These words aren’t dinnertime conversation or something you talk about with your parents, unless you’re living in an after-school special. They are the words you find high school students giggling about in the hallway or middle school kids trying to say to sound more grown up. Sex was a private encounter (biblically it is only meant for a husband and wife to consummate their marriage); drugs were only causes to crime and disaster; rock ‘n’ roll was the link to it all.
Step into the new millennium where sex is one of the most talked about taboos in the United States, and drugs have become a cultural movement rather than a mobster’s only source of income. The Millennial Generation is, in fact, a reincarnation of our parents living up Woodstock and pipedreams in the 1960s and ‘70s.
How did we manage to get to this point of liberalization and an almost “shock-free” society? Maybe we just have to realize that we really aren’t that different from the generation that precedes us; the people who we could never imagine being “wild and out.” It’s time to face the facts: we are our parents’ children.
Let’s float back to, say, the ‘50s and early ‘60s. Here we meet two of the most iconic sex symbols of all time: Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley. Both were considered to be sex gods and every person at the time wanted to marry, date or screw them. Look at the images of them — they were clothed, for the most part. Marilyn had her Playboy stint in 1953 as the “premiere” centerfold, but outside of that they were relatively “conservative.” These supposed “sex gods” were a different breed, one that didn’t discuss the private facts of life or why the birds and the bees exist. That generation was sheltered.
Let’s jet to about 1968, the year of a liberalized America. There was the musical sex-fest known as Woodstock, the Democratic National Convention that took the world by storm, a presidential candidate set to change the world was assassinated and the Beatles’ “drug-induced” lyrics were streaming over the airwaves. Yeah . . . that was our parents’ generation. I’m not sure what exactly could have been going on with our parents during that time, and I really don’t want to know. It’ll save me from a bunch of nightmares in the future.
Fast forward to the summer of 2008. Let’s see, a bat became a dark knight, an alcoholic became a iron-clad hero, a robot proved our world is pretty much doomed to obesity and laziness and, oh yeah, four beautiful, sex-crazed, middle-aged women stomped around New York City and comically took on Mexico. Great summer of movies (actually, it really was one of the best summers for movies ever, but a little sarcasm never hurt anyone).
I’m going to have to look past the amazingly successful “Dark Knight,” bypass the action-packed Robert Downey Jr. in “Iron Man” and disregard the wordless-wonder known as “Wall-E” to get down to the best example of our lovely Millennial Generation, “Sex and the City: the Movie.”
If you are saying to yourself, “If I hear one more thing about this damn movie, I might have to puke,” then, I’m sorry, you might want to quickly find a toilet or sink. I won’t be reviewing it or going over how much of a chick-flick it may be — I will be using it as the greatest example known to man (and woman, seeing as it is always best to be politically correct these days) about the “sexed up” society we live in.
Lately, it has become extremely common to see near-naked bodies plastered on jumbo-sized billboards, “nudey magazines” (as Adam Sandler would have put it in “Billy Madison”) on newsstands and films with SEX in the title. “Sex and the City: the Movie” has it all; the sex, the drugs and the rock ‘n’ roll. It aids in shining the light on the sex-driven society we live in. After all, if we were still uncomfortable about the word sex, who would have sat through that two-and-a-half hour “bang-up” of a comedy (and if you were offended by that, you would have stopped reading a long time ago).
Just think next time you go see a movie, even a Disney movie (which is known for phallic symbols — look it up for “The Little Mermaid,” “Aladdin” and “The Lion King”), and think about how much our lovely society and culture is driven by sex and drugs. And why is that, you ask? Well, we are a generation that just loves to look, see and talk about it. Sometimes we think because we talk about it we can experience it. Unfortunately, our societal values cloud our judgment and lead us to “unwanted” predicaments we aren’t prepared to handle. Think long and hard before you make these decisions — no one wants to be the next Jamie Lynn Spears.
Remember, it really is just my opinion. But it is the popular one.