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torquillMy mom and I were discussing something that I had been mulling over since I woke up.
Last night, at our usual Tuesday Who night, I brought up Tom Smith's comment that we're getting a generation of actors who bring fun to their work, and love their roles. We talked about some of the actors who were good representatives of that, and how Tom Hiddleston apparently has a soft heart for average people (he asked one of the reporters at a red-carpet event if she was cold, and then gave her his coat, among other things). My brother said that what we're seeing is geek culture permeating that space: the particular mindset that comes with GenX, where when people love your work (which you also love) it's simply a cool thing, and (as Meg said) the fan base doesn't go to your head. Geeks as a group are pretty compassionate, or at least not so stuck-up as some other classes.
This morning I was thinking that the most prominent of these actors are in their late 40s and early 50s, the leading edge of GenX, and wondering what created the enormous culture shift that marked their formative years. It was the science fiction boom, the advent of Doctor Who and Star Trek and a lot of SF novels. Their generation created Dungeons and Dragons, which went on to become the prototype for role playing games (notable because they were games that we didn't put aside after childhood), which my brother was able to grow up with. GenX is notable for its forward-looking, push-the-frontiers philosophy, while believing that humanity can be better. Lots of people point to Star Trek for being a seed of that attitude in geekdom, but ToS was another manifestation, not the cause.
In acting, which is one place it's particularly visible, it's a definite alteration from the old school. All the way up to the Boomers, the prevailing culture was that acting was Serious Business. That was in film, in theater, even on TV -- at least, it wasn't usually a matter of telling good stories with people you like, and kidding around off-set. Think about Patrick Stewart, who was irritated by his fellow actors in the first season of Star Trek:TNG, because he felt like they weren't taking it seriously. After a couple of years, he started to loosen up, encouraged by Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, and the rest, and now (while he still applies himself earnestly to his work) he has that same almost infectious sense of fun about it. Where does that come from, really?
My mom (who's an early Boomer) and I chatted about it. All I've really seen about the 60s was civil rights and the space race, but the underlying culture was deeply marked by the end of WWII. After the war, there was a sense of "Oh, good, all that running around and chaos is over, now we can settle down and have a routine again". Which was the 50s. By the 60s, our restlessness had resurfaced, and people felt a need to be part of something again. There was a backlash against what was seen as a slide back toward war, and the police actions left a bad taste in our mouth. The peace movement brought people together, as did civil rights. We needed some of that unity. We needed to believe again that there was good in humanity, as we had been convinced of when the Allies won, and that we could be better than we were. That we could turn the swords of nuclear weapons into the ploughshares that would benefit everyone.
Add in the technological advances from the wars, and we had something that might make it happen. Anything was possible. The new computers, plastics, industry. The space race was made possible by and pushed the advance of computers, and it fueled our national imagination. The sky was no longer the limit; we were encouraged to dream. What if? What if there really could be peace, everywhere? What if we could colonize the stars? What if people could leave behind greed and cruelty and realize our full potential? We had cheap sci-fi paperbacks where authors could explore just that, and they did, in spades.
This was the generation that made the personal computer. The generation that built the space shuttles, for exploration and research rather than just to beat Russia to the moon. Those people are now established in their fields and still dreaming, still finding the joy in things. Samuel L. Jackson, who grew up reading comic books and absolutely loves his recent work with Marvel. The aforementioned Jonathan Frakes. Bruce Campbell. Bill Gates (who got a really early start) and Steve Wozniak. The people behind them, the later GenXers and my own GenY, are following right along, with Hugh Jackman, Larry Page, and Elon Musk.
Now that the first geek generations are old enough to have reputations and money, we have the new frontier (partly made possible by those earlier efforts). Biotech. Graphene. Advanced communications. They fuel the imagination as much as space travel and plastics did in the 60s and 70s. And in the acting world, we have an audience with a vast shared background of stories (thanks to mass-market comics and television) which can be brought to life again by actors who share that same culture. Acting is a vocation, like any other art, but to be able to apply it to characters and stories that resonate with your favorite parts of childhood makes it a joy. Plus, you can identify with the audience's delight, which negates a lot of the barriers; add social media, and everyone can sort of geek out together.
It's not ubiquitous, and to be sure there are plenty of geeks in celebrity circles who are pretty non-social (take Nathan Fillion), but the general trend is there. And the odd thing is, the more contact these people have with the old school -- with the self-centered pricks, the cold or stuck up shallowness that's still throughout Hollywood and the higher echelons of society -- the more it feels like the old school is eroding. Robert Downey, Jr. is a very different man from what he used to be; he's said that the story of Iron Man really resonated with him. Part of that was the school of hard knocks, but part of it was associating with the dreamers. I think Joss Whedon alone has made a lot of people look at the world differently.
I'm part of the culture too. I look at the technology and see the tools for us to make the world better. I look at my fellow travelers and see compassion and vision. And, most of all, I watch the actors who embody my favorite characters up there having the best time of their lives, and it delights me. Forget about the geeks inheriting the Earth; it's the geeks who are here to save it.
Last night, at our usual Tuesday Who night, I brought up Tom Smith's comment that we're getting a generation of actors who bring fun to their work, and love their roles. We talked about some of the actors who were good representatives of that, and how Tom Hiddleston apparently has a soft heart for average people (he asked one of the reporters at a red-carpet event if she was cold, and then gave her his coat, among other things). My brother said that what we're seeing is geek culture permeating that space: the particular mindset that comes with GenX, where when people love your work (which you also love) it's simply a cool thing, and (as Meg said) the fan base doesn't go to your head. Geeks as a group are pretty compassionate, or at least not so stuck-up as some other classes.
This morning I was thinking that the most prominent of these actors are in their late 40s and early 50s, the leading edge of GenX, and wondering what created the enormous culture shift that marked their formative years. It was the science fiction boom, the advent of Doctor Who and Star Trek and a lot of SF novels. Their generation created Dungeons and Dragons, which went on to become the prototype for role playing games (notable because they were games that we didn't put aside after childhood), which my brother was able to grow up with. GenX is notable for its forward-looking, push-the-frontiers philosophy, while believing that humanity can be better. Lots of people point to Star Trek for being a seed of that attitude in geekdom, but ToS was another manifestation, not the cause.
In acting, which is one place it's particularly visible, it's a definite alteration from the old school. All the way up to the Boomers, the prevailing culture was that acting was Serious Business. That was in film, in theater, even on TV -- at least, it wasn't usually a matter of telling good stories with people you like, and kidding around off-set. Think about Patrick Stewart, who was irritated by his fellow actors in the first season of Star Trek:TNG, because he felt like they weren't taking it seriously. After a couple of years, he started to loosen up, encouraged by Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, and the rest, and now (while he still applies himself earnestly to his work) he has that same almost infectious sense of fun about it. Where does that come from, really?
My mom (who's an early Boomer) and I chatted about it. All I've really seen about the 60s was civil rights and the space race, but the underlying culture was deeply marked by the end of WWII. After the war, there was a sense of "Oh, good, all that running around and chaos is over, now we can settle down and have a routine again". Which was the 50s. By the 60s, our restlessness had resurfaced, and people felt a need to be part of something again. There was a backlash against what was seen as a slide back toward war, and the police actions left a bad taste in our mouth. The peace movement brought people together, as did civil rights. We needed some of that unity. We needed to believe again that there was good in humanity, as we had been convinced of when the Allies won, and that we could be better than we were. That we could turn the swords of nuclear weapons into the ploughshares that would benefit everyone.
Add in the technological advances from the wars, and we had something that might make it happen. Anything was possible. The new computers, plastics, industry. The space race was made possible by and pushed the advance of computers, and it fueled our national imagination. The sky was no longer the limit; we were encouraged to dream. What if? What if there really could be peace, everywhere? What if we could colonize the stars? What if people could leave behind greed and cruelty and realize our full potential? We had cheap sci-fi paperbacks where authors could explore just that, and they did, in spades.
This was the generation that made the personal computer. The generation that built the space shuttles, for exploration and research rather than just to beat Russia to the moon. Those people are now established in their fields and still dreaming, still finding the joy in things. Samuel L. Jackson, who grew up reading comic books and absolutely loves his recent work with Marvel. The aforementioned Jonathan Frakes. Bruce Campbell. Bill Gates (who got a really early start) and Steve Wozniak. The people behind them, the later GenXers and my own GenY, are following right along, with Hugh Jackman, Larry Page, and Elon Musk.
Now that the first geek generations are old enough to have reputations and money, we have the new frontier (partly made possible by those earlier efforts). Biotech. Graphene. Advanced communications. They fuel the imagination as much as space travel and plastics did in the 60s and 70s. And in the acting world, we have an audience with a vast shared background of stories (thanks to mass-market comics and television) which can be brought to life again by actors who share that same culture. Acting is a vocation, like any other art, but to be able to apply it to characters and stories that resonate with your favorite parts of childhood makes it a joy. Plus, you can identify with the audience's delight, which negates a lot of the barriers; add social media, and everyone can sort of geek out together.
It's not ubiquitous, and to be sure there are plenty of geeks in celebrity circles who are pretty non-social (take Nathan Fillion), but the general trend is there. And the odd thing is, the more contact these people have with the old school -- with the self-centered pricks, the cold or stuck up shallowness that's still throughout Hollywood and the higher echelons of society -- the more it feels like the old school is eroding. Robert Downey, Jr. is a very different man from what he used to be; he's said that the story of Iron Man really resonated with him. Part of that was the school of hard knocks, but part of it was associating with the dreamers. I think Joss Whedon alone has made a lot of people look at the world differently.
I'm part of the culture too. I look at the technology and see the tools for us to make the world better. I look at my fellow travelers and see compassion and vision. And, most of all, I watch the actors who embody my favorite characters up there having the best time of their lives, and it delights me. Forget about the geeks inheriting the Earth; it's the geeks who are here to save it.
