F Is for Family follows the Murpheys, a fictional working-class suburban family based loosely off the life of comedian Bill Burr. While the setting and the characters on the show are fictional, they represent actual historical moments, distinguishing the show as unique for its kind by depicting the tangible struggles and sensibilities of the 1970s. Since the Seventies have often been remembered as an uneventful decade, TV shows such as F Is for Family helps to correct the historical memory of this tumultuous decade through the accessible medium of popular culture.
Read more“Nobody Calls Me Chicken”: The Crisis of Masculinity in Gen X Cinema
Gen X movies often dealt with the theme of the male underdog finally getting the upper-hand over the dominant male type. Whereas cinema in previous eras glorified the rebel or the tough guy, Gen X cinema elevated the loser: the freaks, the geeks, the nerds, the wimps, the squares, the virgins, the slackers. The fact that so many of these films centered around the theme of the loser beating the jock or the bully demonstrates that there was a crisis of masculinity happening for Generation X, and this crisis was being worked out through the medium of popular culture.
Read moreRebel Girl: The Riot Grrrl Movement and Generation X Feminism
The Riot Grrrl movement developed in the 1980s and 1990s as a reaction to male-dominated subcultures and the second-wave feminism of the Boomer era. Drawing upon empowered female leaders from the punk and hip hop scenes, the women of Riot Grrrl sought to create their own forms of female empowerment and sexual freedom.
Read more“All the Hippies Are Executives Now, and Everybody’s Sold Out”: Late Boomer and Early Gen X Cinema in the 1970s and 1980s
The small window of films from the late 1970s and early 1980s gives a glimpse into the social and cultural milieu of changing times: a short moment when the cinema reflected the generation gap between the Boomers and Gen Xers.
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