I've continued watching the documentary series Dark Side Of The 90s from Vice and through that had continuous criticisms in my mind. Maybe not to the same degree as with the Talk Shows episode it started off with in giving information that is ostensibly incorrect in the historical lineage to modern politics from the era of turbulent trashy tabloid combat TV, but still absurd enough that my brain has this tick in it going, 'well, that doesn't seem so dark, or accurate;' as well as just flat out overall things incoherent to my brain. So, in having finished through the fourth episode of the first season out of three; this is what I have to say on episodes two, three and four.
Episode 2: The Viper Room: Hollywood's Sanctuary
This second episode surrounds a Los Angeles venue in the 1990s that was bought and ran by Johnny Depp. In that it kept with and as it's told had almost 924 Gilman air to it, there wasn't a more posh attitude to it and in spite of a celebrity owner kept an eclectic variety of acts and attendees throughout its time under his thumb: from burlesque to grunge and talks with Hunter S. Thompson, it had everything.
What is the focal point of this overview how it is the spot which River Phoenix died on the doorsteps of after taking a drink that was possibly spiked then collapsing. As the story goes, the young man was prone to drug usage when he was in the city of LA and the autopsy report following the incident detailed to have found cocaine, heroin and morphine in his system at the time of his death. Now, that isn't to say he wasn't also served a spiked cocktail, but that seems a fancy excuse for what was otherwise a drug addict, the same as those who try obfuscating that from Kurt Cobain's story. On some level it is a typical tale of adolescent actors and odd upbringings from a cult background, similar to Rose McGowan as she told in her book Brave. Simultaneously and like Cobain however, this youthful stardom is the reason why his death is as much a spectacle as the films he acted in and life was. It's not as if a drug overdose in LA was an abnormal or crazy thing; even in a low point during the early years of the 1990s and spiking back up again following his death and continuing so through the decade.
Episode 3: TV For Teens
This one is by far the most intriguing so far; however makes the an error over and over again, in spite of rejecting that narrative from the start, where those speaking make the claim the shows they made could never be made in the current day, or the days of 2021 specifically. As if South Park hasn't been on the screen for almost 30 years now, or It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia doesn't pull the strings humorously of every taboo these series can get their hands on.
According to those interviewed as part of this epoch, who had been actors on these series, the point of these series was to talk to the realities of the youth as opposed to gilded gleams of sanitised life. Yet all was trivial, nothing expressed was anything that couldn't be portrayed today; whether people would tune in, depends on how well it is portrayed and if the creators can understand talking to as different from talking down on. But, it's the "generation" bashing that goes on ad-infinum.
Now, I can understand personally having a distaste for such directed media, but from all around eras rather than just the one I exist in, with little exception. For example of that exception, I'll always love Malcolm In The Middle, the first 20 years or so of The Simpsons and original 21 Jump Street series; but even in that none of these spoke or speak to me beyond entertainment. The realities depicted and animated don't speak to me in those as modern depictions of younger lives never have and I find much of it still gilded nonetheless; hence why my real affinity goes towards something like Kevin Smith's excellent depiction of my own lived reality in Clerks and Mallrats, even prior to living that life.
Episode 4: Beanie Babies Go Bust
Obviously the topic is the title. In this and like the last episode, there's nothing dark aside typical rich tax fraud. I'm really not sure there's much of a 'dark side' to the lot of these beyond selective judgement. But in delving into the creation of eBay, where it could be really dark by most people's standards is the burgeoning of true crime memorabilia— 'murderbilia'— on the platform that was eventually banned as a result of people like Andy Kahn. But the episode is focused on the craze around a commercialized commodity, an event not uncommon by any means, or terribly dark.
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