CALGARY – Margaret Thatcher and Annette Funicello: both gone, both in one week. What’s a baby boomer to do? One an icon of British conservatism; the other a memento to the beach-party optimism of the 1960s.
One by one, the cultural icons that boomers loved and hated are passing into history. And so are the cultural touchstones that have defined boomers’ lives. It seems like just yesterday that Simply Red’s angry rebellion against the unholy conservative alliance of the U.K.’s Margaret Thatcher and the U.S.’s Ronald Reagan became an anthem for the left. “Money’s too tight to mention,” sang Simply Red’s Mick Hucknall, and we all knew what he meant.
It wasn’t yesterday, though. That song was a hit in the 1980s. Today, people of a certain age don’t even know what we’re talking about. Nor do they care. When Thatcher’s death was announced, one young person posted this message on an Internet board: Hiall, i'm not really all that wise to politics which is probably why idon't know the answer to this, but why do so mnay (sic) people hate Margaret Thatcher?
Her inquiry sparked a flurry of responses – both praising and reviling the former British prime minister – because there are few recent figures more divisive than the Iron Lady was. The point is, of course, that the debate only matters to people of a certain age. To young people, it’s not much more than a historical curiosity.
Boomers’ heroes – big and small, left and right, cultural and political – are disappearing one by one. Alvin Lee, the gifted rock guitarist who galvanized the audience at Woodstock’s 1969 music festival, passed a few weeks ago with just a footnote. Ralph Klein, a Canadian folk hero of the right, got a lot more attention in this country, but partly because he only stepped out of the public spotlight a few short years ago.
But it’s not just the little heroes who are disappearing. It also includes the biggest cultural icons of the boomers’ era. In a recent episode of American Idol, contestant Burnell Taylor couldn’t deliver the Beatles’ Let it Be and Amber Holcomb butchered She’s Leaving Home because they didn’t know the songs. Wasn’t it John Lennon who claimed the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ?
This changing of the cultural guard manifests itself in many ways. You sometimes see it in the headline that a boomer-aged editor writes in a newspaper, alluding to something that was popular in their era. One is left to ponder whether anyone under 40 will get the reference. Want to hum a few bars of Suicide Is Painless to underscore some ironic point? The irony is that you might be the only person who gets the joke.
MASH, All In The Family, Happy Days – television’s once most popular programs – are locked in the mental vault of the generation that, for a time, thought modern society began and ended with them. Such hubris.
As a boomer, I take joy in this changing of the guard. I’d rather drink bleach than listen to one more replay of Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven. (EDITOR’S NOTE: I still have a weakness for Rush. I know; it’s inexplicable.) Most of the things we remember fondly occurred a long time ago. They have no relevance to who we are today, let alone anyone else. It’s long since time to move on.
Poor Generation X’ers always laboured in the boomers’ shadow, always compared to the smug generation that preceded them. The latest generation, the Millennials, or Generation Y, appears to be laden with no such burden. And so, they are less encumbered by the baggage of their predecessors. They do business differently, their learn differently, they socialize according to their own rules, and they have their own cultural reference points that are as foreign to older generations as ours must be to them.
It’s a tough time for boomers, because there is no denying that their time has passed. What they say and think just doesn’t matter as much as it once did. It’s been said that they will redefine what it means to age. Maybe so; it’s clear that part of their definition of aging includes denial that it’s happening at all. If only we could carry on with just A Touch of Grey.
It’s been a good run. Now, it’s time to look to the bright and creative people who are poised to finally take over the reins. Will they be able to leave the world in better shape than their sanctimonious predecessors? We’ll be watching.
Doug Firby is Editor-in-Chief and National Affairs columnist for Troy Media.
