The movies, music and TV of the 2000s

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As the next decade stands impatiently on our doorstep, Dive takes a look at the past 10 years in arts and entertainment. Whether it’s the potential threat of rap’s demise or reality TV’s utter inundation of broadcast and cable, the shifts in popular culture over the new century’s first decade have been profound and far-reaching.

In an effort to explore our generation’s place in our first decade of seeming cultural relevance, Dive has decided to take on four of the topics that have indelibly shaped the popular landscape of the American media and arts. So read on with us as we attempt to understand the decade that has made us who we are.

Track 1: The fall of hip-hop

Back in 1998 the young Earl Simmons, better known as rapper DMX, released two albums within six months of each other. By year’s end, both had well eclipsed the platinum retail sales mark.

DMX’s domination of the music world was a sign of the times. Now hip-hop music shows little resemblance to the pop culture force it was at the turn of the century.

Y2K brought us artists such as Nelly, and a second coming of LL Cool J that could compete with boy bands for pop supremacy. Then after the inevitable fall of the St. Lunatic and his hoarse comrade Ja Rule, there was no hip-hop left on Top 40 radio besides a novelty one-hitter or Atlanta- based snap music, neither of which have guided pop culture like their predecessors.

Eminem broke into the TRL crowd and sold 1.76 million albums in one week. Last year it was amazing that Lil Wayne even broke the “milli” mark, and he was barely 5,500 albums over it.

Jay-Z has had five solo No. 1 albums in the last 10 years. Yet Jay-Z didn’t put out an album for more than two years and upon his return was trading bars with Chris Martin of Coldplay instead of Memphis Bleek. Now, Jay is being spotted at Grizzly Bear shows. Lil Wayne is being out-weezed by Rivers Cuomo. Arguably the biggest song of  noted trendsetter Kanye West’s career is a Daft Punk sample.

Hip-hop was the genre being borrowed from, and now it’s the borrower. Samples have always been used as a frame for hip-hop songs, but now it takes a flipped Lady Gaga song, one that is still being played on the radio, to get new hip-hop acts exposure. It took DC emcee Wale, whose Attention Deficit is one of the most highly anticipated debuts in recent years, rapping over Justice’s “D.A.N.C.E.” to get major buzz.

Not that there isn’t hope for hip-hop out there. But for it to be culturally relevant like it was in the early years of the century, it will take innovation within the genre instead of simply looking outside it to get there. 

-Benn Wineka

Track 2: The rise of indie rock

As any walk into Frat Court on Friday night will clearly prove, so-called “indie music” has thoroughly infiltrated the mainstream. With strikingly un-nerdy girls dancing to the electro-pop of MGMT and Busch-Light-chugging bros passionately fist-pumping to awkward arena heroes such as Kings Of Leon, it’s clear that the casually listening mainstream has found a supplement to their musical diet.

As mainstream rock and rap have seen their quality go down the drain with the tanking economy, there’s not much else for the casual listener to latch on to.

In a twist of terms and tastes, indie rock has become a sector of mainstream music and the only one that can claim the ’00s as a victory.

While the backwash of grunge and  factory-made rap dominated in the early years, indie heroes have gained ground as the decade has progressed.

The examples at this point are numerous. From Modest Mouse to Radiohead to Arcade Fire, a bevy of bands once seen as left of the mainstream’s conservative center are now hit makers, scoring Top 40 singles and selling hefty amounts of records — the last albums by those three bands spent 25, 52 and 17 weeks on the Billboard 200 chart, respectively.

The reason for this rise is emotionality. While most of the period’s radio rap has been built on boasts of jewel-encrusted gunshot wounds and the lion’s share of modern rock has blindly driven itself on simple-minded angst, indie rock has stumbled on something far more universal: moping.

Everyone likes to over-indulge in emotions,  and these bands have given listeners an easy way to put that latest break-up in perspective.

Now, indie rock hasn’t taken over completely. There will always be some clean-cut Disney bubblegum or a brand-new Kanye-West protégé to make sure of that. But in the leaps it’s made, the category has become far more universal than niche.

-Jordan Lawrence

Track 3: The movies

Distinct trends have characterized Hollywood’s evolution over the last decade. One of the most prominent, lucrative and entertaining has been the production of epics and trilogies.

Almost everyone can name their favorite three-part series from the first decade of the new millennium, but no one can pretend like they’ve never seen Johnny Depp as the swashbuckling Captain Jack Sparrow. 

And I have yet to run into a Tolkien fan who is capable of reading any of the Lord of the Rings books without picturing Viggo Mortensen’s stubbly mug every time Aragorn is mentioned.

Tastes differ, of course, but if box office sales are any indication, the proliferation of adventurous and epic trilogies has been one of the most universally loved trends of the last 10 years.

Another trend, not nearly as popular across the board but still drawing heavy crowds among college students, is the “Frat Pack” comedy.

Some people prefer Will Ferrell’s dead-pan antics of idiocy, while others identify with the suave everyman they see in Vince Vaughn.

The movies such comedians star in are too mainstream to be labeled as “cult,” but too off-kilter to be considered run-of-the- mill.

Whether you find them obnoxious or hilarious, you can’t deny that they have developed into their own distinct genre over the past 10 years and that they don’t look like they’re going away.

Every age has its nay-sayers, those who loudly proclaim that everything is going to hell in a hand basket.

But I find the Academy Award Best Picture selections from the past 10 years, compared to those of the 1990s, a heartening revelation.

With frat packs and epic trilogies or not, it shows that things really can improve and that we can always find a better gold standard for our movies than “Braveheart.”

-Jonathan Pattishall

Track 4: The television

Who knows when television, in all its proletarian glory, became such an integral part of the American identity, but in a world of “I Want to Work for Diddy” and “Wife Swap,” it’s safe to say that this national emblem has experienced more than a few shifts in the last decade.

It’s not hard to detect the changes that have come to characterize modern television.

And while I admit that in the year 2000 I was only a wee little 9-year-old, I fondly recall my first rendezvous with trash TV. I remember the anxiety coursing through my veins as I waited on an “American Idol” verdict. I recall the bated breath that accompanied judging on “America’s Next Top Model.” Mindless? Sure. Addictive? Obviously. Detrimental to my IQ? Well, that’s up for debate.

One glance at VH1 or MTV and it’s easy to forget that they once operated under the pretense of  being music television. A few minutes of commercials plugging upcoming shows are all too indicative of America’s burgeoning interest in voyeurism.

There are the reformists, like “Tool Academy,” a show for douchebag rehabilitation. Then the dating shows, like “My Antonio,” where a B-list model looks for someone who can adapt to his, ahem, hectic lifestyle (read: worships at the altar of Antonio).

Who knows if these shows really reflect the people who watch them. When you consider scripted dramas on Showtime or AMC, it gets harder to say for sure—are the same people who watch “Real Chance of Love 2: Back in the Saddle” tuning in to “Weeds” or “Mad Men?” I can name plenty of folks, including myself, who fit that dichotomy.

Maybe, between all the “realities” of shows both real and staged, the decade’s television represents more than just cheap thrills and momentary escapes—maybe it’s not as much a screen as it is a mirror of 10 eventful years.

-Linnie Greene