Thirty years after the premiere of Reality Bites (1994), one of the cinematic icons of the generation And the film offers us exactly the type of relationship we have trained ourselves to avoid for years: a romantic love that is not free of toxicity.
Ten years ago, on the occasion of its twentieth anniversary, the American edition of Vanity Fair analyzed why a film parodied in the 1990s – not for its love story, but for its mix of stereotypes – had become cult among new generations. The answer: nostalgia. Therefore, millennia And centenarians They dream today as we did with the genre clichés between Lelaina and Troy, the eternal sentimental arm wrestling, the typical plot that ends with the young girl betting on the emotionally unavailable cynic.
The writer and poet Lara Moreno (Seville, 43 years old), who in her novel the city (Lumen, 2022) has dissected three stories of abuse, it is clear: “Revisit Reality Bites – a film that captivated me in my early youth – with my pre-teen daughter, witnessed the confirmation that our emotional education is a horror film, nothing more, nothing less. And he adds: “Cinema, culture, family, the economic and political system… Everything has taught us to live in peace with misfortune and violence, with a terrible carelessness between people. The fact that we choose someone who treats us badly is not only sold to us as positive, but also as attractive and even inevitable, when it should be the opposite. Let us not be surprised by the headlines of newspapers reporting systematic violence, some more frightening than others, but all violent, against women: everything was already in place. Reality bites.
Revisiting it with my preteen daughter was confirmation that our emotional education is a horror film, nothing more, nothing less.
Lara Moreno
— writer
Several scenes in the film show the social subordination of women to men, the sexist schema and the idealization of the rebel with avoidant attachment. An eloquent, educated and cultured narcissist who always gets the perfect nihilistic answer: “I have no orders to make the world a better place, Lelaina.” When the protagonist confesses that she would like to improve the world, Troy quips: “And I’d like to buy everyone a Coca-Cola.”
The couple Lelaina ends up betting on tell her gems like “we know you reached the top by crossing many beds” and hide underwear in her clothes so she doesn’t have to pay for laundry—and therefore doesn’t have to travel to where she is—; he’s too busy philosophizing about existence to have the intuition that he’s sexist. Troy is a nihilist who finds meaning in capitalism: for him life is a succession of tragedies, which is why the only thing he believes in is “a cheeseburger.”
To Fefa Vila Núñez, sociologist at the UCM and editor-in-chief of The good book [A]mor. Strange Sexualities and Strange Politics (Traffickers), finds it worrying that “today’s young people can identify with the plots of Reality Bites. I find this shocking and problematic. In the 90s, when it premiered in my activist environment weird and a feminist in her twenties, it didn’t interest us, it went unnoticed. “It represented a lot of things that we hated and fought against politically and that at the time were already unacceptable. For example, toxic and stereotypical relationships between the sexes were idealized.”
Later, when Lelaina shows up at the salon where Michael (Ben Stiller), with whom she has a date, is waiting for her, Troy and Michael argue about her outfit (a white lace dress). The philosopher calls out to the executive: “You don’t know what he needs [Lelaina]”, and that settles the debate with “I know what he needs in a way you never will. Lelaina in this scene of course has no say in the matter.
Throughout the film, Troy refuses to change, until he thinks he’s losing Lelaina—she’s in despair because she doesn’t know where her rebellious love has gone, after he flew off to Chicago—and his father dies. But what future is foreshadowed in the final scene? When they move in together, Troy plays guitar on the couch while Winona seems to be busy moving: she comes into the living room with her arms akimbo, as if to say: What are you doing lying there?— .
Toxic and stereotypical gender relationships were idealized
Fefa Vila Núñez, sociologist
The novelist and poet Cristina V. Miranda (Ferrol, 1982), who has chronicled gender violence in the world of independent in his novel The passionate one (Dosmanos, 2021), agrees: “I suppose it happens to all forty-somethings, regretting not having known at 20 what we know now. It is inevitable not to get angry with the references that some of us chose in the late 90s, when we began to forge our identity. It independentthe cynicism, the punishments imposed and the men who took it all to the extreme. I was very small when I saw Reality Bites to read it ironically and I ate with potatoes everything that Troy represented (which was yet another victim of its time). We ate more Troys than we could digest, but with time we got the joke and we are still here to help create other references for those who will come after us.
And that’s it Reality Bites It leaves us with the same violence that Disney love leaves us with. Our obsession with narcissists is rooted in films like this, which perpetuate stories of lovers. In his feature film debut, Ben Stiller, best known for his comedic side (Zoolander, there’s something about Mary either Night at the museum) parodied Generation X, a label, incidentally, that Stiller said was not known when he filmed it. There are the liter-plus glasses of Coca-Cola-type soft drinks, a club where Troy performs called the Joint (i.e. a joint), the dirty-haired protagonist who leads a band grunge, the MTV-type television network that documents urban phenomena without hiding the product placement (which is the same thing that tries Reality Bites with Gap, Camel, Snickers or 7 Eleven), a protagonist who denies polluting cars but spends 900 euros on gasoline to feed herself.
“Even though it presented new aesthetic aspects, Reality Bites It was a commercial product. Yes, written by a young woman. [Helen Childress]but sweetened to be easily consumed without questioning the social, gender or economic reality in which its protagonists lived. Nostalgia is never political,” says sociologist Fefa Vila Núñez.
A woman behind the story of a film with this budget was not very common in the 90s. Helen Childress drew on her own life to write the plot. But her script was “polished” to make it digestible; that is, more romantic. How could we ever want Winona Ryder to stay with Ethan Hawke, the emotionally unavailable and narcissistic guy? The immature one who even at the end of the film is revealed to be selfish. The intellectual nihilist incapable of asking for forgiveness. The evasive one who quotes dialogue from The legend of the indomitable.
In the climax, after sleeping with Lelaina and leaving her at 8:30 am under the pretext that he had a rehearsal with his music group, Troy makes her understand: “I have never slept with someone I had feelings for (…) “I could hurt you and leave without your permission.” The philosopher finds himself blocked several times because he is unable to share his feelings: his IQ will be 180 and he will read the Being and time Heidegger in cafes, but lacks emotional tools. How many relationships with guys like that work?
Indie, cynicism, imposed punishment and the men who took it all to the extreme (…) I ate with potatoes everything that Troy represented
Cristina Miranda
— author of “The Enthusiast” (Dosmanos)
The best option seems to be Michael Barnes (Ben Stiller), a materialistic yuppie executive who wears a suit and drives a convertible. Not educated enough, sure, but when he screws her up, he apologizes and tries to make up for it by buying her two flights to New York so Winona can show her work and delve into her documentary career. He’s interested in Lelaina’s biopic, is patient, and isn’t afraid to show how much he loves and cares for her.
But she prefers the bad guy. Troy, the aspiring philosopher who drops out of college a year before graduation because he hates the system, the one who steals candy bars from the kiosk where he works because “the world owes him,” who temporarily moves in with Lelaina and Vickie (Janeane Garofalo) and who, despite his high IQ, turns out to be emotionally deficient. Troy, who has a song in which he sings “I am nothing” (I am nothing), whose parents divorced when he was five and who has since seen his father three times a year, who gets excited about the sky ten minutes before it rains, awakens the maternal syndrome.
In relationships, Troy takes aim at the inequalities of the capitalism he so decries: as one Salon report reasoned, he’s an “apathetic elitist,” “a guy convinced he knows what the world needs in a way he never knows the fools around him will,” a guy who, according to Salon, would vote for Donald Trump today.
Her thing, anyway, would have been for Lelaina to be left alone and build emotional networks with her friends. But when she gets fired from her job, she mortifies her friend Jackie. Lelaina prefers Troy’s proposition; “We just need a few cigarettes, a coffee, and a conversation. You, me, and five bucks.” And when she hears it, her heart turns to Pepsi Cola, as they would have said in the ’90s.
The film keeps us fascinated by the beginnings of a relationship, a story that hides the crises and the almost certain downfall of the bond between Troy and Lelaina. It’s not that these cinematic celebrations of romantic love should be written off and not seen. Just for Winona Ryder’s haircut and the gas station scene that saved the band The Knack and their musical rocket My Sharonait’s worth it. But maybe we could see them aware of the toxic scam they are trying to infiltrate us with. Our culture is one of its idealization, that’s why we sigh, but let’s do it by exercising the critical muscle. We’ll see what happens with the adaptation and reception of Reality Bites The series Ben Stiller is apparently working on.
