The Movie That Finally Get Gen-X Right

Añadido: 2026-05-26

[00:00:02]When it comes to Generation X, there are different sections within Generation X itself. You have the early Generation Xers, 1965 to about 1969.

[00:00:12]Then the middle Gen Xers, the one that really fits the Generation X mold the best, born from 1970 to about 1975.

[00:00:20]And then you have the later Gen Xers from 1976 to 1980, who can relate to both Generation X and to the early millennials. For those early Gen Xers, I would say without a doubt the first movie that really spoke to them and captured teenage high school life was Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The movie was raw and honest, unlike any other teen movie before its time. It didn't show high schoolers in a fake light. You saw their flaws, their mistakes, their insecurities. When the movie was released in the late summer of 1982, I was only a few months away from turning 10. Over the next year or so, it would run constantly on HBO. And anytime it did, my older brother or sister would have it on. They were much closer to those teenagers seen in the film. Both of them was already in high school. A few years later, we got another groundbreaking teen film that really seemed to capture the Generation X high schooler, The Breakfast Club. It showed us five different types of teens in the mid-80s. The jock, the princess, the basket case, the rebel, and the nerd.

[00:01:25]Again, my brother and sister, who were older, could relate to them and see their peers at their own school. As for me, at this time I was turning 13. Sure, I loved the movie, and I could even relate to some of the students, but overall, it just wasn't my Generation X.

[00:01:41]For my brother and sister, it absolutely was, and I would watch both of these movies throughout my teen years. And it seemed the closer I got to high school, the more I could relate to those films.

[00:01:50]But I always felt like they were made more for the group of teens like my older brother and sister. The characters of Fast Times and Breakfast Club seemed like friends my siblings had. I never really felt these are my friends. This is my group. Or a teen movie was really made for me. That was until August of 1990 with the release of Pump Up the Volume starring Christian Slater. Now, I'm going to be honest with you. In 1990, I was about to turn 18. So, let me put you in my place. Due to my September birthday, I was always one of the oldest in class. Thanks to repeating both the second and ninth grade, I turned 18 during my 10th grade year. I was older and I was right there in the middle of high school. You can imagine being 18, you kind of feel odd. You're at the age where most of the seniors are getting ready to move on, yet you still have 2 years left. And most of your friends are just starting to learn how to drive. You felt like the school system had let you down. Even if it wasn't all their fault.

[00:02:48]Being honest, I liked hanging out in the woods with my friend in the ninth grade more than I did like going to class. And those missed days, well, they add up.

[00:02:56]However, when it comes to high schoolers, you soon realize you might feel screwed up, but so does every other one else around you. And this is what Pump Up the Volume did best. It showed that all of us late '80s Gen X teenagers were screwed up. Maybe even more than the older side of Generation X. The movie stars Christian Slater as Mark Hunter, a shy, quiet loner at his new high school. At night, he hosts his own pirate radio station thanks to equipment his father got him so he could talk to his friends back east. Now a day with podcasting and streaming, that might not sound all that odd or fun. But in 1990, being able to speak to people outside of your small circle of friends, it was huge. At night during his radio show, Mark became loud, crude, and shocking going by the name Hard Harry. There he would take calls from students at his school trying to help them out or at least listen to them about the problems of teen life in the small town. I am inside each and every single one of you.

[00:03:55]Just look in and I will be there, waving out at you.

[00:04:01]Naked.

[00:04:03]Wearing only a [ __ ] ring.

[00:04:07]Harry wasn't just saying what students were feeling or thinking. He was speaking for us, those in the middle of Generation X, those that were a little too young to relate to Fast Times at Ridgemont High when they came out. But with this film, we felt Mark was speaking directly to us. Mark isn't happy with the state of teen life as many of us weren't at the time. I guess that's true for almost every teenager, no matter the generation. We worried about the future coming at us fast, the pressures of school, the pressure that parents could put on you, and even pressure that friends could put on you.

[00:04:38]We felt invisible. After all, we were the middle-class generation being called lazy and slackers by the boomers. We never felt as cool as a teenager in the John Hughes movies.

[00:04:48]A lot of us felt more like Mark, awkward, shy, quiet, and invisible at our own school. And the movie doesn't just get teens right for the era. It also gets the adults right. From the parents to the teachers to the school staff, they don't really understand how hard life can feel for a teenager. To them, it was simple. Get good grades, do what you're supposed to, and you'll be happy. But then again, did we really want them to listen to us?

[00:05:14]Did we even want to take their advice?

[00:05:16]After all, we were the latchkey generation. We were raised to be alone, to face problems ourselves, and to keep things bottled up. As Mark's dad told him, "Don't rock the boat when you're in it." We have heard stuff like that throughout our whole life. Mark used his pirate radio station to release a lot of anxiety that had built up inside Generation X. He expressed the anger, the frustration, not only that he was feeling, but what many of us was feeling, too. When a caller tells Hard Harry, he feels like taking his own life, Mark at first does what a Generation Xer does. He laughs it off and doesn't take it all that seriously.

[00:05:52]Well, how are you going to do it?

[00:05:53]I'm going to blow my [ __ ] head off.

[00:05:56]Oh.

[00:05:57]Well, do you do you have a gun?

[00:05:59]No, I'm going to use my finger, genius.

[00:06:04]All right, so where where is this going to take place, huh?

[00:06:08]Right here.

[00:06:10]But the voice on the other end makes it painfully clear this isn't a joke. Mark gives his personal advice he believes that can help. But the following day at school he learns the teenager took his life. This pushes the adult to crack down on the illegal radio station, but it also gives Harry an even stronger voice for the teens. Maybe Mark's advice didn't help, but at least he listened.

[00:06:30]At least he was trying. Growing up I heard a lot of music thanks to MTV and mostly my older sibling. But most of that 80s music never really spoke to me.

[00:06:40]Sure I had friends that were really into metal bands and others that would really into pop music that made them want to dance. But it never really connected with me. By the late 80s things were changing. Rap music was coming more mainstream giving music a raw feel and hair metal was fading into the background with harder, more edgy rock.

[00:06:59]Pump Up the Volume catches that era perfectly.

[00:07:02]There's no glossy top 10 pop songs.

[00:07:05]There's no Madonna. It's rock music, but it's not your brother's rock music. It felt underground. It felt raw. It felt like music for outsiders. The soundtrack included artists like the Cowboy Junkies, Henry Rollins, Soundgarden, Sonic Youth, Ice-T and the Beastie Boys.

[00:07:22]Most of the music and style you heard in this movie would become mainstream just a few years later when grunge and alternative rock took over radio and MTV.

[00:07:33]Oh.

[00:07:35]Oh.

[00:07:37]Oh.

[00:07:38]Oh, yeah.

[00:07:40]Oh, yeah.

[00:07:41]Oh, yeah. This is the best.

[00:07:44]OH, DAMN IT.

[00:07:45]LEAVING THE THEATER in 1990, what Mark has said made me feel something those other teen movies just didn't. It didn't feel like he was just speaking to me. It felt like he was speaking for everyone I knew. We all had the same thing in our head, we just didn't know how to express it. Feeling screwed up at a screwed up time in a screwed up place doesn't necessarily make you screwed up, he tells one of his callers. It was nice to hear this, that maybe we weren't screwed up. We weren't the problem. Maybe the things around us was screwed up. One of the other advice he gave, being a teenager sucks. But that's the whole point of it. You have to survive it. Boomers were already telling us to shut up, do what we were told, pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. But here was someone being honest with us saying, "Yeah, it sucks. But that's the point. You just have to push through it." And with that quote Mark as, "Quitting won't make you strong, living will." And even at the start of the movie, he hits us with one of the most relatable quotes of the film. You ever get the feeling that everything in America is completely [ __ ] up?

[00:08:47]You know that feeling that the whole country is like 1 in away from saying, "That's it. Forget it." And honestly, what teenager in any generation hasn't felt that way? But there's one quote from the movie that might be the most Gen X line of them all. And it comes when Mark is off the radio. He responds to his father who's trying to get him out of his shell and tell him to make friends.

[00:09:09]>> Look, the deal is I get decent grades, you guys leave me alone, right? I think a lot of us feel exactly that way. We didn't want to talk. We didn't want advice. We just wanted to be left alone.

[00:09:20]And the key to that was getting good grades.

[00:09:23]>> [music] >> Oh, whatever. You want WHEELS FOR THAT?

[00:09:30]I HATE THE '60S. I HATE SCHOOL. I hate principals.

[00:09:34]I hate vice principals. I've seen many people Pump Up the Volume a true '90s movie, saying that it captures teenagers of the '90s. But, I think it really captured a different type of group, middle Gen Xers coming into adulthood while struggling through being a teen in the late '80s. After all, how can a movie released in the first year of 1990 capture the whole decade? Sadly, this movie often goes overlooked when people bring up the greatest teen movies. They mention Fast Times, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, and even later films like Dazed and Confused. Now, if you haven't seen it, and even if you're Gen Z instead of Gen X, give it a watch. I think you'll see that it speaks to teenagers today just as much as it spoke to us Gen X teens back in 1990.

[00:10:20]Hey, hi everybody. This is Amy at 97 FM in Springfield, and my show is Radioactive. Can anyone out there hear me?

[00:10:28]>> Sick of silence? Let it out with Casey.

[00:10:30]>> Ethan from Milan, and I'm here with talking to Paul. Are you running the streets? Call the rear runner.

[00:10:35]KCAT, Los Gatos, California. This is I am.

[00:10:39]There's no protection out from New Jersey. Hi, you're on the air.

[00:10:42]>> Turn on the truth. Hey, jumpman channel popping though.

[00:10:47]Thank you, sir, for that unsolicited testimony.