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Millennial Life: When It Doesn't Age Well

Cassie McClure on

There are a few things that show your age. Wrinkles. Misused slang. Ankle socks, it turns out. No matter how well you think you might be aging, there are things trapped in time that may hold a special place for you but aren't things that age well. No, we're not talking about the government yet; I'm talking about old movie trailers.

I tried showing the trailer for "Harry and the Hendersons," a 1987 movie about a suburban family that kidnaps a sasquatch after hitting him with their car. I loved that movie as a kid: slapstick and cryptozoology? This was my Friday night movie jam as an 8-year-old. But as I nodded to the pieced-together trailer highlighting all the scenes I remembered, there was no appeal for my kids.

Did I still try to start the movie -- "You'll love it!" -- and find myself sitting alone in the living room as it played? Yes. Would they rather watch MrBeast on their computers in their room than a heartwarming tale -- and dramedy about conformity in suburbia -- about Bigfoot? Also yes.

I had a repeat experience with my husband after I dropped a comment that referred to the 1989 movie "Weekend at Bernie's," which he had never seen.

"It's a movie about a boss who dies, and there are these two guys who carry the corpse around," I said, watching my husband's face grow even more bewildered. "It's, ah, all in good fun." I clicked to YouTube and the trailer, which seemed endless, with awkward scene after awkward scene. As I clicked it off, I said, "You might have had to be there."

You had to be there in 2020 too. It was a time that sourced my wrinkles -- a time for no socks, because we were still mostly home. It was a time when we had a candidate for president saying he was going to be a transitional president, to get us through the roughest patches.

And, he did. Biden was more than serviceable; he guided down the anxiety that drove a Trump presidency that had him on the news constantly with some next-level uncouth behavior. Biden didn't salute the North Koreans. Biden didn't suggest bleach. Biden didn't question where Obama was born.

Anita Hill probably had a harder time at the ballot box in 2020.

 

Biden did keep us on track, but he also didn't seem to listen. We ask: Please don't aid in sending bombs that kill children. We ask: Add justices to even out a partisan court. We ask: Please help us get paid parental leave. Nothing.

And then we hear that Biden will be at peace, even if he loses, as long as he gives it his all. Fantastic.

Biden did keep steady; he's not listening now, either. But Biden is a failure of the Democratic party's process to promote leadership and cede power to those ready to move forward, not just to keep us steady. The future must be more representative of the values of the younger, those who have encountered a completely different world than the current leaders of either party.

There's a conversation to be had, and which many are having, that we vote in administrations instead of figureheads. If I have to, I'll vote for Weekend at Biden's because I had to be there for the other choice, and it's a time that won't age well.

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Cassie McClure is a writer, millennial, and unapologetic fan of the Oxford comma. She can be contacted at cassie@mcclurepublications.com. To find out more about Cassie McClure and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.


Copyright 2024 Creators Syndicate Inc.

 

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