couple of articles claiming a certain era was the best time to grow up in cinematic terms. Both articles raise some good points and clearly state themselves as the subjective opinion of the writer, however, I would like to submit in response that these arguments are fundamentally flawed; each person will always unconditionally think that the era in which they grew up is the best time for film. Obviously there will be people who dont trumpet their own era as a child of the early nineties, I obviously think recent years have been brilliant, but also hold a soft spot for what came before and there's plenty of cynics about but its hard to not have a soft spot for the films that took you from the innocence of childhood into the real world. But that shouldnt be a reason for thinking it is superior, as I hope the next five points will make you realise.
1. The Media Is Incredibly Short-Sighted
Have you ever wondered why the eighties always seems to be the most revered decade for cinema in popular circles? Its objectively no better than any other decade but gets all the praise. In fact, you may even have noticed that the latter part of that decade in particular now seems to be more fondly remembered over than the first half, despite films such as ET, Raiders and Blade Runner all being touted as some of the best just a few years back. The reason for this is simple; the people who are now coming into control of the media are those who were growing up through that time period. So the people who are in the powerful position of being able to shape opinion are essentially pushing their nostalgia on us. Its not an overt thing, but as articles such as this show, theres a definite undercurrent of own generation superiority. This means, as a society, we are being pushed into thinking what a certain group grew up with is the best. In a few years time, itll shift to the early nineties and Reservoir Dogs will be the greatest, then a few years after that, The Usual Suspects will undoubtably receive a major resurgence. The reason for this is a product of the later four examples, but it helps reaffirm the idea that our own generation in the best.