The Voice of a Generation

I found Footloose in the bargain bin at Walmart tonight.

It was a voice of my generation. Sarah Jessica Parker and I are almost exactly the same age, which makes her about 17 when she was part of the filming of the movie. On one hand it seems so long ago, yet on the other it seems like yesterday. The plot of the movie is actually quite simplistic; it's certainly no Graduate or Easy Rider sort of movie, so why did we who "came of age" in the '80s embrace it and the other dance movie, Flashdance, as our legacy? I think I'm on the fringes of "getting it"...We weren't from the '60s and that "breaking out" generation; even '70s teens were close enough to the era that they could hang on to the threads of "peace and love", riding on the coattails of a new sort of social conscience...but we "80s kids? We were on our own in a post-vietnam war culture that had already altered forever. What was left for us?

Ourselves. Self exploration, self expression, and self indulgence. It's what we were left with in the wake of the '60s, and I don't think we did that badly. We made it "okay" to listen to that inner voice, to be the "me" generation without shame or apology. We said, through Kevin Bacon's Ren, that it was "our time to dance." Even our signature "angsty" movie, The Breakfast Club, was about individual teens and their paths to...self discovery. Now that we, as a collective generation, are launching into "the establishment", what can we accomplish? What mountaintops have yet to be forged and how will we continue to "make our mark" on the world?

We will be the first to experience middle age and acknowledge that it's not a death sentence. We can forge on into what was formerly considered "elderly" and realize it's a milestone, but by no means are we finished dancing.

I have a feeling we will NEVER be finished dancing.