves is an example of a career and a malleable public image to unsuspected extremes. His recent reinvention as an action hero (in
2014's
John Wick
, without going any further) and as a down-to-earth and close guy, with a little less than unusual ability to laugh at himself, has caught his detractors off the hook, those who continue to insist on the limited acting record that he exhibited in hits such as the
Matrix
saga
or
They called him Bodhi
(1991). His ability to connect with the most contemporary subcultures
geeks
It is giving rise to magnificent articles (this one from
Medium
, for example, examines how Reeves is capable of being, at almost 60 years old, present in so many contemporary cultural artifacts) and outrageous theories.
If Winona is an example of survival beyond any generational label, Keanu is equivalent to turning the logic of continuous reinvention into an art.
Robert Downey Jr at the 'Avengers: Endgame' Premiere in Los Angeles in 2019.Jeff Kravitz / Getty Images
Hawke, like Julie Delpy (Paris, 51 years old), his co-star in the seminal
Before Dawn
(1994), has followed a more conventional path to keep up: keep working steadily and smoothly until carving out step by step a consistent run. With its ups and downs, but with a patina of dignity. It also plays in his favor that he very rarely incurred the excesses and thundered lifestyle of one of his illustrious contemporaries. Downey Jr. did, a manual stray bullet, whose constant arrests for drug use and possession led him to hit rock bottom with a bitter divorce and 113 days in prison in 1997. However, the New Yorker has ended up becoming the protagonist of a of the most cheeky (and incredible) stories of fall and redemption in recent Hollywood. The epic
trash
of the man who drove down Rodeo Drive drunk and lost throwing imaginary rats out of the window and who spent his melopea nights sleeping in puddles of vomit has ended up becoming a chronicle of the success of a professional who stays sober and has left his worst ghosts behind, but without losing his sense of humor or becoming a sanctimonious or narrow-minded moralist.
Matt Dillon portrayed exclusively for ICON at the San Sebastián Film Festival.Antonio Macarro / EL PAÍS
Other survivors of the
grunge
fifth
have been less fortunate.
Matt Dillon (New York, 57 years old), great in his day, is increasingly spacing his works and can only boast of a recent success (artistic, not commercial):
Jack's House
(2018), directed by a Lars Von Trier darker than ever.
James Spader (Boston, 61 years old) remains active thanks to the series
The Blacklist
, but increasingly away from the cinema, and a magnificent actress like Asia Argento (Rome, 46 years old), representative of the sense of hyperbole and narcotic extravagance Generation X, has been weighed down by some scandals in her personal life in recent years after being accused of sexual harassment by actor Jimmy Bennet.
Just as we were
Depp and Argento are two very clear cases of fish out of water, of citizens of that other country that today no longer exists and that a part of the new generations vehemently rejects. Those who grew up under the influence of
grunge
They did not reject ostentation as long as it was eccentric, they believed that cynicism and emotional vulnerability were perfectly compatible, and they embraced hedonism without renouncing melancholy. In that cultural context typical of the 1990s that continued well into the 21st century, the deranged lifestyle of Argento and Depp's antics like buying an island, spending five million dollars were uncritically celebrated. dollars to shoot the ashes of his close friend, the gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, who shared his stash of marijuana with his daughter Lilly-Rose when she was just 13 years old, to be arrested time and again for organizing massive parties and strident or for destroying hotel rooms.
At that time, in the words of Brian J. Robb, “he was even frivolizing on topics that today, after the #MeToo movement, we take very seriously”. Any excess seemed justified if it was attributable to a magnetic and unconventional personality. "Unfortunately for people like Johnny Depp, who has failed to turn the page," Robb continues, "that world from yesterday no longer exists. His outrages and his deranged life are no longer judged from a complicit indulgence ”. Your natural audience may have been a generation of Earthlings that has matured or ceased to exist. Hence, more than a victim of the culture of cancellation, according to the journalist of
The Hollywood Reporter
David Katz, “Johnny Depp is a kind of relic out of time”, a decadent divo who, “more than a lynching, is suffering the hostile indifference of the new generations”.
Above all, of a generation Z that, unlike what the millennials did in their day, no longer buy the grotesque and uncomplexed nihilism of the last
boomers
.
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