Millennials and Generationism

 [I wrote this last year April… heaven knows why I never posted this. Perhaps I had diarrhea that day. But here it is… have I changed my mind…? Hell no.)

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“Stupidity is a lack of intelligence. Ignorance is the decision to ignore certain facts and realities. (James Mulholland from his article on racism)”

 

Generationism: “…belief that a specific generation has inherent traits that make it inferior or superior to another generation. The term is usually applied to claims of superiority in the expressed values, valuations, lifestyles and general beliefs of one generation compared to those of another, where objectively verifiable criteria substantiating the claim of superiority in themselves are lacking.

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I have been seeing many posts, especially in the Facebook lately, a trend somewhat, by some folks who hangs on to old traditions and ancient practices the way vultures circle rotting corpses. 

Look, I am an old guy, and come September this year I'd be stepping into my fifth decade, and I was whining about “kids nowadays” since I was in my twenties. I had always been an old fart. Even my beloved aunty Saro who is several decades older than me, calls me, not old fashioned guy, but “old era guy” (pazhaya kalattu manushan).

Yet as I aged ungracefully (hair loss, alcoholism, liking some contemporary actresses and swearing allegiance to cats) I am beginning to realise the follies of the way of my thinking...

I mean, look, every other goddamned generation is always sneering at the next generation, saying that they got it easy. "Kids these days," some geezer would say, "I used to walk 20 kilometer to school". Exaggeration is the side effects of aging and memory loss. Hell,  some of these "honest" men are leading corporations and running the government

Being unenforced ritualistic endeavours, generationism oftentimes rears its snapping turtle head in many other departments.

Let’s take the fashion, for example, especially men. The now septuagenarian former wearers of baggy pants hated bell bottoms when the later, err, swept across the nations. Just about the time they caught up with the flaring trousers (with flaring nostrils of hesitance) with progression of time, these new embracers of bell bottoms rang their bells (re: Anita Ward) angrily when the goddamned straight cut that they left behind hastily to peruse the disco floor burner….wait for it… made a comeback in 80s. Arrrr! They cried like peg legged pirates waving their unsheathed swords towards the youths wearing the very goddamned baggies they had long re-stitched into sailing masts. 

Aside: The slim cut of late sixties early 70s is back now, sigh. If women’s fashion is like football, men’s fashion is table tennis. End of aside 

Now, let’s look at pop culture...that’s even harder hitting, I tell ya. When Chuck Berry and gang burst open the door to unleash the foot tapping, hip swaying rock n roll into the scene, the previous title holders, the Jazz aficionados (or hepcats, whatever they mean)....raised hell. Yet, when rock n roll went psychedelic, insolent Elvis fans refused shaved their respective pair of sideburns. 

Soon enough, disco ruled the stage (or dancefloor), the rockers cringed and went full tight leotards, torn jeans hairblown hair, and makeup that made women err… blush?. Though I am not a fan of hip hop/rap… but I thank them to putting some of these glam Rock sonsofbitches back to the sidewalk. That genre hasn’t recovered if one were to judge by the number of “best of” or “greatest hits” compilations they churn up more than the number of actual albums they did.

But I digress.

In the social media, often, I saw the resurgence of “traditional is the best” schtick where, especially the Indians, have traditional cure for every goddamned thing including riots at movie theatres screening Tamil films.

When Poet Laureate Kannadhasan wrote munnorgal moodargal alla (the ancients are not dumbasses)… he didn’t say that they were genius and did shit and stuff and were ahead of us. If so, they would have cured dumbassery among the community long time ago. What he meant was, the folks of that sub-continent survived during their era of extreme difficulties with very little man-made resources with acquired wisdom amassed over time. They were survivors, not whiners that happened to be the very generations now looking back and selling blended leaves to cure piles.

Anyway, my grouse is how this mentality is affecting the way they/we are looking at the younger generations, specifically the millennials. Millennials are lazy, the older generations complain. Millennials got everything handed out to them, and they are needy...it seems.

Well, f*** off, geezers. Let’s look at these facts. Yeah, facts. If you can call old decrepit piece of dung products and practices as facts and sell them on radio stations, I don’t mind calling the following facts myself.

Top Ten Old is gold, but not all that glitters are gold facts .

1.      Mobile phone is bad? Mobile phone reunited many lost family members, friends, acquaintances.  If it’s splitting the family members at the dinner table, regulate the usage – have better attitude.  Stop whining about it.

2.       The better transportation system made world smaller, it also able to make the Meeks murderers on road - most of whom are not millennials. Let’s not forget the traffic offences and inconveniences. Check out the driver’s gray hair.

3.       Most technology we have now comes from the innovation in the defense industry started by older farts. That industry is behind the death of millions if you didn’t know.

4.       Stop bugging the younger generation for their cluelessness or for not being as smart as your generation.  We were pulling spider legs that age, remember?

5.       Who invented wrestling, where skimpily dressed sweaty men do extremely physical things to each other? Millennials?

6.       Don’t sneer at the millennials for not keeping a tab on what’s happening around the world.  The ones who do are running the country or, have been voting in all the wrong goddamned geezers in the first place.

7.       Old farts are the worst offenders in the social media ,  sharing unverified b.s., malicious panic creating rumours,  thrusting their favourite football team onto unsuspecting open beaks of the young'uns,  ditto political parties,  favourite old fart actors (and Thalaivars), and worse  personal faiths. 

Aside: Which means kids will never buy that James Cagney is the patron saint of awesomeness, so shut up Rakesh. End of aside.

8.       All the great traditions, cultures, faiths, ideologies,  from past have either evolved or failed! Values? Yeah, sure. There are still theft, corruption, rape, abuse of the underage and animals, murder on every goddamned civilisation at any given time.  Let the kids now change all that – help them, don’t discourage them if they are sincere, not just merely being woke.

9.       Current movies sucks, music went down to drain? Well boo-effing-hoo, the executives greenlighting them are… you guessed it – old farts.

10.     And when you corporate knuckleheads look at coming up with products and services to please consumers and make shitload of money…which age group do you often target?     - RKP,  25/04/22

Varisu (2023)

This is sort of the kinda flick Karthik (Muthuraman's son, not Siva Kumar's) used to flourish in back during the hey days of the 90s, where film qualities were fresh from the day before's wet market, with radio friendly songs by the likes of Deva or Sirpy, or in case of skint treasure chest, S.A.Rajkumar, who unleashed melodies after melodies that chase after their own respective tails (an honorable trade now expertly weaved by Harris Jeyaraj). 

It's nice to hear the background score (or as the Indian film experts call beegeeyem") because the loudness kept me awake, most grateful.

It's nice to see Ganesh Venkataraman. I had hope for this dude once, in fact, I even had a dude crush on him. He has yet to prove himself. Bugger need a career counselor.

It's nice to see Jayasudha, who's definitely in for the paycheck. She didn't age much, looks great and I do hope she stick around longer - there are so few actresses from K. Balachander fraternity around. The industry could use you brilliant, talented gals, suck some of the blood cells or something.

It's nice to see Prabhu Ganesan, who's definitely in for the paycheck.

And lunch. Sigh.

It's nice to see SJ Surya's guest performance (not cameo, because he gets his own flashback privileges), though he seemed to have misplaced his eccentricities.

It's nice to see Sarath Kumar taking over from fellow elder Nattamai, Vijaya Kumar, playing the long suffering patriarch of a wealth endowed family, albeit with better stock of organic hair.

Hari O Sambo 😑

Thunivu (2023)

If I were asked to choose between Ajith and Vijay at gun point, I’d not hesitate to choose Ajith. One, he’s one of those limited actors who can work well within the confines of his capacity. He sucks when he attempts to push himself. But within his comfortable zone he can weave magic and be very entertaining.

And that what kept me in the movie theater till the end, in this, otherwise a wannabe, bank heist thriller.

Joining the excitement of seeing gravity defying, physics spitting films doing well of late, even getting recognition at prestigious award shows, Thunivu is very generous in incredulous, verifiably silly action sequences. Some fans would laud this, but in the absence of circus tents around the world which has long since stopped enticing to watch bearded lady and Dick Grayson’s parents fall to their respective “origin story” deaths, movies have been delighting these passive adrenaline junkies. Tom Cruise’s career depends on it. Thunivu thrives on it.

Then the Tamil movies obsession with flashback sequences. This Tamil Movie flashbackitis strikes after intermission. To and fro, we get expositional orgies of plot “correcting” information, coincidences, and convenient backstories. It’s relentless, and completely unengaging. If the film just stayed at the bank and allowed the character interaction to reveal fragments of those backstories through dialogues and actions, it would have been a smarter tale despite the amateur pyrotechnics and terrible supporting casts and worst extras.

Like Rajini, Ajith these days merely sells his image. Nothing wrong with that. His character here fills like a continuation of one he played in Mangatha, a film that I really enjoyed, especially his performance.

Ajith still excels in wearing negative shades to his character’s personality. He carries that attitude and that is why I hung on to him, instead of walking out when the relentless flashback attack began. His insanity kept the film together, strangely. 

The heist story and the marionette act with bigger powers that be planning a headline making tragedy is not new. Ask Michael Mann who has been perfecting the sub-genre since the 1981 film he directed James Caan in, Thief. After years of history of Tamil film attacking politics and politicians (and the industry players joining them anyway), this film goes after the finance sector and the behind the scenes players. Some viewers not too savvy with the sector’s working might be lost as to how account holders are being robbed, but we get the picture. It’s not too different than swindling politicians. Voters and consumers are like addicts and alcoholics, lessons are often learned too late. So, don’t sneer at us ex Rehab inhabitants.

Anyway taking Ajith out the film would make this flick as interesting as half boiled egg white  The plot tries to be clever, but could have been clearer. The action scenes tries to be clever, but could have been clearer. The other characters tries to be clever, but almost all, especially the cops come off as uniformly uninformed uniformed dumbasses. Clarity won’t cut it. #rakeshmovietalk