A delve into horror & human behavioral psychology to sitcom gilded glazing and the generational gap considered.
I. Existential Angst
Part of the 1980s line of campy B-horror movies is that of the 1981 Alison’s Birthday. Story to the film is a classic Satanic Panic tale: a secretive intergenerational cult preying on a groomed youth on the behalf of an ancient deity; who possesses the body of a 19 year old for some 80 years or so then the rite of reanimating this possession repeats. In the end it’s like Freaky Friday, the adolescent (Alison) wakes up in the body of the woman who had gone through such decades prior to her, as her own younger vessel is used as replacement. A longing, age-regressive instinct it would seem in celluloid form.
It’s similar to a more recently released movie, The Substance. The 2024 body horror bit shows this vampiric longing for this sort of youthful rejuvenation, to the point of conscious autocannibalism, and the main character losing her entire person in the introspective split attempt at batting away nature’s road to inevitable death. Wherein it differs in portrayal of this fear of aging as the plot to steal Alison’s youth is completely unbeknownst to her, while Sue seals her own fate knowingly after being told (and experiencing) consequences of abusing the reincarnating drug she takes. In the end both succumb to this end, one’s life stolen the other frantically eaten through in the averting attempt.
Thematic contents and concept not necessarily given in the same light, however the human denial of death is evident. As one ages they get consciously closer to that encroaching and unavoidable end date. Mortality Salience as prescribed by Terror Management Theory would go to explain this as a wholly natural one: biologically, like any other animal, a human has an innate drive for survival, paired with an evolved intelligence and subsequent overactive imagination. Combined psychological posit, as well as a movie the same vein of ‘80s B-horror flicks. The reverse-snuff film Frankhenhooker takes from the average interpretation of the tale, and adds more of an element of human grief into it, as a man resurrects his decapitated sister with the pieces salvaged from exploded prostitutes.
A similar human ship of Theseus scenario furthers this idea is season three episode fifteen of the grandstanding, all-referencing series Supernatural. Antagonist to the monster hunting siblings in this episode is that of a nineteen century surgeon who achieved a form of immortality by replacing any ailing ligature or organ of his own with that of those surgically stolen from younger and healthier specimens.
With that accumulated explanation of the parable, this ill-perception of age and envy of youthful energy and time ticking down to the grave, coalesces into a generation animosity. In all the given theatrical examples it shows up as an idea of some form of perpetual reincarnation. In Alison’s Birthday it’s notable that the age of reanimation is in that of a 19 year old, switching with a 103 year old. Being revitalized in a fresh body the eldritch entity is able to exist (almost) ad infinum, regenerating eventually to when is generally spoken in hindsight as ‘good old days of age’. Rinse and repeat.
II. Absurdist Insecurity & Reconsideration
The Office was a sitcom originally set in the UK but more famous in and due to its American variation. Idea spanning the base material and spanning all nine of the successive series is that of a mockumentary about one select branch of a paper company and all that ensues within its walls and lives of the employees. Weddings, cruises, bears, beets and Battlestar Galactica the camera caught it all, much to the surprise and initial dismay upon realising just how intimate the recording over the years had been as the show neared its finale. In that finale capping off the ninth and last season of the sitcom as a whole, miniature monologue delivered from Cornell grad and by that point former Dunder Mifflin employee Andy Bernard (played by Ed Helms) expressed a sonder-ful sentiment saying, "I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them," after having (presumably) seen up to then in the series as had consistent viewers by then.
Largely contrary to my own prior espoused opinion on the matter it would seem that the concept of generations has sense to it beyond comparison to wishy-washy astrology. Astrology is a concept which curates people into broadly defined categories based on certain traits shared. Generational differentiation does the same: a bracket, the segmented portion of people born during a certain era, with conscious connection to and development within it; and as a result an averaging of produced behavioral outcomes and emotional outlooks categorized by such a label. Like any broad stroke of a brush it isn’t all-encompassing however largely stereotypical, environmentally.
Within generations are its own groups supporting the idea. Shell-shocked soldiers, roofie ruminating revolionaries to angry aesthetic terrorists and marginalized, ordinary every day school shooters to emo’s, hipsters and groypers, what results in people’s development then rubs off and updates to the environment for every successive youth group.
Essentially it would seem that the issue is almost, or would be, that influence and its impact onto the younger members of the population. Older ages lay their moral musings, insecurities and baggage for the upcoming generations to sort through succinctly. Insecure baggage levies down as hysteria characterizing eras: the creation of the Atomic Bomb made groundwork for induced fear for lost futures.
Gaps in the eras and as a result worldly outlook it seems a reactive instinct to opposition of instituted, inculcated baggage— bad and good— of those raising them. As such they raise their children in differentiation to experienced adolescent rearing ills until nonetheless this is repeated by their children’s children, and so on. The seeming result to this in the grandparental generations is a more negative broad stroke painted on the youth (as well as vice versa) for being weaker, lacking in ethic, having been more coddled… lacking in what they in fact seemed to be raised lacking, some qualities of existence which led them to their older age and place in the world.
It takes two to tango, procreate and continue the ages so on and so forth.
Envy based on age and projected animosity as a result is and likely will always be a present conversation to continue. From the younger ages this envy is in response to lost, ruined, hopes and futures and perceived ease of experience with those of older eras like the gilded age or post WWII boom; and envy from the older generation for seeing the changes in their lifetime in abundance or ease of access to things that the youth seems to be coddled with, and made soft.
Uniquely then it is when the younger generation becomes older, there’s a reminiscence going along with the negation of natural age. A natural weariness of the progression, the past is often painted over with a primrose gleam in longing daydreams. Come then declarations of the ‘good old days’ and so called golden ages— glorified and gilded segments of time, a fetishized revitalization fueling both generational ambition and aggression.
Ensuing from this is the sense of nostalgia, despite if what is remembered is glossed over. A powerful, dopaminergic drug nostalgia can be. Like with Andy Bernard in The Office stating his own sense of it— when was it really? Throughout the course of the show his character routinely is put through the blender: an engagement failed as a result of being cheated on with a fellow coworker, constant ‘rage bait’ from peers, losing his job and family fortune in swift succession… in other words would those really be the best days of his existence? Likewise this can be taken to a personal autobiographical interpretation; as well as to a now incredibly common phenomenon of individuals of youth being nostalgic for times they themselves never even existed in.
