The ’90s Were Good Actually

I admit that I have trained my children to respond to all questions about the “why” of my childhood pop culture with “cocaine is a hell of a drug.” I don’t have to answer the question anymore. Why? Because cocaine is a hell of a drug. I can actually defend some of the pop culture of the ‘80s, but the decade that seems mostly ignored but produced more than its share of stone-cold classics is the 1990s. There’s a bitter irony to the fact that it’s the decade where Generation X was stretching itself and starting to influence things.

Oh, granted, the decade started still in control of the Boomers; arguably they’re running things even now. Still, there were Boomers doing good work in the 1990s. There’s a strong argument that it was Spielberg’s best decade. Spike Lee was doing solid work. Scorsese started the ‘90s with GoodFellas. Hell, even Kevin Costner managed Dances With Wolves, admittedly not a perfect film but certainly better than a lot of what he’s done since. David Lynch was over revolutionizing television, and on January 8, 1990, Sinead O’Connor released “Nothing Compares 2 U.”

Baz Luhrmann’s also a Boomer, but two of his three greatest films came out in the ‘90s—I will defend Romeo + Juliet and I don’t care what anyone else says. The Coens started the decade with Miller’s Crossing and ended it with The Big Lebowski. Clint Eastwood—Silent Generation Clint Eastwood—didn’t have a perfect decade but did make Unforgiven. Granted the lamented Rob Reiner gave us North in the ‘90s, but he also gave us Misery. Ron Howard gave us Apollo 13.

It was, honestly, a heck of a time to be a teenager. I’ll never forget the excitement of getting to see Wayne’s World with my older sister and her friends—I was a freshman in high school and most of them were seniors, except the one who was a freshman in college. I felt quite grown-up. I saw Beauty and the Beast with my sister and her boyfriend, and The Addams Family with my sister’s college freshman friend and a group of her friends. One of the last movies I saw with my sister before she left for college was Batman Returns; I’m pretty sure another was A League of Their Own.

The first R-rated movie I saw in the theatre alone was The Crying Game; the second was Fire Walk With Me. When my sister was home for the summer, we saw Much Ado About Nothing. I could go on and on about movies I saw in the theatre, but I’d like to interject a story of one I didn’t; my sister told me about the chill she’d felt when discovering that Oskar Schindler died not quite a month after she was born, meaning their lives had overlapped. I won’t say we could go to the movies every weekend and see a classic, but I did see Nightmare Before Christmas on a date in high school.

Depending on your terms, Generation X can be considered to start in 1965. Which is the year Ben Stiller was born. 1994 brought us Reality Bites, arguably the first studio Gen-X film. Certainly we voted it as representative of the ‘90s in The Only Film Class I’ve Ever Taken, one about the history of the twentieth century through film. El Mariachi had come out two years before, shot on a shoestring budget. Reservoir Dogs also came out in 1992, but friends, Quentin Tarantino is a Boomer. Barely, but a Boomer. 1994 also, however, brought us Clerks, another shoestring budget movie and one that launched an image.

Even in the years where I didn’t have a ton of money, I remember seeing or not getting a chance to see classics. Prince of Egypt, another movie I saw with my sister and one of the first clues that my blessedly-ex-brother-in-law was a waste of space, since he didn’t like it. An ex-boyfriend’s mother took me to the movies a lot after he and I broke up, and while we saw The Wild Wild West together, we also saw 10 Things I Hate About You. Around that time, a friend and I saw Mystery Men. And I once got to the theatre timed to see Entrapment instead of The Matrix.

After the great movies, the next thing I think about in the ‘90s is the great music. MTV Unplugged debuted in 1990. Yes, it was the year of Milli Vanilli and the year 2 Live Crew and Judas Priest were on trial, but it was also the year of the Blonde Ambition tour and Madonna’s gathering of footage for Truth or Dare. Pearl Jam debuted as Mookie Blaylock. And that’s just the start of the decade. The next year, R.E.M. would release Out of Time, fully launching the decade’s alternative revolution. Nevermind came out that year as well, on the same day as Tribe Called Quest’s The Low End Theory, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Blood Sugar Sex Magik, and the Pixies’ Trompe le Monde. Lollapalooza started.

A. R. Rahman started making film soundtracks in India in 1993. Tori Amos debuted Little Earthquakes. Animated Barry White appeared on The Simpsons in 1994. Prince changed his name to a symbol and was dubbed TAFKAP by the LA Times, short for what everyone called him—The Artist Formerly Known As Prince. Depeche Mode launches the age of Knowing Your Idols Too Well with an AOL chat with fans. Rick Astley retired, but he’s never gonna give the music industry up. 1994 brought us The Downward Spiral from Nine Inch Nails. Kurt Cobain died. A CD of Ten Summoner’s Tales, from Sting, is the first music securely purchased over the internet.

Selena is killed in 1995. Björk began to make a name for herself. Danny Elfman left Oingo Boingo and devoted himself to scoring films; celestial choirs the world over would never have to look for work again. Alanis Morissette debuted Jagged Little Pill. David Bowie and Nine Inch Nails toured together, the only big-name concert I’ve ever seen. In 1996, Madonna would play Eva Peron, to the anger of Argentinians; it’s a performance I’ll still defend. Phil Collins left Genesis. Pop-Up Video debuted. Eminem launched his debut album.

In 1997, Radiohead released OK Computer. Lilith Fair launches. In 1998, Weird Al got LASIK, shaved, and grew out his hair, looking weirdly hot for the first time. Lollapalooza ended. Cher believed in life after love. 1999 was “Baby One More Time.” Napster launched. Woodstock ‘99 was a thing. Bowie fans could download Hours two weeks before they could buy a physical copy. Boy bands and divas warred over airtime.

In TV, there was of course my beloved Cop Rock. In good TV, there was my beloved Twin Peaks. The Simpsons debuted in 1990 with its first regular episode, “Bart the Genius,” after the Christmas episode. 1990 would also bring us Law & Order and The Civil War. The Disney Afternoon. In Living Color. Northern Exposure. Tiny Toon Adventures. Captain Planet. And, okay, Beverly Hills 90210, a show I never actually liked but which is nevertheless important in television history.

I don’t think there’s ever been a better era for cartoons than the early to mid ‘90s. Batman: The Animated Series was a game-changer. The Spielberg-produced shows—Tiny Toons, we’ve already mentioned, but of course Animaniacs and another “I’ll defend it” in Freakazoid! The ‘90s X-Men is getting its cultural reevaluation, and I hope for the same for the ‘90s Spider-Man. Gargoyles, which I knew as The Old Star Trek People’s Home. It became acknowledged in the US that cartoons weren’t just for kids, a policy we haven’t really kept up except for the Simpsons juggernaut.

Programming for teens didn’t just end in what we called “Niner,” either. The best teen show of all time, My So-Called Life, was a mid-decade offering. There was Party of Five. No matter what kind of teenager you were, there was programming that would appeal; I myself was mostly excited that people were finally starting to pay attention to nerds, what with The Tick and so forth. TV was more diverse, with cable channels’ exploring niches rather than appealing to the masses. Bravo played symphonies and arthouse films, and TLC was The Learning Channel, and The History Channel played a ton of World War II documentaries.

The Daily Show started, and then Jon Stewart took over and changed it. My beloved Time Team debuted over on the BBC. Suzy Eddie Izzard started airing comedy specials. Mystery Science Theater 3000 is technically from the ‘80s but came into its own in the ‘90s. Comedy was blooming, and HA! and the Comedy Channel merged to take full advantage of it.

Oh, and the books. So many books. Stephen King was off the cocaine—though, sigh, he was hit by a van at the end of the decade—and gave us among others The Green Mile and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. More than a dozen Discworld novels came out, with Terry Pratchett finding his voice in them. A Game of Thrones and Outlander were released. The Wheel of Time. Bill Bryson began releasing books, and Gen X’s own Sarah Vowell released Radio On: A Listener’s Diary. Lois McMaster Bujold continued The Vorkosigan Saga and Robin McKinley released Deerskin. Sue Grafton plowed through the alphabet, getting from G Is For Gumshoe to O Is For Outlaw.

Memoirs of a Geisha. Holes. The Poisonwood Bible. Angela’s Ashes. His Dark Materials and A Series of Unfortunate Events, if that’s your speed. Wicked. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. High Fidelity, later to become a beloved movie. Yes, it was the decade of Grisham, but it also debuted The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Trainspotting. Maus was first published in its entirety. Amy Tan continued to write. LA Confidential debuted. Phenomenal writing regardless of your interests.

The Super Nintendo launched in Japan in 1990 and the US in 1991. The Sega Genesis was a little bit earlier, actually releasing in the late ‘80s. However, Sonic the Hedgehog, as a character, first appeared in a cameo in a different game in 1990, and his own first game debuted in 1991. Doom debuted in 1993. The Game Boy released in 1989, but of course it was huge in the ‘90s. The first PlayStation and the Nintendo 64 debuted in the ‘90s. Computer gaming was in its infancy, but still.

Oh, I could go on. And on and on and on. We’ve barely touched on the Disney Renaissance. There are great documentaries we could talk about—Hoop Dreams was 1994, and it’s barely in the conversation these days. Darkwing Duck. Grunge and alternative and hip-hop, dance music and the joy of the techno remix. The rise of the internet. Everyone thinks the decade they came of age is a great one, it’s said, but really, why don’t we talk more about how great the ‘90s could be?