The Kids Are Sorta Alright: Gen Z On-Screen
In the heyday of movie theaters, it was much more obvious when a breakout movie could be considered the defining view of a generation. Films like The Graduate, American Graffitti, and Reality Bites were all surprise box office hits that captured the zeitgeist of the moment. Audiences either related to these characters and circumstances, or reminisced about this particular slice of their recent history. As our culture becomes more saturated and fragmented, and box offices become less reflective of what’s actually culturally relevant, it’s harder to pin down exactly what it looks like to be young in this moment in time.
There are, however, discernible trends and overlap with the variety of movies and voices being released in the last half decade. A clearer picture emerges as one views the many perspectives we are now privy to, both in themes and in brightly colored aesthetics. For the movies focused on Gen Z, the real question isn’t about what they’re doing but rather “why are they doing this? And how come they’re doing it in neon?”
Bodies, Bodies, Bodies (2022) is a satirical film and one that could be adapted into many other generations; so while its trappings are Gen Z, the meat is plain old human hysteria. Those of you who have seen it will probably agree with my assessment that it’s “The Monsters Due On Maple Street” for the Instagram generation. Aside from being an excellent enclosed story – five friends and some significant others are gathered at one of their parents’ mansions for a hurricane party when one of them winds up dead – it also builds and delivers on believable group dynamics. Since this is a dark comedy, those group dynamics go off the rails, but even in the realm of the somewhat absurd there was realism in their interactions.
Part of what makes Bodies… land so well is that it shows the emptiness of buzzwords and overused but misunderstood language. Now, this is not unique to Gen Z – since the dawn of the self-help era, people have been taking from the lexicon of therapy and psychoanalysis to explain and sometimes excuse their behavior. What works in Bodies… is the characters' possibly being in danger and still throwing around words like ‘trigger’ and ‘gaslighting’ in an attempt to defend themselves. One would think that the threat of being murdered might distract from the loose internet psychology but instead it continues to get used as an excuse; anything a character needs to do to ‘stay safe’ is supposed to be accepted by the group.
On the flipside, Pleasure (2021) is a movie about Gen Z owning what they’re doing and shrugging at the idea of safety in all things. The film follows Bella Cherry (Sofia Kappel), a Swedish eighteen-year-old that arrives in L.A. to work in the porn industry. She has no qualms about what she is planning to do and shows no shame as she poses for Instagram with cum dripping down her face. For her and her friend Joy (Revika Anne Reustle), they are approaching this work the way they would any other industry. Bella especially is a serious and driven person, one that Joy openly admires and in one scene remarks, “why aren’t you doing something better with your life?”
Pleasure is a story about ambition wrapped up in the very public view of the younger generations (including Millenials) who have gotten used to oversharing online and building followings with strangers who can contact them at any time. It’s also a complicated and even-handed examination of an industry that’s been riddled with problems since its conception. While it might be odd to call Pleasure a coming of age story, Bella grows and changes throughout the film in the same way characters do in those sorts of stories. Her inexperience and ambition make an explosive combination, and we as the audience see her values change as she delves deeper into the industry.
What keeps Bella a fun character to watch is that she always seems to be authentic to herself even as she’s cultivating a fanbase and an image. We as a population expect some curation in people’s public personas so it’s interesting to watch the mechanics behind this for a specific world. Kappel plays Bella as sardonicly coy; someone who understands how to create and exploit her own mystique but we also see how easy it is for someone’s idea of themselves to be hijacked or twisted by the standards of their industry.
Closing out the Gen Z onscreens rundown is Medusa (2021), a movie also about a girl’s ambitions, albeit tempered by a stifling religious sect. The film takes place in Brazil and follows a group of teen girls who are told that being pious and beautiful are the only thing that’s important. They hunt down peers rumored to be promiscuous or vain and beat them violently in the street, then force these poor girls to confess their sins on tape so it can be shared on social media. One scene where the de facto leader of the group Michele (sharply played by Lara Tremoroux) squeals excitedly when she sees how many hits their latest video is getting shows a glimpse of the black-and-white mindset creeping in around the corner of the radical youth; those not with us are against us.
An urban legend of sorts pulls the movie into action: a beautiful and vain young girl named Melissa (Bruna Linzmeyer) was once attacked by a crowd and disfigured. She is now believed to live in a state hospital, and when Mariana (Mari Oliveira) gets a job working in the same hospital, she sets out on a mission to get a photo of Melissa. Meanwhile, her own sanity and life are unraveling as she questions the purpose of their crusade and the sanctiminous, unwavering artifice Michele has built that is starting to crumble.
Medusa is decidedly more style over substance, taking place in a neon-lit nightmarescape that is intriguingly bizarre. There are organic musical numbers, which spiral beautifully out of control and silly teen behavior steeped in so much violence and righteousness that it turns the corner from ‘drama’ to ‘straight up assault.’ It’s more a fluid ride through a poisonous, brightly colored land than a full-on narrative but if the viewer approaches it with this in mind, it’s a thoroughly entertaining time.
What’s fun for me about Gen Z movies is seeing the way in which a world without privacy is approached. Each of these films have an eye inside of the action that has nothing to do with the camera. They are recording and distributing their images readily, and we as the audience get to watch the cultivation from the other side. All the platforms and buzzwords available to them can be welded as weapons or tools, depending on whose hand they’re in. Submerged in a darkly neon world, the kids in these movies are approaching life and adulthood as something they can opt-out of. To be fair, I can’t say I blame them.
