Mysterious Skin (2004): The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Mysterious Skin (2004)
dir: Gregg Araki

Gregg Araki was reeling from the flop of Splendor and a failed television pilot titled This Is How the World Ends. And, after the big cultural "huh?!" to the Teenage Apocalypse trilogy that preceded either, Araki had to redeem himself.

Enter Mysterious Skin, Araki's most mature movie to date. Yet, he did not sacrifice one iota of his confrontational nature to make this harrowing, haunting story of the long term effects of childhood sexual abuse.

Mysterious Skin concerns two young boys. Neil is already starting to become sexually aware at a very young age by discovering masturbation by himself, and by knowing he was already gay. Brian was always a reclusive, nerdy type who was a late bloomer.

At an early age, Neil was groomed to be abused by his baseball coach, and he thought he may have wanted it. Then, Neil and his coach groomed Brian to participate in the sexual play games as well.

Neil would become a colder, distant child who had a personality that would attract who he wanted. He would drink, smoke, do drugs, and participate in sex work in an attempt to fill the vacant hole that has been left in his soul. Brian repressed the whole event, and had blanked out the whole event, attributing it to alien abduction. As an adult, Brian would be searching for the answers to his great childhood mystery.

Brian and Neil circle around each other, until they finally reconnect and everything comes pouring out in a possibly-cathartic reveal of the truth between the boys. Are Brian's or Neil's demons exorcised by this final scene? Araki offers no answers. Whether the boys can figure out that they were damaged and move past it, or if they still retain the cars of too-early sexual experimentation, Gregg Araki doesn't offer any easy answers. He instead merely presents the damage that is done to the boys.

An aspect of the movie is the stories that we tell ourselves in order to function in the world. Neil tells himself, and later Brian, that he was Coach's special boy. He was the favorite, and he was chosen. He was the one who would be over the most frequently, and he participated in the grooming in order to remain the favorite. And, being the favorite special boy made everything better. Brian's brain couldn't handle the sexual nature of the play, and blacked it out, replacing it with a space alien motif. Brian ended up holding on the horror of sexual assault until he was old enough to deal with the ramifications of the assault. He told himself that being abducted by aliens was a better story, even though it was just as damaging and repressed.

Araki doesn't flinch. He doesn't revel in the child molestation as his form of confrontation. There is only one explicit sexual scene, and its a rape scene when Neil is an adult who is hooking in New York City. The child molestation is not meant to be the confrontational aspect of the movie. The post-abuse emotional trauma, however, is Araki's confrontational aspect. He brutes the audience with the internal wreckage that gets externalized throughout the movie. He earns it too.

Mysterious Skin results as Araki's most skilled movie to date. It's observant, touching, and honest. Instead of crafting a movie where the abuser is a demon, he crafts a movie full of humanity where abuse isn't nearly as baffling a concept from the boy's perspective as it usually is. Araki is saying abuse is bad, but he is also saying this is how it could actually happen. For its honesty. For its emotions. For its skill. Mysterious Skin is required viewing.

Kaboom (2010): The Flawed Uprising of the Millennials

Kaboom (2010)
dir: Gregg Araki

Did I say that Nowhere marked the end of the Teenage Apocalypse trilogy? AHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

For 13 years, Araki stayed away from portraying youth culture in his movies. Sure, Mysterious Skin was about young adults, but he wasn't a representation for the generation that was just now coming up. Then, in 2010, Araki releases Kaboom, a celebration of all things Millennial, and a guide to what is going on.

Kaboom is about a gay 18-year-old boy, Smith, about to turn 19 who is experiencing weird events in the days leading up to, and past, his 19th birthday. He has dreams about hallways, girls, and dumpsters behind doors. His lesbian friend starts dating a psychotic witch with psychic abilities. He starts dating a British girl, who uses him and other guys to have orgasms. One of his dream girls pukes on his shoes before being decapitated in front of him by three guys in masks. And, it's all because he's the Chosen One of a cult where his father is a very powerful leader. And, it all ends in the nuclear destruction of the world.

Kaboom feels like it picked up where Nowhere was leaving off. Look at the frame I used for the Nowhere clip. It's a dark soul being surrounded by happy go lucky colors. Kaboom is all about color. There is no oppressed dark brooding soul. Gays are merrily accepted by everybody. Smith's roommate, a dumb blond surfer, is comfortable trying to suck his own dick in front. Of course, the surfer is also working for the cult who eventually kidnaps Smith in order to bring him to his father, but that's revealed in the final act.

The Millennials are post-acceptance. This is the conundrum presented by G.B.F. What is the big deal about coming out when most kids accept you anyways? Araki handles it more skillfully, of course, as he is a far more observant eye and is skilled in cramming every fucking nook and cranny in his movies with something to talk about.

But, the Millennials in Kaboom are also acted on by their parental forces. The father in Kaboom looks old enough to be a Boomer. The RA (James Duval) who is the leader of the counter force, takes on the guise of a hippy. The Boomers have control over the lives of the Millennials, and it's almost as if Gen X doesn't exist, except in secret. Duval is not old enough to be a Boomer Hippy, and takes his disguise off by the end of the film in order to save Smith, but he has to make like he is one.

Araki is still saying that Boomers are out to destroy the world. As they once destroyed the Gen Xers by coopting them into their web of commercialism, so to will they co-opt the Millennials, or else they'll blow up the whole fucking planet. When the Millennials refuse to go to become like their father, Dad hits the big red button and destroys everything.

Which is very reminiscent of modern day politics. Especially in 2013, three years after, but the need to get out the youth has always been one of the goals of the politicians. In the Obama vs McCain grudge match of 2008, they were seriously trying to duke it out over the youth vote. The youth, more so than before, are voting against the established leaders, and starting to make changes in the world that they want to see. Here in Seattle, in 2013 we elected our first socialist city councilwoman, and in nearby Seatac, they voted in a $15/hr minimum wage.  All to the chagrin of the established, mostly Boomer-aged, politicians.

The cult also represents everything corporate. There is something worshiping about the cult of commercialism that isn't present anywhere else in the movie. They are busy kidnapping kids at young ages, and trying to brainwash them to be good little cult members, and the ones who don't function right are released upon the world, such as the psychotic lesbian witch girlfriend. There isn't a specific religious symbol invoked in the cult, but it feels very much like a corporate co-option of the New Age symbolism.

And, so, Araki's solution for the Millennials to succeed in killing themselves in order to save themselves. With Kaboom, he finally crafted a high-energy bullet train of sex, love, and meaning as a way to welcome in the next generation. It feels fresh, energetic, and joyous with all the energy that a new generation can give off. And, yet, it could be all too bleakly hilarious, if it weren't so fucking true.

Nowhere (1997): The Downfall of Generation X, Part 3 (Abandonment)

Nowhere (1997)
dir: Gregg Araki

And so it comes to this.

Gregg Araki went for an avant garde French New Wave meets The Real World aspect in Totally F***ed Up to show the independence of the subcultural teenagers. In The Doom Generation, Araki went for more of a film school student atmosphere where it felt like the students were trying to become commercial, but just on their way. And, with Nowhere, Araki decided to make a movie that felt full-on Hollywood television. Described as 90210 on acid, Nowhere is the final step in the death of the subcultures that belonged to Generation X.

Gays, 1997

I've said earlier that I consider 1997 to be the pivot point in gay pop cultural breakthrough. Not that gay culture didn't exist before 1997, but that with Ellen coming out of the closet, the real world was forced to finally confront the gay identity in a mass-produced, aimed-at-everybody television show.

Alternately, 1997 was also the year that Gregg Araki went from gay-identified to bi-identified, and started dating Kathleen Robinson publicly. It should be noted that Kathleen Robinson is Lucifer in Nowhere, and their relationship probably started on the set.

On the other hand, since Totally F***ed Up came out, Bill Clinton had passed two notorious bills that were only repealed in the past couple of years. In December of 1993, Clinton signed into law DADT, "Don't Ask Don't Tell" which prevented gays from serving openly in the military with punishment being dishonorable discharge and denial of benefits. And, in 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act (DoMA) was passed, preventing the federal government from recognizing gay marriages which might be presented in the future.

Even with those federal restrictions passing, the gay train was full on the move, and the gays were starting to pick up speed in the culture by 1997.

Independent Cinema and MTV

By 1997, the independent scene that was fledgling in 1993 had picked up full force to be the "indie" scene. Kevin Smith, who had directed 1994's Clerks had gone on to do Mallrats and would release Chasing Amy in 1997, starring then semi-unknown Ben Affleck. Richard Linklater, who had made the influential Slacker would move on to do Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise, and SubUrbia. MTV's The Real World stopped being about people interacting with each other, and in season 5 (1996), they were starting to cast for maximal drama and also assign season-long jobs or group tasks.

Basically, the experimentation had started moving towards traditional narrative. Dazed and Confused, and its predecessor, American Graffiti are by far the more experimental things in the lists, and they influence Nowhere in all kinds of ways. But, everybody is moving less for the subject and more for the commercial. Richard Linklater would fumble with SubUrbia and 1998's The Newton Boys before returning to his world with Waking Life and Tape.

Subculture Ate Itself

By 1997, Bill Clinton had been elected twice. He was seen as a more progressive President, and coming off 12 years of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, he was more progressive. He was more about social programs, but also about balancing the budget, which neither Reagan nor Bush were interested in. Besides that, MTV had finally gotten in on the political game with their Rock the Vote campaign where they had pop culture icons going on television and telling people to vote for Clinton.

In the meantime, kids were tired of being angry all the time. Since the dawn of punk, this reaction against the era of the hippy had been raging against the machine that they couldn't figure out. But, with Clinton's success, it was finally time to take a chill pill and start bringing in the mellow. Dave Matthews Band would come onto the scene in 1994 with Under the Table and Dreaming, and in 1996 would follow up with Crash, scoring megahits with both. In 1997, The New Radicals would put out the happiest fucking song, You Get What You Give, which is actually a really good song. Barenaked Ladies were starting to come online. And, youth pop culture was pushing away from the Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails sounding bands to embrace a new happy.

In the meantime, Nine Inch Nails had only released The Downward Spiral in 1994, and wouldn't release another album until 1999's The Fragile. Marilyn Manson would take the face of goth industrial and bring it to the shock-addicted mall masses with Antichrist Superstar, shocking all of the parents in the process. Industrial in general started moving away from the metal influences to the dance floor influenced, and the brooding started to disappear.

The goths were dissipating and folding themselves in with the new bubblegum crowd. There was a more accepting tolerance of the dark ones as being the artistic ones, and the crowds started mixing for big mash-ups of happiness.

Generation X (1965-1978), Cuspies (1979-1985), and Millennials (1985-2001)

1996 was also one of the final years that the "core" Generation X babies turned 18. Given that the core can be defined from 1978 through 1984, it's hard to say, but the years 1979-1985 has always been termed "cuspies." But, 1996 and 1997 were the death of Generation X for the longest time, and then they started transitioning into the Millennials.

The Millennials are reacting to the two generations before them.  The first is an obvious direct reaction to the nihilism of the Gen X youth, where Gen X wanted to reject everything around them. The Millennials wanted to accept everything around them. But, they also were reacting to the impact of the Boomers, and realized that the leadership around them still sucked, and that everything needed to change. The Millennials were raised to take charge of the everybody and have the balls to believe that they were the best.

But, we're not to the Millennials yet. In 1997, the first of the Millennials would be 12 years old. But, there were the Cuspies who would display traits of both generations, starting with the acceptance of everybody, but still keeping the rejection of leaderships. The Cuspies are a lost set of years with people directly saying that they were completely influenced by Gen X or by the Millennials.

Nowhere

And, so, here we are. Nowhere. The end of the trilogy. The movie where everything ends. Or, at least Gen X ends.

Nowhere is a cross of the widespread LA movie (a la Short Cuts), and the high school party movie (a la Dazed and Confused). Nowhere follows a very disparate, multi-racial, multi-aged fluidly-sexual group of teenagers as they go through their day in order to get to a party. They talk, fuck, do drugs, kill themselves, are attacked by aliens, do more drugs, and make their way to the culminating Jujyfruit's Party.

Unlike either The Doom Generation or Totally F***ed Up, the doom and gloom fatalism of the goth industrial subculture has been replaced with the more sunshiny bolds and pastels of the incoming happiness that would dominate pulp culture for the next decade+. Instead of Rose McGowan smoking, fucking, and cursing up and down the strip, we get Duval's black girlfriend (multi-racial relationship!), who is also dating and fucking other girls and guys, insisting that she believes that humans are made to love, and they should love as many as humanly possible while they can.

Of course, there are two dark sides to Nowhere. The first is the physical manifestation of alienation by having an actual alien come around and kill people. The first group he kills are three valley girls who are talking shallowly about who they're dating, fucking, and who's fucking who and not and...all that's left are their retainers. Then he kills Duval's male love interest in a locker room.

The other dark side to Nowhere is the incoming violence from outside pressures. The first is seen in the form of Baywatch hunk Jaason Simmons, who brutally beats and rapes one of the characters who had a crush on him. She doesn't tell anybody, and kills herself while watching a preacher on tv. The other is drugs, which leads Jeremy Jordan, who just had his nipple rings ripped off during rough sex, to kill himself in an oven after watching the same preacher.  The world is too fucked up to live in it anymore, can't deal. I'm outta here.

There is also sheer psychotic violence which leads one guy to beat another guy to death with a can of soup because he was sold cut drugs.

Everything feels amped up and ready for the darkness to finally come crashing down and leave. The final scene of Nowhere has the previously-vaporized male love-interest climbing into Duval's window and talking about their attraction. But, after embracing, the interest coughs blood, dies, and an alien emerges from his body, says "I'm outta here" and leaves through the window. The end.

Nowhere on its own is about the warnings of alienation, and the dangers of sin in the world. It's a blackly comic, surreal, and well executed take on the youthful wanton party scene twinged with warning signs about excess and nihilism. And, it's hilarious. As the most Hollywood of the Teenage Apocalypse trilogy, Nowhere is also the most successful in its attempts as subversive entertainment.

Teenage Apocalypse, Part III

What Nowhere is talking about, in the grand scheme of things, is the final breaths of a subculture that was on its way out anyways. The alien is the manifestation of all things negative with the subculture. The alien is the final Hollywood metaphor for alienation and despair.

But, even the alien ultimately leaves the youth. The alien decides that their new culture of total and unabashed love is too fucked up even for him, and he leaves Generation X to fight for themselves as they transition into the next generation, whose ideals are far different than what they've experienced.

Nowhere also is about the integration of celebrity and commercialization into all sectors of youth life. Everybody is played by famous or semi-famous people. Debi Mazar, Christina Applegate, Traci Lords, Shannen Doherty, Debi Mazar, John Ritter, and Denise Richards were all in this movie with varying sized roles. Rachel True had established herself in The Craft before playing Duval's girlfriend. The names were getting bigger, and they were out to co-opt you.

It should also be noted that this was the first instance where Gregg Araki used the title "The Gregg Araki film" instead of "a homo film" or "a heterosexual film." Araki would come out as bisexual in 1997, with the release of Nowhere, and in turn made a movie where every character has degrees of fluid sexuality. Nobody is purely gay, and you get the idea that most of the characters go both ways, if they wanted. Araki would explore this more in his next movie, Splendor.

In the end, Nowhere seems like Hollywood made a movie about youth going to a party, doing drugs, fucking, and sometimes dying. And, it is a goodbye letter to say how the world of the Gen X rebel is going to end. Not by committing suicide, but by giving in to the commercialization around them. By embracing themselves too much. And, out of necessity...because things can't stay the same forever. That would be boring.

Nowhere is the conclusion of the Teenage Apocalypse trilogy...or, is it?

Ed's note: This movie hasn't had a US release on DVD or blu yet, though I have seen it streaming. There is a UK release that came out in 2012, but no sight of a US release yet.

The Doom Generation (1995): The Downfall of Generation X, Part 2 (Murder)

The Doom Generation (1995)
dir: Gregg Araki

The Doom Generation is the second movie of Gregg Araki's Teenage Apocalypse trilogy. Instead of being a documentary made by teenagers, The Doom Generation uses a put-upon style of a student fictional film made by the students. While the production values are clearly higher, as in there are extensive sets, loads of guest stars, and seems to be shot on something better than a home camcorder.

But, student films don't hold up as well as documentaries. As such, The Doom Generation doesn't hold up nearly as well as Totally F***ed Up, nor is as entertaining as Nowhere. The only way The Doom Generation actually works is as the middle entry of the Teenage Apocalypse trilogy. It's decidedly average as a standalone b-picture.

Araki fashioned The Doom Generation as a road movie...though it is a road movie without a destination. The opening scene occurs in a goth bar with the opening shot saying "Welcome to Hell" cut out of metal and backed by fire. At the end of the scene, the characters say they're going to Heaven, an abandoned drive-in populated by skaters and teenagers intent on having sex, and that's the second scene.

The remainder of the movie is the journey away from...something. Anything. It actually isn't TO anything, nor is the goal made obvious. Our hapless characters never arrive at a destination, nor is there a goal that is achieved by the end of the film. It's a journey that goes nowhere fast.

The action of The Doom Generation centers around Amy Blue (Rose McGowan), her boyfriend Jordan White (James Duval), and the bashing victim they pick up in Heaven, Xavier Red (Jonathon Schaech). The whole movie centers around four repeated actions: Sex, Food, Misidentity, and Violence.

Sample sequence: after picking up Xavier, and dropping him off on the side of the road, Amy and Jordan try to buy food but have lost their wallets. When the clerk pulls a shotgun on them, Xavier saves the day by blowing the head off the clerk. They go on the run, and get a motel room where Jordan and Amy fuck in the bathtub while Xavier jerks off outside the door. And then they try to get food at a fast food drive-in where the clerk thinks that Amy is his long lost love, and pulls a shotgun on them. They take off, and then Xavier bangs Amy in the back of the car.

Summary: food, violence, sex, food, misidentity, violence, sex. This occurs practically ad nauseum in the course of the 83 minute movie (for the uncut version). In the vein of every teenager I have ever met, the movie pushes the envelope in every offensive way you can imaging. Amy knows every insult and way to say "fuck" I've ever heard. Xavier and Jordan fawn over each other without ever touching each other. Both fuck Amy repeatedly, even to the point where Amy flips a coin for who goes first. And, everywhere they go, there is violence of every kind.

The Doom Generation is bookended by gay bashings. The first might be a misunderstanding, or not, but Xavier is repeatedly called faggot by the gang of guys who are beating his ass bloody. The movie closes when three guys, led by somebody who also mistook Amy earlier in the movie, attack Amy, Jordan, and Xavier, rapes Amy with a Virgin Mary statuette and cuts Jordan's dick off.

The majority of the violence in The Doom Generation happens to others. The Asian convenience store clerk, the redneck at the drive-through, there is a guy in a hippy dippy bar who gets a sword through the cock. It's all violence to others, and it's over the top and comic. But, then there is the accidental running over of a dog, which is considered tragic and treated with respect. And the final gay bashing and rape sequence is harrowing and horrific. Violence is horrific when it is personal, or happening to helpless people. It's funny when it is done to those trying to oppress you.

The sex in The Doom Generation idealizes more of a fluid sexuality with a polyamorous bent. Unlike Totally F***ed Up, which Araki had dubbed "Another homo movie by Gregg Araki," The Doom Generation was dubbed "A heterosexual movie by Gregg Araki." And, up until the final menage, the boys do everything but touch. They stare, fawn, and flirt...but they never ever touch. Even in the menage, it's never clear if they touch when Amy's in the room, but they don't touch when she isn't in the room. Even Jordan says "my woody is starting to droop." But, the polyamory of the group is presented as idealized. Sure, Amy is fucking two guys, but it doesn't mean that she isn't in love with Jordan any less.

Teenage Apocalypse Part II

As the second film in Araki's self-dubbed Teenage Apocalpse trilogy, Araki is continuing the destruction of the subcultures of Generation X. The world that Araki presents is far more commercial and commercialized than the world of Totally F***ed Up. The world is populated by cameos from the likes of Parker Posey, Margaret Cho, and Perry Ferrell. That's not to say every secondary character is now populated by the B-List celebs. There are also the requisite D-listers, like Dewer Weber was the leader of the final gay bashers, whose most outstanding work up to that point would be as the bookending truck driver in Showgirls.

The commercialization in The Doom Generation is still on the antagonistic outside. James Duval is the staple of all three movies, Rose McGowan had only been in a cameo in Encino Man up until that point, and Jonathon Schaech was in four episodes of Models Inc. These were not celebrities yet. Yet, they made up the center of The Doom Generation while the rest of the movie was populated by all kinds of celebrities. This is a metaphor for the oncoming commercialization of the Gen X subculture. They're all preying on our heroes both physically and emotionally. They want to suck up the Gen X subculture and eradicate the aggression, while our heroes fight back with all they can. Of course, all is for naught because, in the end, Xavier asks Amy, "Want a Dorito?" An innocuous line, except this is the first brand name that has been mentioned (though the brand Death cigarettes was featured prominently for its Jolly Roger casing). Commercialization is inevitable. We all give in to the advertising that we're surrounded by.

And, so, Gen X is being attacked and defeated by America and religion. The final attack is being held in front of an American Flag, while the star-spangled banner plays by all-American cornfed white boys with backwards swastika's painted on their chests. And, yes, the swastikas are confirmed to be painted backwards, but dripping with red. The stupid inbred white power groups are intent on breaking the subcultural teenagers and bringing them back to the American fold of patriotism, heteronormativity, and Christianity.

In making The Doom Generation a road trip to nowhere, with a meaning of whatever, we're also seeing how the alienation which caused Duval to kill himself in Totally F***ed Up is seen as desirable in The Doom Generation. Amy is full on intent on escaping from everybody by Jordan. In the bar Hell, her whole intent is to get out of the bar. Her first instinct with Xavier is to ditch him. She wants to leave every character that invades her privacy. They constantly go towards more and more isolated locations, moving from the city/suburbs to an abandoned warehouse in the desert headed to nothing completely visible in the distance. Earlier, I stated that The Doom Generation is a road trip without a real destination. I kind of lied. The destination is nowhere. The goal of The Doom Generation is for the characters to get away from everybody who wants to do them harm. The characters go towards more and more alienating and backwater locations in search of a life with as few people as possible. But, it is a futile attempt. You'll always need somebody, or something, commercial. Like a Dorito.

In Totally F***ed Up, we watched the beginnings of a self-destructive subculture which has been populated by the teenagers. In The Doom Generation, we see the kids as they see themselves, and also watch as they're being destroyed by the random and nonsensical forces of commercialism and nationalism.  And, in Nowhere, we'll see how Hollywood finally co-opted the subculture, and how alienation is actually physically manifested to finish the job.

Ed's Note: There are two versions of The Doom Generation that exists. An Uncut DVD which runs 83 minutes, and a censored R-rated version which runs 72 minutes. Any movie that has 11 minutes (almost 15 %) excised from it, beware.

Totally F***ed Up (1993): The Downfall of Generation X, Part 1 (Suicide)

Totally F***ed Up (1993)
dir: Gregg Araki

In 1993, Gregg Araki embarked on a 3-film odyssey that served as his own personal farewell to youth as he knew it. He had been watching all of the behaviors of the gay teenagers around him, and also seeing how they interacted with the culture art large, and had been noticing certain trends. The Teenage Apocalypse trilogy can be seen as the oncoming co-option of certain subcultures, but it can also be seen as the end of the teenage years of Generation X as they move into adulthood.

Grunge, No Wave, Goth, and Industrial music

In 1993, teens were adopting adult culture faster and faster. In 1991, Nevermind brought the aggressive and aggressively negatory grunge scene to the forefront of American culture. The music that surrounded Nevermind was a wide range of aggression, depression, and nihilistic apathy. If that was the mainstream culture, what was the underground?

One of the subcultures that had been developing through the '80s, and came bubbling closer to the surface in the wake of Nevermind's crunchiness was the goth-industrial scene. The scene had its roots in the works of Kraftwerk, David Bowie, Post-punk and No Wave. Lydia Lunch, in a more recent interview on the roots of No Wave in the late 70s, said "Nihilistic? The whole fucking country was nihilistic. What did we come out of? The lie of the Summer of Love into Charles Manson and the Vietnam War. Where is the positivity? I'm supposed to be fucking positive? Fuck you! You want positive, go elsewhere. Go find a different lie." In the same interview, China Burg said "It was nihilism in the sense of a rejection of the future."

The industrial scene that grew out of no wave took this giant ball of noise and static and ran. They made music that was darker, angrier, and even more aggressive than No Wave had seen, taking sonic cues from the heavy metal scenes that industrial was also patently against. The goth scene, which is intrinsically tied in both tastes and attitude, grew out of brooding and nihilism. The works of Siouxsie and the Banshees demonstrates a more brooding icy sound that would show how the trippy tinged shoegazing genre would be co-opted by a group of people who are just as happy to stomp their feet and shout as they are to broodingly shufflestep and clean the cobwebs of their mind.

Homosexuality and HIV/AIDS

The next prong is the gay scene...as seen by a teenager. In 1969, as we've constantly mentioned before, Stonewall happened, launching queer pride. But, in 1978, HIV/AIDS started hitting the gay groups, and in 1981 it was fully recognized by the CDC. The adults, and new youths were rallying around Act Up and trying to get funding for the crisis through the 1980s. Reagan didn't mention AIDS until 4 years after CDC came on record about it, and really provide adequate funding for it until 1987.

Part of that funding went into preventative education. As teenagers were going through sex ed, straights and gays in the more liberal cities were getting full on STD talks, and going on about condoms. I remember one of my cousins having a sticker on the wall that said that condoms had pores and there was a 7% chance of failure, or something. I didn't mention it to her at the time, but it was a weird sticker to have on her mirror.

Gay teenagers were also being told that they had to be extra careful because of HIV and AIDS and how horrific this disease was, because HIV/AIDS was still equated as a death sentence. Fear of sex was growing and growing through the good intentions of STD prevention. Bret Easton Ellis would note this in The Rules of Attraction which features a female student looking at pictures of STD-ridden genitalia in order to stop her from having random sex.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, more major cities and metropolises saw some major moves towards acceptance of gays, at least in terms of cultural visibility. There was the ongoing influence of Warhol. Keith Haring's art was decidedly gay, and widely accepted. But, while gays were starting to become more integrated in the major cities, gays were still outsiders even in those major cities. There were still gay bashings. There was still in school bullying. There was still outside pressures from church and news. The politicians were still all against the gays for moral votes. It was a time period where gay teenagers were starting to feel accepted enough to participate in the subcultures of their straight peers. However, especially if they were closeted, they participated in angry bitter nihilistic subcultures, such as the goth-industrial scene. One of my friends put it, if you were a gay teenager in the 90s, you had a larger chance of being attracted to lyrics like "I wanna feel you from the insides."

So, we have the nihilism of the no wave scene co-opted into the goth-industrial scene. The oncoming acceptance of gays. The anger and nihilistic tonality of the HIV/AIDS discussions. But, there's still a part missing.

The Real World and Slacker

MTV, in May 1992, started the new-fangled The Real World which was one of the first reality television shows to actually hit big. It didn't invent the genre, but it did bring it to a new light, and it brought everything to the teenagers. The Real World, original flavor, was not purely exploitative. Sure, they cast a couple of colorful characters, but the main intent of The Real World was exposure to multiple alternative viewpoints, and the emotions that happen when people who come from different walks of life actually have to face each other. The Real World also had been instrumental in bringing homosexuality into the common discussion as part of real life and not just that of eccentric, disgusting, artists. They had an openly bi dude, Norman Korpi, in the first season.

The Real World would also have an influence on how kids were communicating with each other, and also on the style of Totally F***ed Up. The style of Totally F***ed Up is a mix of video diary/documentary interview and semi-professionally filmed scenes. This style wasn't original then, but it was increasingly prevalent among youths of a certain age. The grungy Houston movie, Reality Bites, even trainspotted this a bit to discuss the commercialization of youth and their subculture in a more succinct and commercial venue.

Coincidentally, also in 1991, Richard Linklater released the landmark-y indie film Slacker, which also influenced everything. Richard Linklater orchestrated a film which felt like a single roving camera following characters as they talked about their strange goings-ons in Austin, TX. It took the documentary feel of a handheld camera, the casual feel of a guy walking around and following people, the reality show feel of life, and turned it all into one big ball of life. This would be one of the defining movies of the Gen X culture (along with Clerks).

Generation X (1965-1978)

Gen X is the generational wave of babies that is defined by a people born in a range of time from the mid-1960s to the early-1980s. For the longest time, it would generally be considered 1964-ish to 1979-ish, and only until recently have some of the scholars been putting it the end date as 1981, and some all the way to 1984. Using the core range, however, Gen X would be hitting 18 from the years 1982 through 1997. Gen X was defined by its pointed rejection of leadership and anti-establishment natures, while also not seeking to replace the culture. It was a collective, "Well, the Boomers fucked up. What the fuck are we going to do?"

Generation X is, in quotes from Wikipedia:

- "Compared with previous generations, Generation X represents a more apparently heterogeneous generation, openly acknowledging and embracing social diversity in terms of such characteristics as race, class, religion, ethnicity, culture, language, gender identity, and sexual orientation."

- "Unlike their parents who challenged leaders with an intent to replace them, Gen X'ers are less likely to idolize leaders."

Basically, an open-minded attempt at creating the soup that is America with no real needed leadership structure. This is Generation X when they were coming out of high school. Not as they are now, which are as an industrious generation when we can be. But, as an angry, disaffected youth who were seeing all the corruption and hypocrisy of the leaders we knew and hated. Reagan and George H.W. Bush reducing taxes on the rich, while increasing spending through the roof. And, in 1993, Bill Clinton would take office to reduce the debt while also selling out the middle class and sign DOMA and DADT into policy. So, jaded was the name of the game.

Just to sum up. Gays coming out after Stonewall. No Wave leading up to goth-industrial. HIV/AIDS being funded in 1987-ish. STD education coming online hardcore in the mid-80s. Slacker, Nevermind, The Real World. Goth/industrial, with Nine Inch Nails releasing Broken in 1992. And, they were all coming alive and marking the life legacy of Generation X.

Totally F***ed Up

Gregg Araki opens Totally F***ed Up with the title card, "Another homo movie by Gregg Araki" with the letters as punch-outs filled with the static of television. And, of course, the title card. In two succinct cards, we're talking about television (the MTV Generation), homosexuality, nihilism, ironic posturing, and anger.

What Totally F***ed Up is, on the surface at least, is a portrayal the life of Los Angeles gay youth as they see themselves. It is a based-in-reality portrayal of kids doing stupid shit that gay kids do. They listen to Ministry, Front 242, and other goth industrial bands. Fall in and out of love. Cheat. Hurt each other. Ironically play shitty board games about heterosexual coupling. Fuck. Worry about HIV/AIDS. Do drugs. This is the life of gay youth on the outskirts of life. Not associating with drag queens and musicals as one expects gay kids to do.

It is told in 15 segments, each of which feature a certain theme. One segment is about safe sex and post-HIV coupling.  Another is about how you score a baby if you're a lesbian but are conflicted about safe sex. Another is about how you pick up new tricks or boyfriends. Another is about gay bashings.

The semblance of structural narrative concerns James Duval as a gay boy who picks up his first real, older, love. He falls head over heels, though doesn't show it. But, James Duval discovers that the guy is cheating on him the night one of his friends was beaten, and offs himself when he can't contact anybody about his existential dread.

Everybody else is living their lives, but they have no real end to their story. One guy cheats on his boyfriend, and is dumped harshly, but they have the same circle of friends so everybody is annoyed. The lesbians stay together in lesbian fashion.

Totally F***ed Up is a complete and effective portrait of gay subcultural youth rejecting the gay culture, and the mainstream culture to embrace the goth-industrial culture and each other. It portrays the gay lifestyle as completely normal compared to the hetero lifestyle, with some guys even desiring monogamous relationships (just like the arguments over monogamy vs open relationships in The Boys in the Band), yet still as outsider through their co-option of the gothic trappings and disaffected stances.

Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy, Part 1

What Araki is beginning isn't the opening shot of gay youth. He's starting to document how a generation finally will off itself. The ending of Generation X by the oncoming commercialism and the rejection of Gen X ideals by the incoming Gen Y (aka the Millennials).

The Teenage Apocalypse trilogy details three different ways to kill a culture: Suicide, Murder, and Abandonment. It also presents three different filters through which one can view a culture: Documentary, In-Culture Fiction, and External Fiction. The filters and the methods of death are completely related.

Totally F***ed Up uses the form of the pseudo-documentary and reality television in order to show how teenagers would document their lives if they didn't have to worry about fictionalizing their attitudes for some audience. Totally F***ed Up is the equivalent of reading somebody's diary. In the avant-garde form, half lifted from the French New Wave and half from The Real World, Araki's characters are allowed to fill in some of the details with inter-section title cards dictating what they were actually thinking at the time of the situation. For instance, a title card will say "Not so safe sex."

Sometimes these title cards are foreboding, much like the shot of the news article about gay teen suicide. But, sometimes these title cards dictate exactly what the teenagers are getting from the culture at large. The messages they're receiving from the music or people in their lives. Most of these title card are pointing to the defining of the apathy that was defining the culture Totally F***ed Up was detailing.

These cards would also point to the suicide that is related to this. In documentaries, teens can be more vulnerable. In fiction, everybody has a big shot attitude that is somewhat of a Fuck You attitude that will point to an ironic vulnerability. In reality, these attitudes also are prevalent, but the shields come down when one is on their own.

It is why we are able to get the vulnerable shot of Duval calling all of his friends, and getting no answer, or getting busy signals. This wouldn't happen in a fiction movie, without real cause. When Duval coldly tells his friend that he "got burned. N.B.D." it is the ironic posturing that is the actual makeup of these teenagers. And, so it is fitting that it would end in suicide compared to the violence that happens in both The Doom Generation and Nowhere.

This also poses the question that the outside world is forcing the teens to kill themselves. There is nothing really to live for. The world sucks. Sex is a hassle. Intimacy could be a sham. The teenage culture of ironic distancing can only last so long. Of course ending it yourself is a way out of this emotionless hellholes.

It is really no wonder why the inverse culture is the one that would replace the goth-industrial complex. The emo took over for the goth in the early '00s. It is for the kids who feel deeply, are sensitive souls who need to find a connection and project their turmoil inwards instead of outwards. Suicide made little sense because of external pressures. To the emo crowd, suicide became the way to end the inner turmoil.

As a metaphor for the culture, Duval is the stand-in for the distanced edge of the culture. Killing himself out of a joyless panic because he has been replaced for a newer unseen culture is the only solution. And, that's what Totally F***ed Up is ultimately about. Culture expiration and replacement.