After spending a few days enjoying both seasons of Netflix's Stranger Things, I realized that it's been upwards of 50 years that film & TV have been creating tales, especially sci-fi/fantasy ones that focus on Gen-X characters. The children on that show are playing characters whose ages are exactly what age I was, when it was the year the show is set. Ironically, their parents are played by actors my age, who are portraying our Baby Boomer parents
Conversely, as it turns out, we're quickly approaching the 50 year anniversary of the well known 1968 sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, wherein the core of the film centers around astronauts exploring a phenomenon in our solar system. Those astronauts, played by actors in their early 30s, were near the same age, in that fictional 2001, as I was in the real 2001. Those character are Gen-Xers
Similarly, a much less remembered 1972 cult classic sci-fi film, entitled Soylent Green is set 50 years from when the production was made, in the dystopian year of 2022, and features a main character, portrayed by Charlton Heston, who, if he is to be considered nearing the same age as the actor, is roughly 50 years old, placing his birth date in the very early 1970s, as well. This film too is about a Gen-Xer, before we'd even coined that term to describe the generation, & his costar played by Edward G. Robinson is essentially portraying a Baby Boomer
Mad Max (1979) had Gibson portraying a character born some 20-ish years before the mid 1990s. Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in The Running Man, which is set in the later part of this decade is also a Gen-Xer. Marty McFly, of Back To The Future, is in high school in 1985. He too is a Gen-Xer
Basically, it's been a full 50 years, of our generation being depicted in film/tv, what amounts to our entire existence, as the 1st of us are now approaching that age ourselves. I just found it interesting that stories about us have existed as long as we have... maybe even longer
Conversely, as it turns out, we're quickly approaching the 50 year anniversary of the well known 1968 sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, wherein the core of the film centers around astronauts exploring a phenomenon in our solar system. Those astronauts, played by actors in their early 30s, were near the same age, in that fictional 2001, as I was in the real 2001. Those character are Gen-Xers
Similarly, a much less remembered 1972 cult classic sci-fi film, entitled Soylent Green is set 50 years from when the production was made, in the dystopian year of 2022, and features a main character, portrayed by Charlton Heston, who, if he is to be considered nearing the same age as the actor, is roughly 50 years old, placing his birth date in the very early 1970s, as well. This film too is about a Gen-Xer, before we'd even coined that term to describe the generation, & his costar played by Edward G. Robinson is essentially portraying a Baby Boomer
Mad Max (1979) had Gibson portraying a character born some 20-ish years before the mid 1990s. Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in The Running Man, which is set in the later part of this decade is also a Gen-Xer. Marty McFly, of Back To The Future, is in high school in 1985. He too is a Gen-Xer
Basically, it's been a full 50 years, of our generation being depicted in film/tv, what amounts to our entire existence, as the 1st of us are now approaching that age ourselves. I just found it interesting that stories about us have existed as long as we have... maybe even longer
