A study, for want of a better word, has been conducted into the 2010s films that millennials would most like to preserve in a time capsule. Personally, I’m thrilled about this. It’s going to be like shooting fish in a barrel.
There’s a formula for dealing with millennials in print, you see. First, you pick something that millennials enjoy. Then you accuse that thing of being the sole reason why no millennial will never be able to afford a house. Then you put your feet up and trend on Twitter for the rest of the day. It works like magic, every single time.
Fortunately, in this instance, the survey does most of the heavy lifting for me. Before I begin, here are the survey results in full:
1. Star Wars: The Force Awakens
2. Black Panther
3. Frozen
4. Wonder Woman
5. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part II
6. La La Land
7. Fifty Shades of Grey
8. Moana
9. Get Out
10. Coco
11. Moonlight
12. The Social Network
13. The Greatest Showman
14. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
15. Blade Runner 2049
16. Call Me By Your Name
17. The Post
18. Spotlight
Now, here are the main things that this survey teaches us about the moral and psychological weakness of all millennials.
Millennials will never afford a house because they prefer The Force Awakens to The Last Jedi
The 2010s film that most millennials would like to preserve for future generations is Star Wars: The Force Awakens. And this is weird. The Force Awakens is fun, but ultimately it’s a by-the-numbers retread of the first Star Wars film. It’s unimaginative, and it’s an unimaginative choice. Had the millennials chosen The Last Jedi, a smart progression from Star Wars doctrine that bristles with iconoclastic energy, then I wouldn’t be worried about their generation at all. But, no, instead they’ve taken the easy route. This is the exact same reflex that makes them buy avocados instead of saving for a mortgage deposit.
Millennials will never afford a house because they enjoy musicals
Of the 18 films in the list, almost a quarter are musicals. Frozen, Moana, La La Land and The Greatest Showman all contain flashy song-and-dance numbers designed to break up the narrative into easily digestible chunks. This suggests that millennials all have simple minds and poor attention spans and can never really commit to anything, let alone the prospect of buying and owning property.
Millennials will never afford a house because they have tremendously short memories
This is where things get really silly. Look at the breakdown of release dates here. Only three of the 18 films listed were released before 2015; two of them are kids’ films and one of them is about social media. Hey millennials! What about all the great films from the first half of the decade? What about Inception or The Master or Wreck-It Ralph? What about Gravity or Her or 12 Years a Slave or Whiplash or Birdman or Gone Girl? What about Iron Man 3? All millennials live only in the present, and that’s why they buy so many expensive Pret sandwiches instead of making their own lunch, and that’s why they’ll forever be in the clutches of Big Letting Agent.
Millennials will never afford a house because they have a weird fascination with dry dramas about journalism
Oh God, you idiots. Spotlight AND The Post? They’re the same film, for crying out loud. They’re both slightly boring depictions of things that happened at newspapers in real life, and they both exist primarily to let movie stars look intense and worthy for two hours. Is that what you think journalism is, millennials? Because you’re wrong. Journalism is about being emailed a press release about a survey, and then using that survey to lazily disparage an entire generation of people in the hope that it will somehow translate into clicks. The fact that you don’t realise this is further proof that you’ll never be able to afford your own house, you dumb snowflakes.
