Popular Culture Review Vol. 13, No. 2, Summer 2002 | Page 51

Baby Boomers and Generation X 47 adults are committing 90 percent of the intoxicated motor damage; those between the ages of 21 and 34 account for more than half of all fatal drunken traffic mishaps (Males 202). What becomes evident to Bridgers when the facts are shown, is the difference between the rhetoric of Boomers and the reality of their actions. There was an interesting, less-trumped statistic in the Lewinsky surveys to Bridgers. While Bridgers were wilhng to forgive Clinton his adultery and his lying about it, many of them expressed serious reservations about his using his friends and abusing those friendships in the process. His betrayal broke a more sacred contract: above all else Bridgers value their personal relationships, even more than success. As one friend of mine put it, “My job and success show what I have done; my relationships with my family and friends show who I am. The second is infinitely more important than the first!” Part of this response indicates a generation whose inunediate ties to home are hampered by parental absence and smaller family size, which leads them to value relationships made even more than those inherited. In a post-war generation like the Boomers where each baby was a treasure to be had, the kids grew up with a strong sense of self and individuality. While this might have been a positive thing, it also led to an estrangement from community in practice. The opposite holds true for the Bridgers who, forced to grow up much more independently, would clamp on to community relationships like drowning men when good ones arose. Books like Welcome to the Jungle and 13*^ Generation take a look at the development of this phenomenon. A strong Malthusian movement during the sixties focused on Malthus and overpopulation, resulting in support for contraceptives. Concurrently the women’s rights movement successfully shifted public attitudes on issues such as the right to abortion and women’s desire to leave the home and enter the workplace. General opinion reflected a devaluing of children and families and a strong emphasis on individual freedoms. One manifestation of this change was the creation of the bad-baby horror film. Beginning in 1962 with Children o f the Com, audiences flocked to see such movies as The Exorcist, The Omen Trilogy, Rosemary *s Baby, Demon Seed, all the way up through the early ‘80s. It is not coincidental that just as the first Bridgers would have been reaching the age to see such movies that the demand and hence the production of this genre died. As the demographics shifted to a younger generation, movie production centered around successful teenagers developing strong relationships in movies like Secret o f My Success and St. Elmo's Fire. Bridgers were bom into a world where children were seen as the enemies to the progress of Boomers. Michael Males divides the Baby Boomers into three distinct groups: (1) So-called adults who, admitting their self-indulgences, decided to postpone adulthood until late middle-age and wisely chose not to have kids; (2) a minority who, having had kids, rearranged their lifestyles more or less radically