Generational differences in perspective

[Voboy]

Didn't one of the Carradines allegedly go out this way, if it was not a hit?

Check the very next post after the one you quoted.

 

[SimonDoom]

I agree there. However, musicals are a Boomer thing generally and at least in my experience, generations afterward hated them.

You've got your history wrong again. Musicals were not at all a Boomer (people born from 1945 to 1964) phenomenon. The golden age of musicals was pre-Boomer, in the 40s and 50s. Boomers either weren't alive or were children. Their popularity faded in the 1960s and 1970s, which was PRECISELY when Boomer preferences concerning popular culture had their maximum effect. My generation turned against musicals. They made something of a resurgence with popular musicals like Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables in the 1980s/early 1990s and got an additional boost with the resurgence of Disney musical movies in the 1990s, but by then the market was driven, again, by kids of Boomers (Millenial, Gen Z or later), who ate up the movies. Then you had Wicked and Rent and other musicals, which had post-Boomer sensibilities, and more Disney movies like Frozen, and more recently La-La Land, which was incredibly successful, written by a Millenial composer, and not at all Boomer-oriented or Boomer-driven. So this narrative about musicals being a Boomer thing is the exact opposite of reality.

The only movie musical I can think of that came out during "my" generation and was popular was Grease, which came out in 1978. And it's somewhat ironic, especially in light of this thread's conversation, that it was the most popular movie musical of its time, because Grease was a nostalgic look back at the 1950s, before the sexual revolution, and those of us who enjoyed it in 1978 did so in part because its values and sexual/social mores were so different from those of the late 1970s, and those values seemed charmingly dated.

 

[Unblemished]

I’m sure I won’t be bringing up anything that hasn’t been mentioned some time in the last ten pages, and I’m not targeting anyone here but rather the general…divides that I’ve seen, but I’ll throw some personal insights in:

In my experience it’s less that the generations are more or less open to humour or emotion or whatever, and more that they’re different. I’m probably younger than the Lit norm, and older people love to roll their eyes about how you “can’t joke about anything now” and how their generation had a sense of humour…but I remember from childhood how that generation treated their own predecessors and their norms.

Everyone thinks they’re the rational ones; a man might think the old-timers were a bunch of creeps when they talked about ‘the white man’s burden’ and how ‘boys will be boys’, and it was horrifying and embarrassing when they said those things in the modern day. But when his kids say it’s wrong to call people fags and retards, they’re just thin skinned and need a sense of humour. Right?

Except his grandparents thought he was soft and humourless, and his kids think he’s a creep.

But it goes both ways. Many older people scorn men who cry or show emotion in public, but think it’s totally appropriate to shout and scream at the girl behind the till when she doesn’t have your favourite MCDonald’s sauce…While the generation which is fine with crying men sees that as nothing but the whinging of an overgrown toddler having a tantrum, and treats it with utter contempt. People in their 50’s who have no problem with racial jokes and who pride themselves on their banter go green at the gills when they hear 16 year olds happily joking about mental illness and suicide.

Standards change. Such is the way.

 

[KeithD]

I agree there. However, musicals are a Boomer thing generally and at least in my experience, generations afterward hated them.

Certainly musicals with music with melodies are from an earlier era than now. They were replaced with musicals with patter songs (which is pretty much when I left the musical stage because I couldn't do the patter well), which were replaced with musicals with rap, which I'm not fond of at all.

 

[Paul_Chance]

Certainly musicals with music with melodies are from an earlier era than now. They were replaced with musicals with patter songs (which is pretty much when I left the musical stage because I couldn't do the patter well), which were replaced with musicals with rap, which I'm not fond of at all.

LOL - I'd pay to hear you rap @KeithD

 

[Unblemished]

Not quite musicals, but it seems to me like the “movie with a lot of licensed music and actual tracks that were on the radio” has gotten a little bigger in recent years, after a lull. Look at the soundtracks to some of the John Hughes films, at Tom Cruise vehicles, at Rocky and other similar offerings, they’re full of bangers. That seems to to have come back to blockbusters and TV in the 10’s, especially in the really big ones by Marvel and the like. Guardians of the Galaxy, Peacemaker, etc. Might be because of the whole nostalgia aspect that’s so big nowadays, and the comic boys leaning into it.

I’m not a scholar though, so it might just be me.

EDIT: Come to think of it, the new ones are often still using older-style music. GotG’s soundtrack had stuff like Ziggy-era Bowie and Joan Jett in it while Peacemaker was all hard rock, though some of it was from recent bands.

 

[Treeview]

Didn't one of the Carradines allegedly go out this way, if it was not a hit?

Go back to #209

https://forum.literotica.com/thread...s-in-perspective.1606706/page-9#post-98682214

 

[KeithD]

LOL - I'd pay to hear you rap @KeithD

This ole brain don't move that fast no more.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I agree there. However, musicals are a Boomer thing generally and at least in my experience, generations afterward hated them.

Your experience might be a bit parochial, just an observation. Somebody's going to all those Broadway and West End shows.

 

[SimonDoom]

I agree there. However, musicals are a Boomer thing generally and at least in my experience, generations afterward hated them.

See my previous post. None of this is remotely true. Musicals are not a "Boomer" thing.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

No boomer musicals? I suppose it depends on how one defines it. Certainly the style and structure changed, but there were quite a few.

For the purpose of discussion, let’s look at musicals from the 70s, when boomers were solidly buying tickets. That would include Jesus Christ Superstar, Godspell, Grease, The Rocky Horror Show and (stretching it a little) even Evita. Sure, some of those no doubt appealed to a generation older, but there were a lot of ‘kids’ happily queuing for them. Oops, how could one forget Hair from the mid-60s? Not something the previous generation approved of,

Big shows at the time.

 

[KeithD]

See my previous post. None of this is remotely true. Musicals are not a "Boomer" thing.

I'm a boomer. Oklahoma, Carousel, Brigadoon, Bye, Bye Birdie, My Fair Lady, Camelot, Godspell, Fiddler on the Roof, The Fantasticks, Jesus Christ Superstar, Phantom of the Opera . . . they all hit, slam bang, in the center of my era's sweet spot. The first mixed melodic and patter song musical I encountered (as Frederick) was A Little Night Music. Don't know where you were when these musicals were on stage, but I, a boomer, was on stage playing in them.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Oops, how could one forget Hair from the mid-60s? Not something the previous generation approved of,

Big shows at the time.

No-one's mentioned Tommy - The Who concerts and then a stage musical, as well as the Ken Russell movie; nor Cabaret, which won ten Oscars, and several very successful revivals, including a Tony Award winning Alan Cumming as the M.C.

Both very different, rock opera vs Weimar cabaret; one definitely baby boomer rock, the other, not.

 

[Andi_Chase]

God, it's always so funny watching grown ass men whine that they're not considered funny anymore. Younger people have moved on from punching down, and in my experience as a zoomer, humor is more absurdist nowadays.

Not to say that offensive jokes aren't told between friends. My boyfriend, who's asian/latino, has told me stories about all the slurs he and his friends call each other, and boy they've said things I would never dream of repeating them. Then again, since we started dating, I've referred to myself as a tranny and a faggot far more often. I'd never call anyone else that unless they were explicitly okay with it.

Seriously, though, all the people out here complaining about "wokeness" are just mad that they have to think about other people instead of just living in their own bubble. Imagine throwing a tantrum because you have to treat other people like people.

[EDIT: hit send early]

 

[TarnishedPenny]

No-one's mentioned Tommy - The Who concerts and then a stage musical, as well as the Ken Russell movie; nor Cabaret, which won ten Oscars, and several very successful revivals, including a Tony Award winning Alan Cumming as the M.C.

Both very different, rock opera vs Weimar cabaret; one definitely baby boomer rock, the other, not.

I’d forgotten Tommy.

What was the line at the time? What’s deaf, dumb and blind and cost $5,000,000? Tommy. But, yes. Big one for the time.

 

[KeithD]

No-one's mentioned Tommy - The Who concerts and then a stage musical, as well as the Ken Russell movie; nor Cabaret, which won ten Oscars, and several very successful revivals, including a Tony Award winning Alan Cumming as the M.C.

Both very different, rock opera vs Weimar cabaret; one definitely baby boomer rock, the other, not.

Well, yes. I only mentioned ones I actually was in. There seemed to be enough of those to make the point.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm a boomer. Oklahoma, Carousel, Brigadoon, Bye, Bye Birdie, My Fair Lady, Camelot, Godspell, Fiddler on the Roof, The Fantasticks, Jesus Christ Superstar, Phantom of the Opera . . . they all hit, slam bang, in the center of my era's sweet spot. The first mixed melodic and patter song musical I encountered (as Frederick) was A Little Night Music. Don't know where you were when these musicals were on stage, but I, a boomer, was on stage playing in them.

Oklahoma premiered in 1943 on Broadway. If you were born in the earliest year of the baby boom, 1945, you were born two years after it. You may have enjoyed or been influenced by the musicals, but your dollars weren't driving their success, at least until the late 1960s. While there obviously were some successful musicals later, like Fiddler (Broadway in 65; movie in 71), or A Chorus Line (Broadway 1975), musicals were not as big a part of the culture by the 1970s, especially in movies. I was born at the tail end of the "boomer" generation, and by the time I was culturally conscious musicals definitely were not as popular as they had been in the 50s, despite some obvious exceptions. I'm not claiming boomers categorically didn't like musicals, but I'm pushing back against the generalization that musicals were a "boomer" thing, because that is clearly not true from my experience as a boomer. My kids, who are Generation Z, like musicals (like Hamilton) every bit as much as, and maybe more than, my classmates and I did.

 

[KeithD]

Oklahoma premiered in 1943 on Broadway. If you were born in the earliest year of the baby boom, 1945, you were born two years after it. You may have enjoyed or been influenced by the musicals, but your dollars weren't driving their success, at least until the late 1960s.

You don't seem to be aware that Oklahoma and nearly every other musical I cited were running throughout the boomer era and are still showing on Broadway and elsewhere. I only mentioned ones that I, a boomer, appeared on stage in. When it premiered has nothing to do with whether or not musicals (including Oklahoma) are a boomer thing. The sweet spot of the boomer era was big box office for musicals. I think you're trying to swim out of your depth on this issue.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I’d forgotten Tommy.

What was the line at the time? What’s deaf, dumb and blind and cost $5,000,000? Tommy. But, yes. Big one for the time.

I remember seeing it in a George Street cinema in Sydney, with a quad surround system for true rock concert sound. Pretty impressive.

Also, Ann Margaret in baked beans, Jack Nicholson as her lover, Tina Turner as the Acid Queen, Eric Clapton playing the Preacher. The politically correct these days would be horrified at Keith Moon's Wicked Uncle Ernie, but that's not the point (wait for the howls of protest...).

Roger Daltrey went on and did a few more acting gigs, and proves without a shadow of doubt that he's one of rock's greatest front men.

The sound-track's not as good as the studio version, though. That's pure Who.

 

[MillieDynamite]

In 1953, the Oklahoma legislature chose the song as the state song. The bill was introduced by then-State Representative George Nigh. Later, he was Lt. Governor for many years and the Governor for two terms. My father was acquainted with him when he was a young man. The best version of the song has always been instrumentals, performed by the OU Marching Band. When the state adopted the song, the national press made a big deal about it, and Oklahoma on Broadway began a long run of sold-out performances again ten years after its initial run. My father and Mum aren't musicals kind of people. Oklahoma and Fantom of the Opera are the only two I remember them watching.

 

[SimonDoom]

I saw two articles online this morning that made me think about this thread.

One was about the fascination Millennials and Gen Zers have about getting rich. Polls, so this article says, indicate these cohorts are much more obsessed with the idea of making money and money they don't have than preceding generations. Based on conversations I've had with my kids and observations I've made, I'd say this is somewhat right. I certainly knew people who wanted to strike it rich coming out of college in the 1980s, and some of them did. But my impression is that there's a greater focus even than before on making as much money as possible as soon as possible and then retiring.

I also read an article about the fascination and disapproval some young people seem to have toward age gap relationships--in this case the relationship between actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson and his wife, who is 23 years older than he is and started dating him when he was 18. This is my impression as well--that the younger generation is much more likely to criticize behaviors like these, in relationships, as inappropriate.

Admittedly, this is all very non-scientific, and I never put much stock in the empirical worth of "studies" reported in social media.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I also read an article about the fascination and disapproval some young people seem to have toward age gap relationships--in this case the relationship between actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson and his wife, who is 23 years older than he is and started dating him when he was 18. This is my impression as well--that the younger generation is much more likely to criticize behaviors like these, in relationships, as inappropriate.

Yep, I tend to agree. My kid's cohorts are more conservative than I was at their age, and I think it's easier to shock the po-faced than it used to be. There's more political correctness, I reckon, that gets thrust in your face.

 

[lustychimera]

I saw two articles online this morning that made me think about this thread.

One was about the fascination Millennials and Gen Zers have about getting rich. Polls, so this article says, indicate these cohorts are much more obsessed with the idea of making money and money they don't have than preceding generations. Based on conversations I've had with my kids and observations I've made, I'd say this is somewhat right. I certainly knew people who wanted to strike it rich coming out of college in the 1980s, and some of them did. But my impression is that there's a greater focus even than before on making as much money as possible as soon as possible and then retiring.

I also read an article about the fascination and disapproval some young people seem to have toward age gap relationships--in this case the relationship between actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson and his wife, who is 23 years older than he is and started dating him when he was 18. This is my impression as well--that the younger generation is much more likely to criticize behaviors like these, in relationships, as inappropriate.

Admittedly, this is all very non-scientific, and I never put much stock in the empirical worth of "studies" reported in social media.

Was the article about getting rich specifically or just about making money?

I mean, I'm in that range, and I'm comfortable, but I've also accepted that I'm never going to own much. Median home price is $400k.

Even during the severe recession of the 80's-- the one they said was the worst since WW2--the median home cost was still only $90k adjusted for inflation.

And cars and groceries? Fuggetaboutit.

I'm not obsessed with money. I'm obsessed with stability.

Edit: For the age gap, I think people nowadays are far more sensitive to power dynamics than they were in the 80's. I mean, over here, it wasn't until the 90's that most states stopped differentiating between martial and non- martial rapes.

 

[KeithD]

Speaking just for my family on both sides, the generation before me were riches-to-rags children whose families had great wealth and lost it almost instantaneously from either the effects of the Spanish flu epidemic or the stock market collapse. They thus weren't as much focused on accumulating wealth that could quickly disappear as they were in establishing solid security for themselves and their families. They measured wealth differently from the generation before them. They invested more in professional education and linking up with large enterprises rather than growing their own businesses. Education and solid benefit packages. The most recent two generations have emphasized having broad-based graduate degrees--and becoming indispensable to others who are putting up the risk capital. The mantra became "build slowly but relentlessly, with no backsliding and with stability." "Leave the next generation better off than the previous one." Not flashy, but it's working. Whatever concerns are running now on the precariousness of existence on the family level in the economic sphere, it's not affecting any current branches of my family. We're all financially insulated. Not billionaires, but I think each family unit could add up assets enough to make it into the millionaire category, which is good enough. I retired from a high-income job at 51, but with enough equity and annuity to live comfortably for the rest of my life and do what I damn well please. That beats having a lot of cash laying around, I think.

 

[djrip]

I saw two articles online this morning that made me think about this thread.

One was about the fascination Millennials and Gen Zers have about getting rich. Polls, so this article says, indicate these cohorts are much more obsessed with the idea of making money and money they don't have than preceding generations. Based on conversations I've had with my kids and observations I've made, I'd say this is somewhat right. I certainly knew people who wanted to strike it rich coming out of college in the 1980s, and some of them did. But my impression is that there's a greater focus even than before on making as much money as possible as soon as possible and then retiring.

I also read an article about the fascination and disapproval some young people seem to have toward age gap relationships--in this case the relationship between actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson and his wife, who is 23 years older than he is and started dating him when he was 18. This is my impression as well--that the younger generation is much more likely to criticize behaviors like these, in relationships, as inappropriate.

Admittedly, this is all very non-scientific, and I never put much stock in the empirical worth of "studies" reported in social media.

When I was a kid and teen, we used to always watch stuff and think or tell each other, "man, what they have thought about this in the 50s? They would have freaked out!"

Now every time a movie more than 20 years old comes up somebody goes "that sure couldn't be made today!"