I have a brand-new hatred. This one's so intense that all the others can go to hell. I'd rather spend the rest of my life in a locked room with ultra-right-wing lunatics who chew very loudly while touching their eyeballs and yammering inanely through a long series of Joss Whedon movies than hear another person call this past decade "the naughties."
It's annoying because it's a lame pun ("naught," "nineties," "naughties," wa ha ha), complete with a pathetically small tinge of transgressiveness, of the variety that I could picture on a $100 pink t-shirt worn by Paris Hilton. And it's not even apropos -- this past decade was many things, but it was not "naughty." It was a decade of war, terrorism, and economic disaster. Calling it "naughty" is like calling Hitler "a big poopyhead!"
It was a pretty good decade for me personally, but for the world, I'm betting it was the worst since the '30s. The '40s were a bit problematic too, granted, what with the aforementioned poopyhead and his naughty goings-on. The Aughts (as I prefer to call them) did not have had a single massive problem like the Depression in the '30s or the World War in the '40s. Instead it was a poisonous bouillabaisse of all the worst aspects of the last few decades: the unecessary, intractable foreign war of the '60s, the major recession of the '70s, the greed and widening disparity between rich and poor of the '80s, the existence of Kevin Smith of the '90s (I hate Kevin Smith too).
And more importantly, I have no clear idea what the pop-culture trends were this past decade. What would a Halloween costume of an Aughts dude look like? The '60s had hippies, the '70s had disco gear, the '80s had New Wave, the '90s had grunge -- what the hell did people wear in the Aughts? It's as if they just wore what looked best on them individually rather than slavishly following moronic fads that made them look ridiculous! What the fuck kind of decade is that?
Mostly, I'm worrying about what third-rate comedians will make unfunny comments about in the inevitable 30-hour VH-1 series "I Love the Aughts." I am actually kind of a sucker for those sort of things -- not because I enjoy the dime-store snarkiness, but because I genuinely love getting to know a period of time by going through the whole constellation of its cultural touchstones. For some reason, it warms my heart to watch a countdown of the most popular songs of the '90s, even though I distinctly remember hating most of the songs with a passion.
I'm sure I could easily find out what said unfunny third-rate comedians have already said about this decade -- as I remember, they made a "I Love this Current Decade" series long before the decade was over, and I'm sure there is another one going on now. But I'd rather conjecture about what I think should be in such a series:
1. Loads of technology crap: Social media web sites, Wii, iPods, iPhones, iMacs, iDon'tknowwhatelse
2. Reality shows
Uhhh ... well, there has to be other stuff. Maybe Beyonce? She had a good decade. Kanye West? What were the biggest movies? Batman Whatever with Heath Ledger as Crazy Joker? I know I'm favoring the stuff at the end of the decade, which people always do when they're talking about the previous decade. Let's go see what the top-grossing movies were in the Aughts:
The Dark Knight (2008)
$533,316,061
Shrek 2 (2004)
$436,471,036
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
$423,032,628
Spider-Man (2002)
$403,706,375
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
$402,076,689
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
$380,262,555
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
$377,019,252
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
$373,377,893
The Passion of the Christ (2004)
$370,270,943
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
$340,478,898
Finding Nemo (2003)
$339,714,367
Spider-Man 3 (2007)
$336,530,303
Shrek the Third (2007)
$320,706,665
Transformers (2007)
$318,759,914
Iron Man (2008)
$318,298,180
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)
$317,557,891
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
$317,011,114
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
$313,837,577
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
$310,675,583
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
$309,404,152
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
$305,388,685
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
$301,956,980
Up (2009)
$292,979,556
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
$292,000,866
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
$291,709,845
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
$289,994,397
New Moon (2009)
$281,928,000
The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
$281,492,479
Meet the Fockers (2004)
$279,167,575
The Hangover (2009)
$277,313,371
Shrek (2001)
$267,652,016
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
$261,970,615
The Incredibles (2004)
$261,437,578
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
$260,031,035
Star Trek (2009)
$257,704,099
I Am Legend (2007)
$256,386,216
Monsters, Inc. (2001)
$255,870,172
Well, this is a rather alarming list. This, by the way, is a list of the 50 top-grossing movies of all time, with all the non-Aughties movies removed. This means that the only thing worse than "Transformers: Revenge of the fallen" being the fifth-biggest movie of the decade is the fact that it is the ninth-best grossing film OF ALL TIME. I know, this list of highest grossers was always kinda bullshit, since there's a huge bias towards recent movies because of inflation. But I remember when I was kinda into this list, when "E.T." had a long run at the top, surpassed only by "Titanic." Now "E.T." has been surpassed by "Shrek 2." Sigh.
But anwyay, all that aside, this is a good way to catch onto some of the Aughties touchstones. You had the "Lord of the Rings" series, which was quite good. You had all those Pixar movies, which are uniformly excellent. Harry Potter and Shrek are also, I'm told, tolerable, so those go in the bin of Aughts trends. Spider-Man, the "Star Wars" prequels, "Pirates of the Carribean," and "The Passion of the Christ" are definite keepers, for better or worse.
So now our list, in no particular order, is:
1. Social media web sites
2. Wii
3. Apple: iPods, iPhones, iMacs, iDon'tknowwhatelse
4. Reality shows (this could be many entries, maybe one for "Survivor," one for "American Idol," maybe "So You Think You Can Dance With the Stars" or whatever that show is)
5. "Lord of the Rings" movies
6. Pixar movies
7. Harry Potter
8. Shrek
9. Spider-Man
10. "Star Wars" prequels
11. "Passion of the Christ"
12. "Pirates of the Carribean"
13. "The Dark Knight"
Of course, there are also movies that didn't do blockbuster business, like "Brokeback Mountain." That should be in there. And there's all the other media. But I'm tired now. More later!
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5 comments:
Personally, I think I'm going to call the past decade either the Zeroes or the Two Thousands (written as the '00s or the 2000s, respectively). It should probably actually be the Os, because people actually say, "I graduated in O Four", or whatever. But the Os sounds and looks weird. And it's probably copyrighted by Kellogg, or whoever makes Cheerios.
I don't like the Naughties or the Aughts, mainly because no one ever uses the words "naught" or "aught" anymore except in calcified idiomatic expressions like, "It was all for naught." Only Grandpa Simpson would say he was born in aught-eight. Can you imagine little Kaylen or Olivia saying that in twenty years?
Another alternative is "The First Decade of the Twenty-First Century, Including the Year 2000, Which Technically Was Part of the Twentieth Century, but Nobody Really Cares About Technicalities Like That Except Me. Oh, and I Suppose That to Finish with the Technicalities, I Should Say That the Year 2010 Is Not To Be Included in This Decade as Constructed, Even Though It Is the Tenth Year of the Century."
You can shorten that into "the Nerdies".
Good point. Hm. Well, the turn of the last century is sometimes called "fin de siecle" by really pretentious people -- maybe we can think of some pretentious French (sorry, that was redundant) phrase for this one?
Ed, I'm really impressed that you can come up with such a good list of what represents the Ohs(!) - that's what I will call the decade. The "Ohs!" as in the soft drink H2Oh! which I drank a lot but whose name I hated. Oh, Alex needs me. More later.
OK, sorry, back now.
Your list of movies of the Zilches made me wonder if maybe we should just call it the 20th Century, Part II. Or maybe The 20th Century Remix. Did anyone come up with anything original at all in the Zips? I know the answer to that is Yes, but I'm worried no one will remember. Sideways was one of my favorite movies of the past decade, but will it be lost under all the Transformers.
Anyway, I think you're right about your list.
Joe, I read this dumb article on AOL about the Best Somethings of the Decade and the end of the article asked, "what do you thing was the Best Something of the Decade?" I then scrolled down to the reader comments to see what people said and the first entry was someone's nomination for the Best Something and then the next 56entries were a debate between about four people about whether the decade started in 2000 or 2001 (and the debate included what year would signifiy the end.) I was enthralled, wondering if one camp would win (and some even wrote to lambast someone for using "B.C.E."), and then was elated when someone finally wrote to say that everyone in the debate was a total nimrod because the article never specified WHICH decade and that any old set of 10 years is a decade. It kind of simmered down after that. I admit, I'm on the fence. I clearly understand the logic about the 2001-2010 argument, but I'm kind of a fan of language evolution and flexibility, so maybe it should just start with 2000 after all. For chrissake, I add. But it really was one of the finer comment threads after a cheap AOL article.
I was thinking about the "look" of the '00s, and I kept coming up with the kind of skater punk look, especially for the youngish guys - longish hair, with a baseball cap that's like brown plaid, and baggy pants. I asked Alison about girls, and she said boots. What do you all think of that?
Also, I wrote an essay on the true start of the new millennium, so check it out! It rocks, dude!
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