What are some movie moments that give insight into American society and culture?

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DistinctJob7494@reddit

There are a bunch in the Supernatural tv series.

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For me, it's the small, quiet nods to cultural things that give the most insight. For example, I noticed in Twisters that they drink out of the same glasses I grew up drinking out of at my grandmama's house (now my parents have them). I found that so exciting because it was such a thoughtful detail. Someone was paying attention to average American home slices of life. Like yes, these are actual glasses that people I know have and use, and this is exactly how dinners outside look.

Another one I note is when movies set in the South have bottle trees (bonus points if it's just in the background, not a part of the plot). I think oh yes, this is really something that exists.

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yourlittlebirdie@reddit

Nothing encapsulates the American white collar experience better than Office Space.

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dontforgettowriteme@reddit

The printer murder scene sustains me through my own dark times with equipment at work.

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pinniped90@reddit

I was working on software in Irving, Texas, living in a crappy corporate apartment with furniture EXACTLY like the movie, going to office lunches at TGIFs.

We joked about how that movie was our documentary.

WHAT THE FUCK IS PC LOAD LETTER?!?

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elevencharles@reddit

It’s funny, because growing up in Northern California in the 90s, I assumed it was set in Silicon Valley because the buildings look exactly the same.

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pinniped90@reddit

It's pretty portable to working anywhere in the late 90s really - those office parks and cube farms were probably in every suburb in the U.S.

But there were all sorts of little things in there that really hit home in the Dallas 'burbs.

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paranoid_70@reddit

Exactly. I was working as an Engineer in Southern California in the late 90s. Super relatable.

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UnusualHedgehogs@reddit

By the way in case you didn't know, it's "Paper Casette error: load Letter sized paper."

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flippythemaster@reddit

Given the film was shot in Dallas and Austin, I wouldn’t be surprised if they just bought the set decoration from the same supply company as your job’s and it actually is the same furniture

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GhostOfJamesStrang@reddit

Well, at least what it was like in the 90s-early 00s.

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Goobersrocketcontest@reddit

Yeah now it's worse. It truly has become "corporate culture" in that they all love mediocrity, but talk in superlatives and buzzwords, and everyone thinks they are the smartest person in the room. It's fucking awful. Thank god I get to retire soon hopefully. Boomers, Zoomers, and Xers OH MY!

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red_tuna@reddit

I think the real world context behind the movie is actually really interesting.

When tech companies started to become aware of the Y2K bug they had to bring in a lot of extra staff to fix it, but then once the bug was fixed they were all massively overstaffed with tons of employees and managers with an abundance of time on their hands.

It's like a magnififying glass for pety office politics.

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bloodectomy@reddit

Overall themes are still valid. Like ok yeah I don't ever need a printer, but I'd smash the coffee machine with a bat (out of order my pasty ass!)

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Current_Poster@reddit

I once got to demolish the cranky old espresso machine we used at our cafe, and it was so good.

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MyUsername2459@reddit

A quarter-century later it still holds up really well.

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albertnormandy@reddit

No, it's still like that today.

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yourlittlebirdie@reddit

I feel like a lot of it still holds up pretty well.

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cyesk8er@reddit

Yeah, still true after decades

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xx-rapunzel-xx@reddit

i’ve never seen that movie in full :(

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yourlittlebirdie@reddit

You should watch it!

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GF_baker_2024@reddit

Also the American chain restaurant experience. I worked at TGI Friday's the year after that movie was released. The flair rules were real.

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yourlittlebirdie@reddit

I hope you weren't the kind of person who only wants to do the bare minimum.

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yourlittlebirdie@reddit

I hope you weren't the kind of person who only wants to do the bare minimum.

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pinniped90@reddit

I was working on software in Irving, Texas, living in a crappy corporate apartment with furniture EXACTLY like the movie, going to office lunches at TGIFs.

We joked about how that movie was our documentary.

WHAT THE FUCK IS PC LOAD LETTER?!?

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TwinFrogs@reddit

American culture is wildly different depending where you are. I mean wildly crazy different. Boston is nothing like Seattle, and Portland Oregon is nothing like Miami. California it’s self is the same size as Sweden and has twice as many climate zones.

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paranoid_70@reddit

I thought The River's Edge was pretty relatable. Except for the murders

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Dry-Tomorrow8531@reddit

The Patriot 🤙

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BusySpecialist1968@reddit

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Oh, wait. You're serious?! The movie made by an Australian that misrepresents or outright lies about the Revolutionary War is great insight into American society and culture? Pathetic.

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Dry-Tomorrow8531@reddit

First off Mel Gibson didn't direct the damn thing he starred in. Granted the director was a German but that doesn't negate shit.

Second what lies???? His character is based off of Charles Pinckney, wade Hampton, and mostly sir Francis Marion the "swamp fox". Obviously there's Hollywood nuance to make the movie interesting, but all and all it's a solid movie. Literally that movie describes the bedrock to much of American society along with describing some of the earliest roots of our culture. It's about the roots of our doggone inception as a nation! What's your real issue? Is it because you don't like Mel Gibson? Or do you dislike the people it's describing in the movie?

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BusySpecialist1968@reddit

Whew, boy! Someone got triggered lol

My bad, Gibson didn't write or direct. That was the OTHER movie that was the allegedly true story of William Wallace—also garbage. Kilts weren't used until hundreds of years after Wallace's lifetime. That's the least of the problems with that trash film.

My real issue is that Hollywood taints history and encourages nationalism. School kids are already taught a sanitized version of history in this country, and then Hollywood puts out crap like "The Patriot" and it's accepted as fact. We're seeing the results of that garbage now, with the Boomers and my fellow Gen Xers refusing to consider that the history they were taught in school was not remotely accurate. Anything that makes the US look bad is left out. We weren't always the good guys. Truly horrific stuff happened here and rather than teach about those things, kids are made to believe that America is the best at everything. All that does is turn people into "Hoorah! 'Merica!" zombies.

You are correct about me not liking Mel Gibson. He's a rotten POS. You can look up his many failings for yourself.

As for the inaccuracies and lies, LMGTFY! Seriously, you could have just looked up the IMDB entry for it. I've also included a playlist from YouTube made by a Revolutionary War reenactor. You know. If you get tired of reading. Ta!

From "The Patriot" IMDB

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Dry-Tomorrow8531@reddit

Yes it did upset me. Francis Marion is not respected by myself but many of the folks who live around me. He is a state hero here.

Thank you for taking the time to write all that. I'm sure you put a lot of thought into that message.

Interestingly enough, I'm a millennial and watch that movie in Middle School. I'm not going to hop on here and debate politics as I can clearly tell we are on two different sides of the spectrum.

Good luck in these future days of America as things are becoming quite interesting. I wish you well.

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GhostOfJamesStrang@reddit

Flair checks out.

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Dry-Tomorrow8531@reddit

As does your yank

Snarkiness aside your town looks like a cool fishing spot. From the looks of some of the buildings is it from the late 1800's?

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GhostOfJamesStrang@reddit

I'm not sure how many actually are from then, but more or less the founding of the colony (for lack of a better term) was 19th century. Yes.

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Dry-Tomorrow8531@reddit

It was a colony?

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GhostOfJamesStrang@reddit

In a manner of speaking.

It was established by a semi-rebellious sect of the Mormon religion and the leader thereof (see the username) declared himself king.

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Dry-Tomorrow8531@reddit

Interesting, is it still a very mormon place?

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GhostOfJamesStrang@reddit

Not at all.

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realvctmsdntdrnkmlk@reddit

No 😑

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Dry-Tomorrow8531@reddit

Yes

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Aromatic_Bridge4601@reddit

The President's speech in Independence Day, it's not well-written and says nothing that you don't already know, but it's delivered with complete conviction and gets a rousing cheer despite the complete absurdity of it. Also, when Will Smith starts kicking the alien and complaining about how this was supposed to be his weekend off.

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blues_and_ribs@reddit

I will not tolerate slander of one of the finest moments in American cinema.

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Aromatic_Bridge4601@reddit

Go make an overly dramatic speech about this injustice.

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JackYoMeme@reddit

Groundhog day

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Due_Satisfaction2167@reddit

Basically the entirety of Don’t Look Up and Idiocracy.

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MackSeaMcgee@reddit

Yes, but not from Diehard. Watch a Quinton Tarantino movie, his dialog while verbose is accurate.

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kingjaffejaffar@reddit

“Superbad” is one of the best and most realistic depictions of high school culture and how male teens think and relate to each other which I have ever seen on film.

While satirical, I highly recommend “Wag the Dog” as a movie describing our federal elections, media, and political culture.

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NFLDolphinsGuy@reddit

There is no war with Albania.

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frank-sarno@reddit

"The Florida Project". Very much captured what Orlando and many Florida towns feels like to me.

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nogueydude@reddit

"The Sandlot" is probably a pretty good glimpse at a classic 60s neighborhood and how kids navigated life.

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thomasrat1@reddit

The sandlot is amazing for understanding how boomers think lol.

If you wanna know the world they want back, it’s the sandlot

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DerthOFdata@reddit

Fun fact: If the Sandlot was filmed today it would take place in 1994

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_SmashLampjaw_@reddit

That was in fact not a fun fact for me.

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Dr_Watson349@reddit

And it would be called Kids and would be a very different movie.

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bloodectomy@reddit

I'm pretty sure OPs name is a play on the Colossus of Rhodes

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_of_Rhodes

And not the colossus of clout (the Colossus of clout!)

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ColossusOfChoads@reddit (OP)

Yep! I wanted to combine a classical allusion with contemporary vulgarity. So I went with 'choad', which I had assumed was the word for the guy in his 40s who's still rocking the frosted tips he had back in high school, and who hits on girls who are currently in high school.

Next thing you know I was getting PMs of "i have a choad too. Send me pix of urs and ill do the same." And I was like "WTF!?" That was how I found out about the other dictionary definition of the word.

Well, I decided to stick with it.

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InterPunct@reddit

As famously delivered by Matthew McConaughey in the movie Dazed and Confused, "Alright, alright, alright."

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bloodectomy@reddit

Lmao! Excellent

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GhostOfJamesStrang@reddit

I am so proud of you for making sure to get the YeahYeah refrain in there.

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_CPR__@reddit

Totally agree on The Sandlot. Another good childhood nostalgia movie is Now and Then, which I think is set in 1970.

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colin8651@reddit

Human Centipede really gives you insight into the American health insurance industry

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LightYagamiConundrum@reddit

Idiocracy

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sean8877@reddit

Becoming more true by the hour

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sean8877@reddit

The Vacation movies were good examples of all the shit that can possibly go wrong with a vacation here and how the family interacts with each other in that situation.

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ATLien_3000@reddit

Red Dawn.

There is no doubt in my mind that in most if not all of the US, what went down in that movie would go down even today.

Red Dawn is a 1984 American action drama film directed by John Milius with a screenplay by Milius and Kevin Reynolds. The film depicts a fictional World War III centering on a military invasion of the United States by an alliance of Soviet, Warsaw Pact, and Communist Latin American states. The story follows a group of teenage guerrillas, known as the Wolverines, in Soviet-occupied Colorado.

TL, DR: Wolverines!

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FredDurstDestroyer@reddit

Ya know, despite knowing the story of Red Dawn and playing MW2, I just now realized why one of the missions is called “Wolverines!”

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Dio_Yuji@reddit

Great movie. But no fucking way 😅

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_Internet_Hugs_@reddit

You need to meet my inlaws. Hell, I'm a liberal Democrat and I personally own three guns. I've got a shotgun, a .22 rifle, and a little handgun. My husband has a bunch more of his own.

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Dio_Yuji@reddit

Owning guns and having balls aren’t the same thing.

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_Internet_Hugs_@reddit

"You wanna start something with me? Bring it."

That's America.

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Dio_Yuji@reddit

🙄

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_Internet_Hugs_@reddit

Seriously, where are you from? Have you ever MET an American? I'm an overweight, 44 year old woman and I'm ready to kick your ass just for insulting my fellow countrymen. After 9/11 half my male friends joined the military. We do NOT put up with people invading us.

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Dio_Yuji@reddit

😂😂 Sure you would

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ColossusOfChoads@reddit (OP)

We get really mean when outsiders attack us. That much I know.

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BottleTemple@reddit

You mean like when a South African is attacking our workers and infrastructure?

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itcheyness@reddit

Or when a Russian Agent is dismantling our Democratic institutions?

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ColossusOfChoads@reddit (OP)

Nah, we're kinda dumb. The attack has to involve great big explosions and it all has to go down within a couple of hours.

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_Internet_Hugs_@reddit

Dude. Are you a professional troll or just mentally impaired?

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BusySpecialist1968@reddit

Considering how most of us don't view the South African guy invading our government as a bad thing, we DO put up with being invaded.

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_Internet_Hugs_@reddit

And the rest of us are protesting!

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BottleTemple@reddit

So says the person in a landlocked state with no international border.

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_Internet_Hugs_@reddit

I'm an Army kid and I spent Jr. high and High School in Arizona. I know what it's like to be in a border state.

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BottleTemple@reddit

And now you don’t live in a border state are are pretending to be tough.

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_Internet_Hugs_@reddit

Well, I am on the border with Idaho and that's pretty scary.

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BottleTemple@reddit

That is scary.

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ATLien_3000@reddit

I mean, the American civilian population is better armed than the Ukrainian military.

And the Ukrainians have done okay in a geography where it's trivial for the Russians to maintain supply lines.

Couple that with the fact that in a (real) invasion, American civilians would quite likely regroup, rearm, and resupply at military/national guard posts.

You'd have active duty military, reserve and civilian wartime recruits, and well-armed guerrilla combatants scattered about - damn near everywhere; no ability for an invading source to assume that (say) a civilian community will be easy to take.

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yourlittlebirdie@reddit

You need more than just guns to be an effective fighting force though. Most Americans have absolutely zero discipline.

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ATLien_3000@reddit

Don't underestimate the number of Americans with military experience. They're not going to sit around and talk about how in their day kids spoke English at school, not Russian.

6% of the US population are veterans. You figure give or take half of them, maybe more, would be in good enough physical shape to fight.

That's your officer corps. That's who trains up your high school kids, volunteers, whatever.

Materiel from local military bases. Vets with experience on any given weapons systems.

Ukraine has been able to do a whole lot with weapons that are commonly owned by civilians in the US.

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Entire-Joke4162@reddit

This is 100% correct

American civilians own 50% of the of the world’s firearms (including all world/US militaries and police forces)

You are not getting far invading America, because if you knock on any given door there’s a decent chance the person living there is absolutely strapped

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fqdupmess@reddit

Can you imagine the cities like compton, Baltimore with gang bangers, some mafias wouldn't want another country running around. Then go in the woods with rednecks this country would be a pain in the ass to invade

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RazorRamonio@reddit

My buddy said Oakland sounds like fallujah on the 4th of July. He did 2 tours in Iraq and 2 in Afghanistan iirc.

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Entire-Joke4162@reddit

I would not be worried with the cities you mentioned with gangs

I live in the suburbs and know several guys with 5+ guns who love this country (I lost mine in a boating accident)

Rural area obviously speaks for itself

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BottleTemple@reddit

I live in the suburbs and know several guys with 5+ guns who love this country (I lost mine in a boating accident)

You lost your love for this country in a boating accident?

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Entire-Joke4162@reddit

I guess it depends on whose asking

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ATLien_3000@reddit

I lost mine in a boating accident

You too? Tragic!

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Blue387@reddit

I remember during the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine someone destroyed a Russian vehicle and spray painted Wolverines on it

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ATLien_3000@reddit

Yep.

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HorrorAlarming1163@reddit

My brother and I watched that movie when we were little kids in east TN and I was like “There’s no way those guys would even make it past the Appalachian Mountains.”

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paulrudds@reddit

The issue is, America is MASSIVE. So, one movie might show you what's it's like in one place, but he totally different in another.

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Zardozin@reddit

That movie also idealized Europeans as elite super terrorists.

This isn’t some Palestinian busboy with a Saturday night special, here.

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Frenchitwist@reddit

It’s not a movie, but Mad Men is actually pretty damn close to how the world of advertising was back in the day. The smoking, drinking, skirt chasing, etc.

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Unable-Economist-525@reddit

For the disaffected looking for answers in formulaic, quick-fix America, I vote for the movie Harold & Maude.

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Important-Hat-Man@reddit

American communication is just a constant stream of counterfactual statements and rhetorical auestions. It's not just sarcasm, we'll tell absurd stories just to say "yes" to simple questions.

You ask someone if they got their hair cut, they'll straight up say, "No, I actually had a run-in with a rogue lawnmower."

Because, yeah, dude, look at my head. I very obviously got my hair cut, what do you think I did?

Or, an even simpler example, someone says to you, hey buddy, you like root beer? And you answer, does a bear shit in the woods? So he gives you a root beer!

Obviously none of that is unique to the US, (after all, the English try to claim that it's uniquely theirs) but it's a very peculiarly American way of speaking.

Here in Japan, translators simply refuse to even try to translate it. You say, yeah, man, does a bear shit in the woods? And the subtitles just say, 「はい、そうです。」, Yes, that's right.

And it's not that it's impossible to do in Japanese or anything, it's just that they don't - not so much in daily life but definitely not in TV and movies - they tend to be much, much more blunt and direct - but you don't really realize just how much we do it until you see "Is the Pope Catholic?" translated as a blunt, thoughtless "yes" in the Japanese subtitles.

He's kind of gone out of style and become a symbol of obnoxiously trite dialogue, but I have to imagine that Americans just sound like a Joss Whedon production to foreigners. Like, what? Bear? Woods? Why can't these people just be direct about what they want to say? Y'know, like the Japanese.

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Raineythereader@reddit

"I believe in America."

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titianwasp@reddit

I suspect that just about no one will have heard of this, but Metropolitan by Whit Stillman.

Everyone calls out the cowboy movies, the action heroes, the scrappy kids. In contrast, Metropolitan shows a very accurate view of the urban haute bourgeoisie, dinner jackets and all.

Not so much an underdog story, but a no less significant part of American society.

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The_Real_Undertoad@reddit

Breaking Away is somewhat close.

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_Internet_Hugs_@reddit

I graduated from high school in 1998 and when 10 Things I Hate About You came out a year later it felt like I was right back in school. Especially the part where he's describing the different school cliques.

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randomlybev@reddit

Except that high school looked way too fancy and lots of the kids were rich AF.

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_Internet_Hugs_@reddit

I went to a high school with really rich kids. Nouveau Riche type with staff and everything.

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Dai-The-Flu-@reddit

Definitely Clerks and Clerks 2

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CupBeEmpty@reddit

1) quotidian is a great and underused word

2) I think themes of good but challenging family life fit that. You see it in TV series all the time. There will be some stress or incident but in the end there is some kind of cathartic resolution. Maybe too broad to be specifically American but I think American audiences like that.

Also any kind of ragtag team. Whether you are watching Glory or the Mighty Ducks Americans love the misfit underdogs coming together to get shit done.

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GhostOfJamesStrang@reddit

I mean, Battle of Britain might be the greatest underdog story of all time.

The movie is maybe in my top 10 of all time. One of the planes used in the movie is on display in my state.

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CupBeEmpty@reddit

Oh yeah and Americans eat up films about Brits having the same characteristics. Bridge over the River Kwai, Battle of Britain, Dunkirk, etc.

Hell it is almost SOP to drop a plucky Brit into whatever ragtag group you have.

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Aggravating-Site-433@reddit

Yeah. I need a ragtag team of pseudo military guys. We’ve got a vaguely Slavic guy for Demolition, wise cracking New Yorker is the pilot, British guy as the sniper, some Asian (Asian American or foreign) guy for “tech”, athletic black guy is your scout/recon and a textbook generic white handsome American guy team leader.

Also any of the above could be played by actually British actors. You learn years later like “oh wow they’re from Wales? Huh I always thought they were from America somewhere.”

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CupBeEmpty@reddit

Also the black guy can be demolitions

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Emotional_Ad5714@reddit

I graduated high school in 1999, the same year that American Pie came out, and I'd say that was a pretty good representation of a typical guy's friend group at the time.

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deltagma@reddit

No matter your view of Trump and Vance… Hillbilley Elegy is a pretty great representation of my life

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No_Pomelo_1708@reddit

Dazed and Confused came really close to my high school experience in the later 1980s. Big difference is the hazing had gone out of style a couple years before I got to high school, but easy access to weed and beer for a high school kid? Older former students hanging out with us and sporting on the girls? Yeah, that was a thing.

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ColossusOfChoads@reddit (OP)

There's a bit from 'Independence Day' that I cite to explain the American view of geopolitics and our relations with our allies. The special relationship with the UK in particular.

"It's the Yanks. They've got a plan!"

"Well it's about bloody time."

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BottleTemple@reddit

That part always made me laugh.

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thisfriggingguy@reddit

As silly as it sounds, Talladega Nights. The absurdity of advertising, lessons learned from putting the individual before the team, "if you're not first you're last".

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Old_Promise2077@reddit

Talladega Nights and Galaxy Quest are a master class on how to make fun of your target audience while also showing the utmost respect to them.

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ZephRyder@reddit

I hate this and respect it.

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yourlittlebirdie@reddit

The performative Christianity too.

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HorrorAlarming1163@reddit

Shake and bake!

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Key-Protection-7564@reddit

I see your scrappy underdog vs an entire squad of international mercenaries and raise you the Captain America elevator scene

Super strong guy who knows it looks at his own countrymen who have gone rogue and says "I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with me"

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jezreelite@reddit

Friday Night Lights (the movie) if you want to understand the culture around high school football, especially in Texas.

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DrunkScarletSpider@reddit

King of the Hill matched up pretty well to growing up in Texas in the 90s.

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Dr_Watson349@reddit

If you are looking for a specific time frame and culture, the movie Kids.

Now its obviously a movie and a lot of the shit these kids did, we never did, but in terms of clothing, speech, etc its spot on for a teen in the 90s.

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thedrcubed@reddit

Kids

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Dr_Watson349@reddit

Who the fuck downvoted this guy. Kids is so fucking close to my childhood it could be a recording.

Granted we didn't give each other AIDs.

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dabeeman@reddit

The boulder scene from temple of doom

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Soggy-Advantage4711@reddit

I thought that Election was a perfect encapsulation of my high school experience in the mid ‘90s

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martlet1@reddit

ET was a pretty good example of kids in the 80s. It’s not called the unattended generation for nothing.

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ColossusOfChoads@reddit (OP)

It also captured the Southern California suburbia of that era down to a 't.' (Minus the redwood grove being within biking distance.) I watched it with my kid during the pandemic and I got all misty-eyed just from the setting.

I swear the living room / kitchen area of their house looked exactly like that of my aunt's house during that exact part of the 80s. Like, uncannily so.

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martlet1@reddit

Yep. It was like looking at my own house.

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srirachacoffee1945@reddit

The breakfast club, heathers, sandlot, deliverance, welcome to leith, mean girls, slc punk, freaks & geeks, office space, the office, boyz in the hood, blue caprice, a bronx tale, i could go on, america is the great melting pot, take every movie in existence and mash them together.

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TheDuckFarm@reddit

Hidden Figures. - overcoming racism and sexism at NASA.

Grand Torino - suburban old man befriends younger troubled kid.

The Aviator - Howard Hughes biopic.

The Memphis Bell - WWII bomber pilots.

Sand Lot - kids playing baseball.

Mallrats - 90s teen culture.

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CappinCanuck@reddit

Idiocracy

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Aggravating-Site-433@reddit

Clerks.

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Weary-Knowledge-7180@reddit

In the Barbie movie, there is a whole moment when one of the main characters/the mom, goes off about being woman and how she's treated, and I have literally never felt more seen by a movie, as an American woman. And I'm sure the sentiments regarding women can be heard around the world, but that's just how I relate to it and my place in society here.

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BingBongDingDong222@reddit

Why are there a whole bunch of deleted replies?

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Giant_Devil@reddit

Clerks. But I'm only a few years younger than Kevin Smith and grew up in NJ less than an hour from the area his movies are set in, so it probably resonates with me more than most.

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JimNtexas@reddit

I suggest “Dancer Texas, Population 81” , and “Lone Star”. They are both all about our cultural, and only one murder between them. And in that case the victim “needed killing” as we say in Texas.

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JimNtexas@reddit

I suggest “Dancer Texas, Population 81” , and “Lone Star”. They are both all about our cultural, and only one murder between them. And in that case the victim “needed killing” as we say in Texas.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118925/

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118925

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darose@reddit

Hell Or High Water. Shows life in one of the many small dying towns across the country, as well as a window into the "frontier" mentality that permeates a lot of the country.

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darose@reddit

Hell Or High Water. Shows life in one of the many small dying towns across the country, as well as a window into the "frontier" mentality that permeates a lot of the country.

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darose@reddit

Hell Or High Water. Shows life in one of the many small dying towns across the country, as well as a window into the "frontier" mentality that permeates a lot of the country.

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DolphinSouvlaki@reddit

Clerks

Eyes Wide Shut

Scary Movie 2

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DolphinSouvlaki@reddit

Clerks

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ryguymcsly@reddit

It turns out we're really good at making those. As a person who grew up white in the 90s I can only vouch for those with experiences I know or experiences of people close to me.

You wanna understand the experience of middle class white kids in the 90s? Watch Suburbia or mid90s.

Stand by Me is apparently very close to what growing up as a boy in the 50s was like according to my uncle.

You want to perfectly understand what it was to be a lower middle class girl in Sacramento California in the 90s? Watch Ladybird.

Kids, from what I understand, captures NYC youth in the late 90s a bit too well.

Hackers is a pretty good snapshot of hacker culture from the 90s as well. Although some of that is because after it came out all the hackers adopted a lot of the stupid stuff from that movie ironically.

Despite being completely ridiculous, Raising Arizona and The Big Lebowski are perhaps truer to life than they have any good reason to be.

Singles is a weird snapshot of Seattle just before Nirvana took off. In fact, Nirvana was originally in the movie but the band took off before it released so the studio could no longer afford the rights to have them in the movie. Members of Pearl Jam and Soundgarden are still characters in the movie.

Freaks and Geeks, the TV show, is a really great snapshot of the midwestern high school experience. It's set in the 70s but it really resonates with my 90s self.

However, at the end here I want to present two dramatic examples of American culture, the stereotypes, etc.

Jackass - yes we are actually this ridiculous.
Three Kings - perhaps a bit too on the nose about how your average American sees the rest of the world and our global conflicts.

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GF_baker_2024@reddit

Freaks and Geeks was great. My So-Called Life is an excellent snapshot of suburban high school in the mid-90s (I was 16 when it aired). I'm still annoyed that both shows got only one season.

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ryguymcsly@reddit

My So-Called Life should also be called 'why my inner teenager still has a huge crush on Claire Danes'.

It also was a great snapshot. I debated including 'Reality Bites' on this list but it's a little bit too romcom for the slice of life vibe.

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Help1Ted@reddit

Superbad was pretty realistic for the timeframe. Although slightly exaggerated, but not overly so. Just depends on how you remember it.

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pooteenn@reddit

Im Canadian and I like to think that Superbad is a good example of Teenagers in North American suburbia.

Source: I spend the majorly of my childhood and the first two years of my teenage years in a very Suburban town in Ontario. (I now live in the city and graduating high-school next year.)

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Help1Ted@reddit

Interesting that it still holds up. But also shows just how realistic it is.

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fuzzycuffs@reddit

Falling Down

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ALoungerAtTheClubs@reddit

The Nightmare Before Christmas is a cultural touchstone of mall goths everywhere.

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GF_baker_2024@reddit

And baby pseudo-goths like my middle-schooler niece.

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xSparkShark@reddit

Honestly you can pick almost any scene in any movie and connect it to the larger American society and culture.

I’ll start with the “Smell of Napalm” scene in Apocalypse now. For those unfamiliar, a member of military leadership is on a beach in active combat with north Vietnamese forces. During the commotion, he’s trying to get his surfboard brought out so he can ride the waves directly next to the fighting. He says the iconic line “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” which does an amazing job of displaying the callousness of upper leadership in response to the often horrific weapons used fighting abroad. He also says a less quote but equally iconic line after this “Some day this war is gonna end.” No more than that, just the matter of fact statement that yeah someday it’s gonna end. No real acknowledgement of how rid going to end or if the current ends justify the means, just that someday it’s going to end. Both of these statements hold a mirror up to American foreign policy as a whole. American involvement abroad was generally agreed to be necessary, but as the conflicts grew protracted Americans needed to make up their mind. They either began to directly oppose these foreign policy actions or they grew very cold and callous about them. The military leader looking for his surfboard is the embodiment of this cold and callous view. Unwilling to accept that American foreign intervention might actually be bad, but able to recognize that there weren’t a lot of positives to appreciate with it.

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DistributionNorth410@reddit

For the 60s any number of moments in American Graffiti. Ditto for the 70s with Dazed and Confused.

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Oktodayithink@reddit

American Graffiti

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GhostOfJamesStrang@reddit

"For the good old American life: For the money, for the glory, and for the fun... mostly for the money." - The Bandit

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GSilky@reddit

There is a scene in Tangerine where they end up crashing a long stay motel brothel with a guy who could be someone's grandpa smoking crack and complaining about the ruckus. I own a store where the major customer base is from one of these motels. That scene was a good representation of the shenanigans going on in my neighborhood.