Computers, Corruption or Cartman: What makes 'the movie' of the '90s?

After a game of Trivial Pursuit during an intersession cross-country ski trip, a bunch of us began a discussion about what was the American film of the 1990s. Not the best, but the one that most sums up the American experience during the decade.

But what defines the 1990s American experience? New technology? The economic boom? The media's relationship to politics? The rise of the suburbs? Political correctness?

"Terminator 2: Judgment Day" opened the decade by articulating the simple fear that technology would become so powerful that robots would take over society. This fear became more complex with advances such as virtual reality and the Internet.

Films reflected this fear. "The Net" proposed that our existence in society depends on computers to keep track of that existence. "Enemy of the State" showed how surveillance technology might eventually allow the government to trace our every move. "Multiplicity" and "Gattaca" dramatize the fear of cloning and genetic enhancement, respectively. "Total Recall" and "eXistenZ" proposed that virtual reality might eventually become advanced enough to make the real and the virtual difficult to distinguish.

"The Matrix" went one step further, asserting that what we think is reality might actually be virtual. Stylistically and thematically, it used computer programs as an analogy to a conformist modern society.

While "The Matrix" is a modern version of Descartes' idea that life could be a dream, "The Truman Show" proposes that our lives could be controlled by the Cartesian evil demon. Peter Weir's film shows how far the media's creation and exploitation of celebrities could go. Truman's world is a satire of real-life America, and his eventual triumph is a call for consumerist suburbanites to liberate themselves from their media-influenced existence.

A similar film is Ron Howard's "EdTV." Ed, like Webcam owners and participants in "The Real World," agrees to let his life be filmed, showing how the media can turn the public into voyeurs.

In the 1990s, technological developments such as the Internet produced more sources of news, leading to increased scrutiny of politicians and a public hunger for scandal. Throw in a dearth of important domestic stories and a president with a knack for getting himself into trouble and politics becomes entertainment.

Barry Levinson's "Wag the Dog," in which an aide stages a war to distract the media and the public from a presidential sex scandal, hit close to home when reporters accused Clinton of bombing Iraq to keep attention away from the Lewinsky affair.

"Bulworth" not only rebelled against the wave of political moderation brought on by increased scrutiny, but its style borrowed from a major part of 1990s pop culture — hip-hop music videos — thus combining two main cultural developments.

Fear of AIDS and Ebola led Hollywood to release virus films such as "Outbreak" and "Twelve Monkeys." "Reality Bites" defined the term "Generation X." "Boyz 'N the Hood" and "Menace II Society" led the pack of movies about urban violence.

My favorite category is the "hippies grow up" genre, which compares the American '90s' embrace of social norms to an age that broke and overcame them: the 1960s. The '90s audience laughs at "Austin Powers," a product of the free-love era, for his garish clothes and his sexual aggressiveness.

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In Joel and Ethan Coen's "The Big Lebowski," Vietnam War veteran Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) and Vietnam War protester Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) portray opposite ends of the hippie-generation spectrum to cartoonish exaggeration.

The Dude spends most of his time in drug-induced hallucinations, while Walter threatens to shoot a bowling opponent who steps over the line and refuses to mark the frame zero.

For Walter and The Dude, the 1960s never ended. But for Lester Burnham in "American Beauty," they were over long ago. A hot blond teenager and a pot-dealing neighbor help Lester regain his rebellious spirit before he eventually succumbs to the rules of society.

But we are also back to the technology theme: Ricky Fitts, fed up with his overbearing veteran dad, finds beauty through the lens of a camera. Through Fitts and Burnham's experiences, the film teaches us that technology and beauty can help us transcend social norms, but we will never be completely free from them.

No social group avoids the barrage of ridicule in "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut." The film pokes fun at both sides of the gay rights issue through the characters of Satan and Saddam Hussein (presented as a gay couple) and Big Gay Al. The songs in "South Park" parody everything from the feel-good nature of Disney films such as "Beauty and the Beast" (the opening song) and "The Little Mermaid" (Satan's song) to the melodramatic bombast of Broadway shows such as "Les Miserables" (the revolution medley).

"South Park" also makes fun of itself with the fart-ridden film-within-a-film "Asses of Fire." It mocks children who are mesmerized by such movies, but also movie ratings, guidance counselors and Internet laws that vainly attempt to shield children from vulgarity.

And most importantly, it makes fun of uptight suburban parents who are so tied to the sensationalist media that they are willing to go to war to protect antiquated family values.

Many films deftly explore a single major development. But the finalists for the defining film of the 1990s must connect multiple issues. Only "South Park" gracefully spans all categories. In skewering all segments of society, it proposes an interesting reason for '90s apathy: every opinion sucks. South Park is the American film of the 1990s.