As a Gen X adult nostalgia is a huge part of nearly every aspect of life—assume for all generations this is true. Since my formitive years I’ve looked back on my musical journey, the pop cultural archives in my mind, and the fond memories of things that likely are more romantic than reality. With these memories often come revelations of murkiness or outright disgust as to the truths revealed about the toxicity of the past.
I am willing to accept a onetime hero of my past is a total shithead, a misogynist or worse. I’m also a realist about the human condition so I believe in second chances, even more if the sincerity of getting better exists. Cancel culture is a buzzword that has been hijacked by the right wing but is attributed to the left to police culture—especially nostalgia. This is not an anti-woke apologist piece however, this is a genuine look at how we can navigate our own Gen X nostalgia and still hold those we loved or still love accountable.
I am a person who lived a closeted life in my own undefined queerness through the terrifyingly mishandled AIDS epidemic. I felt the impacts in my soul despite wrestling my own homophobia. I was a depressed and angry young man raised in a midwestern blue collar family that was full of brokenness and trauma. I didn’t get diagnosed PTSD until I was 43.
My views always were in conflict, having this traditional background that was a convoluted mess of my mother’s Born-Again Christian faith, a Hungarian old world Reformed church experience, and a catholic high school education that all led to spiritual dysphoria. All these factors shaped me and warped me in ways that allocated a lot of fucked up things that took years to sort out. The undiagnosed and untreated traumas of my youth contributed to my own clinginess to nostalgia, even when its ugliness is very clearly established.
I want to explore some of this, hopefully without drifting into the defensive position of “Kids these days are too sensitive” because I don’t believe that is the complete truth. I feel they are more aware and better diagnosed—which may or may not be the best thing.
That said, we Gen Xers were sensitive as fuck. I know we try to portray ourselves as the no helmets, lawn Jart throwing kids that only got hydration from random garden hoses. Bitch please, we were also whiny little shits that cried, were reactionary and found nearly everything to be a doom slide into a meaningless oblivion. We just didn’t know what the hell any of those emotions or feelings meant or how to cope.
So here goes nothing…
This Charming Man?
I’m going to start with one of my absolute favorite bands, cliché as it is, but a true poet’s band—The Smiths. By now everyone knows Morrissey is a snide contrarian who has made comments in more recent years that would have had him aligned with the National Front in England in the late 1970’s.
The pretty boy vegan poet who along with Johnny Marr created maybe the best lyrical sad bastard music of all time. My life with The Smiths is a complete love affair with both the music and lyrical brilliance of Morrissey’s writing. That said Morrissey is an infuriating knob 90% of the time since the demise of the band. I haven’t bought a solo record of his since 1994’s “Vauxhall and I” which was his last complete record of quality writing in my opinion.
As Morrissey aged his often from the hip snarkiness seemed to creep into a place of grumpy old man politics. He was famously quoted as saying in a 2007 NME interview “It’s very difficult [to return to England] because, although I don’t have anything against people from other countries, the higher the influx into England the more the British identity disappears. . . . the gates of England are flooded. The country’s been thrown away.”
This resulted in a libel lawsuit that Morrissey won and NME issuing an apology for the alleged quote and insinuating he is a racist. Later in 2017 Morrissey again found himself in hot water commenting on animal rights abuses in China, being quoted as calling the Chinese “subspecies” based on his opinion of their track record with animals. It is safe to say these comments and other politics of Mr. Morrissey are very cringe and cancel-able in today’s climate. In 2023 Morrissey did offer response to his political views on his website:
“My politics are straightforward: I recognize realities. Some realities horrify me, and some do not, but I accept that I was not created so that others might gratify me and delight me with all that they think and do – what a turgid life that would be. I’ve been offended all of my life, and it has strengthened me, and I am glad. I wouldn’t have the journey any other way. Only by hearing the opinions of others can we form truly rational views, and therefore we must never accept a beehive society that refuses to reflect a variety of views.”
This again can be taken as an honest statement about one’s personal convictions and the often grey areas one finds themselves in throughout our journey, or it is a logically flawed statement that avoids the questions entirely about one’s conflicted beliefs. That is something that we all can decide for ourselves. It is not a statement that really is straightforward despite his beginning the statement with that very premise, so who the conflict is clearly unresolved.
I feel Morrissey is an example of a guy whose “fuck it all” beautiful romantic nihilism didn’t age well as he developed into an older adult. The Smiths were a band of young men writing wonderfully tragic songs of androgynous love, loss, and impending doom under the cloudiness of the cold war. After those days, Morrissey became an anti-hero rockstar who both hated and loved the attention. He used his platform, with The Smiths and after to promote animal rights, veganism, the hatred of the Monarchy, and also spewing a lot of contrarian nonsense for what I believe was to stir as many pots as he could.
Bottom line is if you canceled Morrissey, it is not invalid. If you still love The Smiths, it is a valid position as well. The difficult relationship here is simply can we separate the old man Morrissey who has said a lot more shitty things in his 40’s-50’s from the young band that was the soundtrack of many a sad kids journey through adolescence? That is a something I ponder, as I still routinely play my Smiths records.
I feel on Moz it is a personal choice whether to toss The Smiths out, which is valid, or just decide to not support Morrissey in his old age. I do still love “Every Day Is Like Sunday” which I guess I will accept as a toxic trait in my life.
The 90s: Messy Men and Mighty Women
The 90’s were my era of coming of age. I went to high school between 1990-1994, and a lot happened in that time that was exciting but also didn’t always age well. The grunge era was a big deal to me and many of my generation as the entire landscape of pop music changed seemingly overnight with the ascension of Nirvana and Pearl Jam to the throne of rock n roll royalty.
The era brought a lot of amazing music that I cherish to this day but it also further exposed the misogyny and sexism of music, even in an era that seemed to be opening up to new ideas about gender. There were so many great women led rock bands in the 90’s. Everything from the piano driven sensuality of Tori Amos to the feminist manifesto anthems of Bikini Kill, the 90’s had women fucking shit up. The problem is they were not always put on the same level as the male dominated groups.
Steve Albini who recently passed away, had business practices when it came to artists and royalties that maybe the best ever of a big producer—still had some issues to contend with. He and others in the male driven music scene often were lost in the masculinity of there career paths.
The aggressiveness of the music that Albini played in his own bands like Shellac, Rapeman, or Big Black often brought to question his privileged white boy elitism and lack of accountability as the stereotypical bully of underground rock. Albini often used racial slurs, sexist language, and other offensive language and props in his work. The production credits have always stood on their own and his ethical approach to his craft is admirable, but he had that elitist asshole image that made him almost a cartoon character of that angry record shop dick.
Albini, was complicated but he also seemed to work away from his problematic angry young man antics saying in an interview with Jeremy Gordon of the Guardian in 2023 “I can’t defend any of it, It was all coming from a privileged position of someone who would never have to suffer any of the hatred that’s embodied in any of that language.” Of course to those that were hurt by these things, it might too little too late, but it seems Albini has done a lot to correct himself, or at least own responsibility for his past.
As a man, I’m circumspect about active efforts on my part. I feel pretty strongly that women should take the lead and the initiative, and in efforts that have actually changed culture it has been women defining and driving the conversation: suffrage, reproductive sovereignty, legal, structural and pay inequity, rape and exploitation consciousness. My lack of perspective and ingrained privilege could lead to clumsy and counterproductive affairs, so I do my best to support women in their efforts, don’t tolerate sexism in person and work on expanding my enlightenment concerning women’s issues. – Steve Albini Pitchfork, 2016
There problems of the 90s were many, as was the powerful shift in music. A lot of issues were colliding in the culture and sub-cultures. The rising of a new feminist mindset that was more aggressive and militant was clashing with the old standards of our parents’ generation—even with their feminism of the 60’s and 70’s.
Still even the Riotgrrl movement had its issues being a mostly white thing lacking intersectionality, something that has been addressed by later generations of feminists. It didn’t take away from what Kathleen Hanna and others were doing when they attacked the patriarchy that was dominating punk rock and underground music. It was just a fact that these scenes like most rock n roll, were white and the politics, no matter how right on, were also very very white. This is where problems become learning moments for Gen X.
We could just cancel Albini for his very awful statements, lyrics and other issues of his past, or recognize the change in his views over time? The same with Riotgrrrl, we can throw it all out for not being intersectional or inclusive, or we can learn from it using the good parts of the movement to push forward in a new era of feminism. The past is the past, but there are teaching moments. We can look back on the problems of male dominated movements in the 90’s that did bring a lot of misogynistic attitudes and lyrical content that looking back is cringy as hell.
The song “Push” by Matchbox Twenty was brilliantly used in Greta Gerwin’s Barbie movie and it is a perfect example of the cringe-worthy 90’s male lyric writing. Singer Rob Thomas defends the song as a sad song about love but feminist groups have often had issues with the lyrics that state “I wanna push you around” and “I wanna take you for granted,”. To me the song is very much an emotionally unintelligent song about heartache, and there were many of those in the 90’s.
Men might have been writing more heartfelt vulnerable lyrics but these weren’t guys getting therapy or even understanding the complexities of emotional intelligence. They were mostly straight white dudes in bands that were singing about getting women, fucking women, and being heartbroken about them. There were artists delving into more deep ends of the emotional pool, looking for meaning and speaking on mental health struggles. The overall world of rock n roll was still very patriarchal and misogynistic.
“It’s a very strange sensation to have the public viewpoint be, ‘You’re this, you know, badass woman on stage, superhero, feminist,’ and one of your best friends f——— raped you. And you don’t tell anybody. And you’re still getting up on stage, you go on tour literally next day, and you play all these shows, and for years you don’t even tell your own band who knows this person.” – Kathleen Hanna speaking to Maria Sherman,
“It’s a very strange sensation to have the public viewpoint be, ‘You’re this, you know, badass woman on stage, superhero, feminist,’ and one of your best friends f——— raped you. And you don’t tell anybody. And you’re still getting up on stage, you go on tour literally next day, and you play all these shows, and for years you don’t even tell your own band who knows this person.” – Kathleen Hanna speaking to Maria Sherman, 2024 Associated Press
There were the good guys of course, like Kurt Cobain, who spoke about feminism, homophobia and rape culture with a feminist scope. Bands like Fugazi, not only challenged the status quo of capitalism, consumerism, and other social issues, they were involved in feminist causes. Even in the very utopian scene of Washington DC, where Bikini Kill would find themselves after leaving the Northwest, things were still very male dominated. The 90’s were the growing pangs of generational growth, some of it was progressive and some was painfully regressive or just stagnant. In the years since those salad days, we have learned a lot about our generational heroes and about ourselves—I hope.
Accountability and Personal Responsibility
I feel when it comes to accountability in our personal lives, whether in consuming or just enjoying art we need to do more than just separate the artist from their personal lives. We need to consider the many factors of their public and exposed private lives, as we would our own relationships with regular people. I love the movie, Annie Hall. It is in my top 5 favorite comedies of all time.
Yet Woody Allen has tarnished the film by being the person he is. I think Allen has made incredibly funny movies, but I have decided that Annie Hall and the rest of his catalog is no longer something I need in my life. Publicly there is a lot of opinions, but it just comes down to me. What do I think. I choose to leave Allen out of my nostalgia viewing whereas other problematic film makers do still have a place in my heart.
John Hughes movies are still a go to for nostalgia despite the obvious issues of cringy sexuality, racism, and the various behind the scenes scandals that have come up in recent years. Still, I feel films like Pretty in Pink and The Breakfast Club are good time capsules into the often problematic 80’s in which Gen X grew up in.
It was full of sexism, racism, homophobia, and many other things our society has gratefully begun to deem bad and unacceptable. Should these films be canceled? That seems again a choice of personal convictions more than societal judgment. For many in my generation they are staples of our teens and coming of age, but to later generations they are not important. So, it is perfectly fair to assume they have their own movies to hold dear. It is not our place to be advocates of nostalgia that isn’t relevant to another generation that doesn’t want it or need it.
I think in my humble opinion, canceling celebrities is a performative movement but it is based in a place of protection and hopefully justice. As a believer in transformative justice my hope is that we are leaving room for reconciliation or rehabilitation. There is also a place for punishment and severe accountability. Dualism is a dangerous venture for anyone’s moral compass. Seeing anything political issue or even scandal as a black and white issue is almost always treading into authoritarianism. Every legal battle, criminal case, or terrible quote will have more to the story. This is why legal trials are often frustrating when they seem so open and closed. There are many things to consider before passing final judgment.
There are clear monsters that have clearly ruined people’s lives and are criminals, i.e. Danny Masterson, Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, R Kelly, and the latest is P Diddy. These are all men that abused power, clearly were predatory, and except for Diddy, have been found guilty of crimes committed. Cosby obviously was released from prison but the allegations against him were proven in court, the technicalities of his release haven’t changed that much. There are still defenders of all these guys, but it has been generally accepted by the majority, they are criminals and not people that should be rewarded with fame or support. These men are trash. Period.
It Starts With Me
Bottom line, for me, is using commonsense, having emotional intelligence to help us an individual’s figure out the difference between the bad stuff and the murkier stuff. I am no enlightened guru of how to be the perfect socio-political identity police champion. I fuck up pronouns, still slip up using terms that are outdated and occasionally snuck a private viewing of Annie Hall when no one was looking.
I am a contradiction. I am a messy human being that only recently began to fully accept myself as a queer person that has no definitive box to check. I’ve learned from Gen Z and later that this is okay. I am grateful for them allowing me to further find myself in a place that is safe to be myself. I am growing, learning, and trying to better myself every day. Digging deeper into my subconscious to find the dark matter, that ingrained racism, sexism, homophobia, and hatred that still exists. The misogyny of generations that is part of my DNA, that I hope to break completely.
Whether I cancel some celebrity over a scandal or not, that doesn’t matter. What matters is how I face myself, with self-awareness of my own views, mistakes, and reactions to things. It’s about being honest, looking at the person I want to be not who I was and clinging to it like it needs to keep living or I’ll be erased somehow.
I have to let go of the past when it is clear that past was not beneficial. I can choose what I listen to, watch, and consume regardless of trendy social media campaigns, but I need to check my own self. It’s not Morrissey that I need to fix themselves or make amends. It is me, my own life, and my own problematic issues that exists inside. If I can do that, I think it is more impactful than me throwing out a record because I saw a shaming hashtag.
Do the work. Be a voice. Listen to the next generation, they are often on to something.
Want to Know More About Jeremy Ritch?
For Jeremy’s Bio, go to our About Page! All tips from this article go to Jeremy Ritch!
Support Gen X Watch!
We rely on readers like you to continue our work. A few moments and you can make a difference:
1. Share this story with a friend and leave a comment.
2. Tip me! I need your support! Jeremy Ritch gets all tips from this article!
3. Become a Members Only Patreon! In the Patreon I will have unfiltered rants, exclusive content, free PDF copies of the upcoming quarterly magazine, and more.
4. Go to our store and buy the print magazine! It is art, news, and nostalgia that matters! Jeremy’s debut article is only available in the magazine.
Thank you for your support and taking the time to read this.
Stay Totally Awesome! Stay true to you.
Leave a Reply