“Oh my Gosh! We’re Them!”

Perhaps it’s just me, but have you noticed any references to the recession lately in somewhat odd places?  Of course, when you open up the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, you expect to hear about the recession – but have you noticed the way it’s making its way into movies, novels and television shows?  I was struck by this fact as I read a bit of British escapist fiction this week – until I realized that the main plot point of the novel was that more and more people were winding up in the same house in London, as the parents took in adult children and relatives who were downsized and foreclosed.  What began as a farce actually began to seem quite tragic.

Some nosing around the internet to see what others have to say about this topic unearthed a number of references t o this trend – though  most date it back to 2009, when Hollywood produced a number of films including “The Company Men” and Wall Street:  Money Never Sleeps.  And of course, who could forget  Up in the Air. – with the handsome George Clooney playing a corporate type whose calling in life is downsizing?  It follows the adventures of a man from Nebraska who goes around the country as a sort of consultant whose job is to fire staff when the boss is perhaps too nervous to do it himself.

But why does it matter that the recession has shown up in popular culture?  I mentioned the fact to a grad student of mine the other day, and together we came up with a couple of interesting observations:  First, the fact that the recession now exists in literature and film and other cultural artifacts that very well might outlive us means that it is real.  It’s not a blip, it’s not a temporary state of affairs.  No, it’s now  part of our culture  (This is similar to the feeling I had when I first encountered literature references to 9/11 – in such novels as Falling Man and Martin Amis’s The Second Plane.)

Somewhere out there is this generation’s John Steinbeck, crafting this generation’s Grapes of Wrath – though it won’t contain references to the Dust Bowl, Oklahoma or economic refugees.  Instead, it will feature foreclosures, subprime loans and dads moving far away to look for work, leaving their families behind with relatives  (However, novelist Rick Moody argues the opposite – that recession tends to produce bad literature, since novelists worry too much about saleability and are less likely to take risks).

Or as my student put it, “Oh my gosh.  We’re them!”  “Who’s them?’  I asked. “You know.  Those people whose lives were eaten by the recession.  Twenty years from now, we’re going to be like people’s grandparents – going around turning off the lights and clipping coupons and our kids are going to say, “What do you expect?  Mom and Dad grew up during the Recession.”  Apparently today’s students are the replacement for the Depression Generation, who are gradually aging out of our historical consciousness.

Beyond the fact that we are perhaps marked as the forgotten generation, particularly those of you in your twenties, who vividly remember not being able to find a job as a high school student, or a college student, or a college graduate, or who perhaps remember the sight of neighbors being foreclosed. What will the longterm effects of this recession be on people’s psyches?  A group of researchers this week have posited that for young children, the sort of emotional, social and economic turmoil which the recession has inflicted on their households, may have lasting effects.  They suggest that young children will be less likely to hold a steady job as adults, and less likely to plan for the future.

Analysts who have looked at other large scale political phenomena in America society – including the Red Scare, the threat of nuclear annihilation or even the threat of apocalypse through electronic magnetic pulse – have suggested that people and groups use literature to work through their fears.  It represents a sort of cultural group therapy – going all the way back to the times of the cavemen, where tribesmen  might have acted out a scary story about being gored by animals as a way to relieve tension and come to grips with their fears.  I have always been keenly interested in understanding how individuals and groups think about threat – what scares us as a culture, and which fears we choose to legitimize, and which we choose to dismiss as irrational.  Perhaps that’s why this new trend of depicting the recession in popular culture worries me – because it means that people now accept that it is real, and because they’re willing to admit that they’re scared.  What do you think?  What is the sociological significance of “recession themes” in books and movies?