My Country for a Series
I seriously believe part of what’s wrong with our current youth culture is there’s not a book/movie series for us to latch onto. There’s no Star Wars (don’t- don’t pretend the current ones have the pull the old ones did), no Harry Potter, no Lord of the Rings. We need a new savior culture series!
And yes, there have been succesfullll series in recent times, but that’s not the same. If you can miss the boat (example: me and Percy Jackson) then the boat was canoe, not a cruiser.
There are several series that have given it a go to affect the cultural mindset. Hunger Games had a good shot, but was unfortunately overrun by copies like the Divergent series, so it never had enough time to really relic itself and is now trying to recapture its strength with prequels.
One could argue for Game of Thrones, which did indeed take the world by storm, but we all know how that ended. If you can’t return to it with nostalgia or renewed adoration, it’s not a culture series.
Lord of the Rings is a good example of sweeping up a large portion of the culture, and having the longevity (just how long after the books published did the movies come out?). Their longevity is even a joke in the Marvel movies with the Winter Soilder pointing out he read The Hobbit when it came out. Reference material in something as big as the marvel universe? Yeah that’s a culture series.
And no, Marvel is not. Much like Game of Thrones, it had its steam, and then ran out. How many ppl do you know that are caught up on ALL of it? They do occasionally get their breath back, and did have a big impact on comic book release initially, but there’s a reason ppl say “look at Einstein over here” still instead of switching to “look at Tony Stark over here.” Good and financially successful does not a culture series make.
So what’s the answer then? And why do we need this? First, I don’t know the answer. If I did, I’d be writing THAT instead of this rant.
Second, we need this because our culture is being increasingly affected by insane politics, strangely themed generational divides, and an odd new angry version of your-country-specific patriotism. Now these issues have always been there, but I could talk to a 50 year old American republican male as well as a nonbinary 14 year from across the sea and they’d both know who Frodo is, and have an opinion we could discuss. It’s a tiiiiny thread that’s still there across the cavern of divisions we have created. We need more threads. It’s not going to feed the world, it’s not going to bring peace to earth, but it’s going to give us something we’re missing. Something that when you look around today- you can really feel its absence.
There are a lot of other reasons culture series may not be brought to life these days besides just the attempted misses. Marketing is terrifying, producers are more out-loud evil, workdays are longer leaving less time for art-ness. But these things have always been at some level or another. There have always been hurdles for series to leap. Why are today’s examples tripping before the finish line? When will our next culture series come?
Here’s hoping real soon.
