- [reporter] generation x, the generation after the affluent, socially-conscious baby boomers, the lost generation it's called. - i'm generation x. - i'm gen x. - i am generation x. - i'm generation x, boldly, proudly. - if i had a dollar for every time someone has told me i sound like daria, i could buy like, a closet full of doc martens. - i hate everybody. - see you later. - okay. - gen x, what's the first thing you think of? latchkey kid. - [reporter] latchkey kids. the children of working parents, of single parents, who leave school and go straight home to an empty house. - it was like being one of the goonies. i spent my life on my bicycle, and no curfew, very few rules. - we were out playing with dangerous things. - just causing trouble out in the alleys with my friends. - i can't fathom that that's how we were raised. - i could be dead in a ditch somewhere and my parents wouldn't know for hours and hours and hours.

- gen x is the jan brady of generations. - marcia, marcia, marcia. - i think of us as sort of a sandwich generation. - [neil armstrong] the eagle has landed. - overshadowed by the boomers and the generation that came after the millennials. - it had been made very clear to us that the great music, the great everything, had already happened. you know, if you were at a big music concert, "well, it's no woodstock." - there's that boomer arrogance that everything they did was the coolest. it wasn't. i mean, who'd wanna be a hippie? ugh, oh my god. - we were the first generation to really adopt technology in ways that changed the very fabric of our nation. - hav-a-tude, wiener dude. - the idea of a mcjob, something that you're probably overqualified for. - there were all of these girls who worked at a coffee shop. they worked at a sandwich shop, i worked in a pizza restaurant at the mall. - the narrative about generation x was that we were lazy, entitled, directionless, slackers. - it was the last generation of just anti-commercialism. - marketing seemed gross.

selling out was a huge thing. we hated labels and we hated names. we didn't wanna be put under one umbrella. - gen x to me is just fucking meaningless, marketing bs. these things are attributed to generations to sell things. - that's the thing with x. we don't ever get to describe ourselves. everybody does it for us. - i hate people talking about generations though. i'm sorry. (laughing) everybody's gonna hate this. (upbeat music) - [ethan] generation x. the smallest generation, the middle kids. the 65 million americans born between 1965 and 1980. our parents let us pretty much roam free while they were splitting up at the highest rate ever. - [reporter] one of every two marriages these days ends in divorce. - [ethan] and entering the workforce in record numbers, making more money than most of them had ever seen.

we had no great war to fight, but we watched one live on tv. we saw our icons die and witnessed what we felt was the end of history. we were told america was the greatest nation on earth. - [crowd] usa! usa! usa! - [ethan] we believed it. we took a bite out of crime. ♪ no, just say no - [ethan] and just said no. they told us sex was gonna kill us. didn't seem to stop us though. we hung out in malls, arcades, sometimes just parking lots. we had sex in cars, smoked indoors, stretched a 30-foot phone cord through the house for a little privacy. we slept on waterbeds, played with rubik's cubes. we had the greatest coming-of-age movies. we made albums. you remember those. mix tapes with handmade labels. we made coffee cool. and we have the best name. came from a novel. that's so gen x.

(dramatic music) - in 1989, i was living in palm springs, california where the book was set. it's important to remember the '90s didn't exist yet. there was no grunge, there was nothing. and there was no collective awareness of anything beyond boomers at that point. and who are these people who don't feel like a part of the boomer experience, but we don't feel like a part of anything else? and i decided, "okay, i'm going to write the book on gen x." - what is the defining characteristic of this age group? - i think the people in this group are realizing, "oh, we are part of something. we are something larger. and maybe our voices do count for something." - [reporter] what do you think about the title "generation x"? - i mean, in my mind, i'm the hip hop generation. you know, this is the hip hop generation. (dramatic music) (siren blares) - in the '70s, the bronx was burning.

it was like vietnam had come to new york. death, destruction, darkness, and despair. so these young boys and girls in the bronx said, "we got an idea." - when kool herc give a party, everybody be there. (hip hop music) - dj kool herc is a pioneer of hip hop. he comes from jamaica and brings sound system music to the bronx. - kool herc was one of the first people to loop records to create extended instrumental interludes where it's just the beat, treating the turntable as his own bespoke musical instrument, which then evolved into sampling, remixing, and scratching. - we were going to the junkyards, taking the hi-fi stereos people were throwing out, building our own sound systems. but when the blackout happened. - [reporter] gangs of looters, mainly young people, ransacked hundreds of stores, taking almost anything that could be carried away.

- we woke up the next morning, everybody had new sound systems. we looted for stuff that we needed. and one of the things that we needed to do was do this music thing. that's when hip hop came out the womb. ♪ i said-a hip, hop, the hippie, the hippie ♪ ♪ to the hip hip hop-a you don't stop the rock it ♪ ♪ to the bang-bang boogie, say up jump the boogie ♪ ♪ to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat ♪ - and suddenly you get "rapper's delight," and, it was amazing. - i still know all the words. my name is wonder mike and i'd like to say hello to the black and the white, the red and the brown, the purple and yellow. it just sounded like us. - radio stations hated rap music. the pop stations thought it was novelty and they thought that would be it. but it was just the beginning. - let's get some hands together, gang, for mr. kurtis blow. ♪ brakes on a bus, brakes on a car ♪ ♪ breaks to make you a superstar ♪ - kurtis blow was one of the first mainstream hip hop acts.

soul train, the apollo, those are the markers for how to be a successful black artist. for an mc to do that is monumental. - and then this song called "the message" came out. ♪ don't push me 'cause i'm close to the edge ♪ ♪ i'm tryin' not to lose my head ♪ - all the trauma of the '50s and '60s were now being utilized by this new generation. ♪ it's like a jungle sometimes ♪ it makes me wonder ♪ how i keep from going under we going to talk about these situations. ♪ yeah, just hit me ♪ it's time to chase your dreams ♪ ♪ up out ya seats, make your body sway ♪ the next evolution in that was "planet rock". it was visionary. there's a place called planet rock where everybody's eating, nobody's fighting. we are educating ourselves. - afrika bambaataa really worked hard to turn

what was becoming a pretty troubling gang culture into a culture of battle that was symbolic. you could have a graffiti battle, you could have a rhyme battle, you could have dj battles, you could have a breakdance battle. (crowd cheering) - breakdancing was a mainstream dance craze. michael jackson was trying to integrate breakdancing into his stuff. movies like, "wild style" "breakin'" 1 and 2, popularized breaking in a way that made it the thing to do. - there was the physical release that the music and the poetry gave us. breakdancing was us becoming planet rock. if we put the work in, it can be better, and that's why run dmc had to come along. ("it's like that" by run dmc) - we took the message and we took planet rock and we put it together.

unemployment at a record high, people going, people coming, people born to die. it was the struggle, but it was also, could have gone to school, could have learned a trade. we wasn't pointing our fingers, we was giving alternatives. ("walk this way" by run dmc featuring aerosmith) - "walk this way" is, you know, considered this seminal song and that really introduces middle america, i.e., white america, to hip hop. ♪ walk this way, talk this way ♪ she told me to ♪ walk this way if you were black like me growing up in that era, sitting at home watching mtv, you were just waiting, hoping to see that one michael jackson video, that one prince video, maybe whitney houston. in between that you had to watch a whole lot of tears for fears and boy george and inxs and duran duran, which ended up being good music.

but it just goes to show the lack of black music that was being played on that network until. - we wanna let everybody know where it's at. it's right here. yo mtv raps. ♪ yo, yo, yo, yo - it's the first time that the biggest youth video channel takes a consistent look at hip hop. this ascendant culture now has a weekly national platform. - instead of just seeing the video, yo mtv raps was an introduction of the people behind this culture and this generation, as humans. - rap was not going to be ignored by the mainstream anymore. - how you doin', man? hey yo ma, yo ma, what's up, g? - [woman] you had public enemy a tribe called quest, de la soul, the jungle brothers, eric b. & rakim. - but let's not forget queen latifa, mc lyte, big daddy kane, the beastie boys. - ll cool j, roxanne shanté, doug e. fresh, slick rick.

it was an embarrassment of riches. - and when you think about all of these groups coming out in less than a 10 year period, it's really the golden era of hip hop. - is the bronx in the house? - we are the generation that created hip hop, the dominant cultural force around the globe today. it was the soundtrack to our lives. when a tough cough finds you on the go, a syrup would be... silly! woo! hey! try new robitussin soft chews. packed with the power of robitussin... in every bite. easy to take cough relief, anywhere. chew on relief, chew on a ♪ robitussin ♪

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- [reporter] 17 people in all gathered in this house as people had in small groups across the country. what they saw on television was the graphic destruction of kansas city by several atomic bombs. - growing up during the cold war was a lot of nuclear nightmares and it didn't help that hollywood made movies like "the day after" on television. - it was full blown apocalyptic atmosphere. there were air raid drills that you would just get under your desk. being nuked by the soviets felt more imminent.

- i thought any day like, "oh, we're just gonna see a mushroom cloud." [explosion boom] - we will never compromise our principles and standards. we will never give away our freedom. we will never abandon our belief in god. (audience applauding) - reagan makes americans feel this is still the greatest nation on earth. - and hollywood went in promoting this mainstream, very conservative picture of america. - we get some of the more right wing might makes right films. "red dawn," where the russians parachute into their school. (guns firing) - not bad for a bunch of kids, huh? - you look at "rocky 4." - i must break you. - us versus the russians. it cannot be any more cartoonish, and america ate it up with a spoon. - [announcer] rambo. - rambo's, like, the libertarian pro-american wet dream. - [reporter] his invasion has captured everything from toys to t-shirts,

and now the nightclub business. this club reflects a new mood in america. - it's time to take a stand, and america's gonna stand strong where it stands now. - [reporter] old-fashioned patriotism is back in style. - [crowd] usa! usa! usa! usa! - [technician] t-minus seven minutes and counting. - [ethan] if you were a kid in the '80s, you loved the space program. what kid didn't dream of going to space? - [technician] t-minus two minutes and counting. - [ethan] i know i did. the closest we came was seeing one of our teachers get a ticket on the space shuttle challenger. - the astronauts who were part of the challenger mission represented the beautiful portrait of america that was diverse and celebratory of us as a pluralistic society. - [crowd] seven, six, five. - [ethan] at schools across america, we watched the launch live. (dramatic music) - [technician] liftoff! liftoff of the 25th space shuttle mission

and it has cleared the tower. - [ethan] barely a minute into the launch, our childhoods were about to change. - i was in daytona beach just up the road from the kennedy space center, and we went outside and watched. - [voice over radio] three engines running normally, three good fuel cells. - growing up in florida, we were close enough that we could stand on the top of our cars and shoot the launch. - i was sitting in the astronaut conference room watching it on the screen like everybody else. - so i'm watching the price is right on a snow day. all of a sudden, here comes a special report. even as a kid, your stomach tenses up. - [tv reporter] we have just seen the launch of the space shuttle challenger. there has been a major problem. - about 73 seconds in the flight. - [voice over radio] a minute 15 seconds, velocity 2900 feet. - we saw what looked like an explosion but we couldn't really tell. - it happened in real time before noon,

a slow motion horror for all who watched. - we just thought it was a part of the launch. - nothing was continuing to space. i knew that something wasn't right. - [announcer] from mission control, silence. - and everyone's very reluctant to say it has blown up. - [reporter] obviously a major malfunction. - but it had blown up. - i remember the challenger blow-up like it was yesterday. (crowd screaming) i remember watching it again and again and again on the news that night because the whole country was rooting for this great success and then to look up and see it all turn to smoke like that. that was a moment that defined generation x. (somber music) - {president reagan] i wanna say something to the schoolchildren of america who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's take-off. i know it's hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. it's all part of the process of exploration and discovery.

the future doesn't belong to the faint-hearted. it belongs to the brave. - [ethan] for many of us, this was the first national tragedy we experienced and the first time the president spoke directly to us. a year later, he spoke to the world. - mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall. (crowd cheering) - [ethan] as the '80s were about to become the '90s, we couldn't believe our eyes. the cold war just ended practically overnight. - [reporter] the berlin wall is still standing, but its significance as a barrier to freedom has crumbled, following the dramatic decision by east german leaders to lift travel restrictions to the west. - there was a sense of disbelief that it was actually happening. really? they're abandoning communism? they're dissolving the soviet union?

and suddenly, people took hammers to the wall and nobody fired a gun or anything like that. - [reporter] what you're watching live on television is a historic moment, a moment that will live forever. you're seeing the destruction of the berlin wall, the dividing line between east and west germany. - the people began with their bare hands taking it down. you know, it was- wow, what a moment. - i remember my roommates and i, in this disgusting roach-infested apartment, but everybody was gathered around the tv and watching and it was extremely hopeful. millions of people were gonna be liberated from this communist, fascist, authoritarian government. - for 50 years we had understood the world as divided into two halves. suddenly that dramatic sense of separation from half the world was gone. it was that moment of a sense of complete reorientation

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- [reporter] in 1950, it would've taken a room full of computers to perform the data processing functions

of today's microcircuits. - gen x was a first generation to really see that rapid iteration of technology become smaller, more personal, more ubiquitous. - it's funny now thinking about what's available to us and what we take for granted and what you can do on a phone. but when the walkman came out, it was unreal. there's a device that can play music. it's this big. - vcrs opened up a whole world of possibilities to me. the first time i watched a jackie chan movie was in a vcr. - oh, remember the the handheld tvs? all that stuff seemed like it was from the crazy future. - and it's kind of the beginning of individual experiences. - gen x was the first generation where you can be like an apple person. - this technology brand can be your personality. - we were the first gadget heads. we were getting ready for the next thing. we were always ready for the next thing. (electronic beeping) - [ethan] when you think about the technologies that our generation got to experience,

cable tv, satellite tv, dvds, laser discs, home computers, camcorders, cell phones as big as your head. it felt like growing up in the not too distant future. but all those inventions were really just variations on tech that our parents already had. there was one technology though that was all ours. - how do you do that? - [child] for climbing ladders, you go up. - uh-huh. - as a little kid, the thing that got me going outside of the house where there were no cultural, racial or segregation boundaries was the local candy store with the arcade. (electronic sounds and music) - the arcade was a whole experience, man. it's literally like a fast times at ridgemont high scene. i mean, you'd pull up in that parking lot and like, everybody would roll out and like, pot smoke. go in there and it's just bleep bleep blip blip. - while other people was addicted to heroin,

i'm addicted to pacman and space invaders. (game beeps) - it was crazy how quickly we would burn through our allowances. - nowadays after generation x, video games a lot more forgiving, but back in the day, those stand up arcade cabinets. - ah. -ohh! (chuckles) - the primary goal was to rob you of your quarters. - [ethan] the first video game i ever played was called pong and then came asteroids. and then pacman took it over the edge. - [reporter] pacman fever has invaded the shore haven nursing home, and the competition is fierce. - ooh! - [ethan] it was the first video game to jump off the screen and into american culture. it was so big. - ladies and gentlemen, buckner and garcia. - [ethan] they wrote a song about it. ♪ i got pacman fever, pacman fever ♪ ♪ it's driving me crazy, driving me crazy... ♪

(machine beeping) - being good at video games was part of the social currency of the moment. - [reporter] 18 year-old greg davies scored 15 million points, played 31 hours on one quarter. - arcades were like this unique social space where little evan, who was a shy, quiet nerd, would whoop your ass, you know? and you just have to take it. you could tease me before and after, but not during. - video games were everywhere. we went from just in arcades to- - [announcer] don't just watch television tonight, play it. - everybody had a console. they were constantly part of our lives. - [tv reporter] home video games. right now there are over 100 video games out and by christmas, there should be close to 200 if all the manufacturers come through as promised. - atari, they released a home console called the atari 2600 which was the hottest thing going. we had one in my house and i felt like we arrived. the pictures looked more real. the speed, the action, the sound effects are much more realistic. in fact, i have one of my old cartridges

that i held onto from when i was a kid. this is a super breakout and this is one of those games that i played to death. used with paddle controllers. they had twists, input at the top that slid a platform around that you bounce the ball on. i can't believe i'm explaining breakout on a documentary. - [tv reporter] last year, there were only five companies making video game cartridges. this year, more than a dozen new companies have entered the market. - i'm in the mid 80s, you could make video games pretty cheap so all these very lazy companies made easy, bad video games, flooded the market with them. - and that bubble burst. - [reporter 1] last year, there were more than 300 new games this year it looks like they're only gonna be a few dozen. - [reporter 2] the video game industry is becoming very much like hula hoops. there still may be a lot of people fooling around with them but profits are gonna be quite negligible. - the whole video game industry was left hanging by a thread. - if "pacman," "e.t." and "raiders of the lost ark" aren't selling, what will? - and all of a sudden...

- [announcer] the nintendo entertainment system, now you are playing with power! - in swoops, nintendo. (playful music) - the og, the king and the queen, the original nes. - the games that i played on the nes were like these robust storytelling adventures that had a level of design possibility we had never experienced. - [announcer] will you be the first to raise the incredibly accurate zapper and play games like duck hunt. - franchises like the legend of zelda, final fantasy, super mario brothers one, two, three, they allow you interact with the story. they allow you to be the main character. - i remember the day i got mike tyson's punch out and then me and my cousin, we used to pray. we used to actually pray to god like, yeah, allah, please, please let us beat mike tyson today. now i'm playing video games with my kids. there's just this amazing rite of passage that i'm sitting there, and we enjoy it and we get time to bond. so, let the nerd flag fly. (upbeat music) liberty mutual customized my car insurance

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(upbeat music) when you want to invest with more confidence... - when you looked at the media, new york city's heaven. all the athletes and all the movie stars was coming to new york city 'cause everybody wanted to get in studio 54. - new york in the '70s was exhilarating. it was a party every night. that's really what new york was and it could be painful and cruel. - [reporter] every four minutes, someone in new york is raped, robbed, assaulted, or killed. - i had my apartment broken into and i had my car stolen, twice. - i got my money taken all the time till i got smart and put my money in my sock. - i was in my apartment when it was broken into, a guy like pushed the air conditioner through the slot and slithered in. - but you have to understand the economy in the '70s was recession after recession, gasoline shortage, gasoline lines, economic malaise. - it was a tough time. i mean, there was just a true sense

that the economy was struggling. the city was struggling, but pretty quickly, it actually got pretty good, pretty fast. (bells tolling and cheering) - [ethan] when the '80s began, it still felt like the '70s. crime was bad, the economy sucked. wall street, nobody went there. it was dead. and then it woke up. (bell ringing, people talking) - [reporter 1] wall street went through the roof today. - [reporter 2] it's being called the great stampede of 1982. - everything about the reputation of wall street changed in the 1980s. - for the next four years, we're going to turn the bull loose. (crowd cheering) - before the '80s, wall street was for monopoly men, men in top hats and suddenly, wall street, entered the zeitgeist. - john, 30,000 high month to buy, i'll pay nine.

- the market began going up. - [reporter 3] mergers and corporate takeovers are driving this stock and bond market making it possible for all those young people to make so much money. - [woman] is money the number one goal? - yes. - and the money started enabling this, yuppy lifestyle. - [reporter] the wiz kids of wall street, many barely out of college. - what a yuppy was, a young urban professional. people at age 25 who were clean scrubbed, fully employed, had a lot of money. everybody wanted to be one. no one wanted to be called one. - there was sort of this weird smugness about yuppies like we can be just like the greatest generation and have all the benefits without actually having to be great. - the stereotype would be that they didn't mind drinking and they certainly didn't mind a little cocaine. - drug abuse is one of the most significant problems in the financial community. - cocaine, it seemed like the drug with no consequence. like can you have too much caviar?

can you have too much money? can you have too many ferraris? i mean, how can cocaine be bad for you? (laughs) - [tv reporter] the mistakes are measured in millions and so is success. that's got students clamoring for a one-way ticket to wall street. - gen x college students were much more likely than boomers to major in business. so many of them majored in business that those numbers have not been equaled since. - [woman reporter] if you watch a lot of tv these days, you might think that everybody in this country is rich and dripping with jewels. - the wealth effect, you could just see it. musicians who were all of a sudden in music videos, showing off money in ways that we never saw before. - [announcer] welcome to "lifestyles of the rich and famous." - [man] the idea of these outlandish homes, the idea of a stretch limousine. - pardon me, would you have any grey poupon? - but of course. - that's how people start to measure their own self worth. money as a scorecard for life became a thing.

- [tv reporter] betty wants to remain anonymous because she is an addict to spending. - you see the rise of american fashion happening. it is a very narrowly defined aesthetic swath. it's ralph lauren, it's calvin klein, it's donna karan, and you have this zeal for wanting to own it. - {ethan] ivan boesky, leona helmsley, lee iacocca, t. boone pickens, michael milken. most americans couldn't name a single ceo or investment banker before the '80s. - my new game is "trump, the game." - [announcer] it's not whether you win or lose, it's whether you win. - [man] now, they were household names. - the mainstream media was an illustration of the kind of seismic shift in values that had taken place. - in the new movie, "wall street," michael douglass playing a stockbroker argues in defense of greed. - greed, for lack of a better word, is good. - it seems like a movie that's incredibly critical of gordon gekko, but greed is good became a mantra

no matter what it was intended to be in the original movie. (people speaking indistinctly) - [tv reporter] it is a day that will be in bold print and history books, black monday. - [ethan] on october 19th, 1987, the dow jones lost over 22% of its value in a single day. the steepest drop in history. - it was fascinating, the way sometimes a bloodbath is fascinating. - [ethan] billions of dollars circled the drain. - i think any business has good people and has bad people, crooks. you may get caught up in the fancy planes and in the fancy hotels and the fancy dinners. it's easy to get sucked up. - [ethan] crash, the party was over. - say any comment mr. siegel? - [ethan] if you wonder why my generation has a reputation for being cynical, it's probably because of shit like this. - in the past year, wall street's insider trading scandal has destroyed the careers of some of its most promising young stars. so far, more than 40 people have been implicated.

- brooks winger security firm was involved in numerous instances of stock manipulation as well as regular cocaine dealing on an ongoing basis. - i don't think this generation is any more corrupt or any more unethical than past generations. i think often our society gives signals, maybe now more than in the past that wealth is the only thing that counts. before taking breztri for my copd, i had bad days. days ruined by flare-ups [cough] that could permanently damage my lungs. then i talked to my doctor about breztri, and i noticed things changed. breztri gave me better breathing. ♪♪ starting within 5 minutes, my lung function improved. ♪♪ breztri also helped improve my symptoms... and was even proven to reduce flare-ups... including those that could send me to the hospital. now i worry less about bad days...

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- [announcer] this is drugs. you're in good hands this is your brain on drugs. - [ethan] you remember this ad? when my generation was growing up... ♪ no, just say no ♪ say no we were told drugs were so bad we had to declare war on them. - we arrest the buyers, the sellers and the users, we arrest them all. - crack was penalized at much higher disproportionate rates to powder cocaine, using the war on drugs as a real hammer against poor communities of color in cities.

- [ethan] the front line of the war on drugs was los angeles. - gang activity got connected with international drug trafficking that produced a lot of danger, a lot of crime, also a lot of entrapment for young people. prisons grew everywhere, it was the beginning of the period of mass incarceration. - but we do have a war here on gang and we're gonna continue that war until it's finished. (tense music) (helicopter blades whirring) - [reporter] tonight, for the third weekend in a row, police saturated the streets of south central los angeles. tonight's crackdown along with the use of the controversial battering ram as part of an unprecedented show of force here. - darryl gates, lapd was brutal. i mean we were going to punk rock shows at the time, we were teenagers and we would get beat up. the tension in la from the way that they treated angelinos, particularly of black and brown angelinos, it was horrific.

- [police] where you going? - [reporter] critics contend that sweeps for gang members often border on harassment. - the cops used to follow me home. my ex-wife was a different race, they pulled me over thinking that i was a pimp. - [man] every time i drive, boom, pull over, get out, knees down, hands up. i know the routine. - they would just mess with you like that. - in southern california, another explosive case involving white police officers and a black motorist. their encounter was caught on videotape and some are calling it evidence of racially motivated police brutality. - the first time i saw the rodney king video, (sighs) it felt surreal. like i heard about cops acting out, right? but like seeing it in such an intensely egregious incident, it was scarring. - you could actually watch these men beating the daylights out of a man on all fours. - those are many cops, and that's a guy who's putting up no fight.

- in black communities, this is going on all the time. - we were like somebody finally got it on tape. - now that they see it on video, they have to believe us. - all 15 of those men should be prosecuted immediately. all 15 of them. - [reporter 1] today marks the seventh day of deliberations in the trial of four los angeles policemen charged with beating motorist rodney king. - [reporter 2] the accused were not the only ones to come wait. the court house attracting a growing crowd of the curious. - [reporter 3] why was it important for you to come out today? - well, i just want to give a little support to the cops. i think that they've been through a real traumatic 14 months or so. - [juror] it's the 29th day of april 1992, signed by the foreman. we, the jury in the above entitled action find the defendant (indistinct) not guilty of the crime of accessory after the fact.

- we realized that it wasn't that they didn't know, it's that they didn't care. - the justice is for the other man, not for the brother, man. - the promises that we were told about life getting better after the civil rights movement, that promise was broken. it was just a shit sandwich that we were handed as a generation. (crowd yelling) - we are all just talking to each other, what's gonna happen? what's gonna happen? (police siren blaring) first you hear sirens, you hear all the sirens. i'm watching the news and you're seeing helicopter above the intersection, florence and normandy. - it's like a bomb, it's a bomb, we're sitting on a bomb. - all right, like batten the hatches, it's gonna blow. - [man 1] well, a lot of the people went down and started watching and looting. - [man 2] there's a van coming under attack. - you better go somewhere safe. - [man 2] there's another driver badly beaten. the driver's only mistake was entering this area.

he's been kicked in the head, oh, look at that. this is attempted murder. south central los angeles, we're seeing a dark day here in los angeles. - i'd flown in there and i remember we got an announcement on the plane that we can't fly in over south central because people are shooting at planes. - lapd, they were very, very hard on the people of los angeles and everyone kind of went, "not today, let's light it up." - [man] chaos. - i stood watching this wave of destruction come up the street. - los angeles set itself on fire in outrage. (people yelling) - my neighbors are playing public enemy, burn hollywood burn. it was lawlessness. - eazy-e from nwa had called me and he was like look at these stupid motherfuckers. they down here burning up their own damn neighborhood. - that's not right!

that's not right, what y'all doing! - society cannot tolerate this kind of behavior. - this society has no commitment to us, why should we have a commitment to it? - 23 years down the drain! i mean, can people realize what they're doing is wrong? this is not the way to overcome racism. - people, i just want to say, you know, can we, can we all get along? can we, can we get along? - [reporter] up to 4,000 national guardsmen were on duty across the city to aid the civilian authorities. - the rodney king incident and the ensuing protests, these were a real cultural watershed moment for my generation. it felt like a real loss of innocence for us. - rodney king, for me, was the beginning of the concept of black lives should matter, black lives don't matter,

how do we know? look at how we're treated, even when we are beaten to within an inch of our lives, and a video camera caught it all, we, our lives still don't matter. it's book club in the wayborhood, y'all. edie this table. i got this at wayfair after the last book club. every book club should have this much shopping. what did everyone think of the chapter "the right area rug for every budget"? i'll say it, the section on washable rugs was thrilling. thoughts, richard? the part about the floral rugs really spoke to me. [ sigh ] i want to know who's going to play the rug in the movie? why is nobody discussing the plot twist? wayfair ships fast and free. [ gasps ] ♪ wayfair. every style. every home. ♪

- well, i am very pleased to announce that i will nominate judge clarence thomas to serve as associate justice of the united states supreme court. - i look forward to the confirmation process and an opportunity to be of service once again to my country. - the senate is to vote tonight on whether thomas should get a lifetime appointment to the supreme court, but a charge that thomas sexually harassed one of his employees a decade ago has fueled new last minute debate over the nomination. - i didn't know the word sexual harassment until 1991. - [man] welcome professor hill. - i had experienced it, but i didn't know what to call it.

- anita hill was the first woman that i saw standing up for herself, was the first time that i realized, oh wait a minute, it's wrong to be sexually harassed. - [panel member] professor, do you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god? - i do. (somber music) - [ethan] before clarence thomas, most of us had never watched a supreme court confirmation but this one was more scandalous than a soap opera with ratings so high, it felt like a super bowl. - i declined the invitation to go out socially with him. to my regret in the following few weeks, he continued to ask me out. - we were watching it in the newsroom and i remember just being absolutely mortified. - he also spoke of the pleasures he had given to women with oral sex. - there wasn't a woman in that newsroom who wasn't sort of nodding along in agreement and believing every single thing she said.

- he spoke about pornographic films involving such matters is women having sex with animals. - while watching our male colleagues chuckle. - what was the most embarrassing of all the incidences that you have alleged? - [ethan] it was not lost on anyone that those questioning anita hill were all white men. - has anybody promised you anything by coming forth with this story now? - the most embarrassing question involved this is not too bad, women's large breasts, that's the word we use all the time. - [ethan] there were only two women in the senate. - are you a scorned woman? - [ethan] and neither were on the committee. - they were incredibly dismissive, incredibly disrespectful. - do you have a martyr complex? - she was, in my mind, crucified on national television. - [ethan] the senators gave clarence thomas the final word, which he delivered to an audience of 30 million. - i deny each and every single allegation against me today. as a black american, as far as i'm concerned,

it is a high tech lynching. - [reporter] at six o'clock tonight, the 98 men and two women of the senate will have to decide who they believe. - when a woman at her age gets out in front of the public and get herself up like that, that man is guilty. - girl should keep her mouth shut, it's 10 years old, and she should just go away and leave the poor man alone. [crowd yelling] - [reporter] all day outside the capital, people on both sides of the issue staged demonstrations. - [man] the nomination of clarence thomas of georgia to be associate justice of the united states supreme court is hereby confirmed. (people cheering) - clarence thomas and president bush win, the united states senate has confirmed the nomination of thomas to the supreme court. - i don't think i had ever felt so incensed in my life. - a lot of them are claiming it's sexual harassment when it really isn't sexual harassment. the guy might be joking with them or something.

- it's not like rape or anything, it's just women's lib, i think. - for black women, it was a very painful reminder of how our pain is diminished and i think it made a lot of young women want to rage and want to fight and want to do better. - i watched it at my friend's apartment. i just got so upset and offended. i was like, i can't believe these men are questioning her this way. i can't believe the way they're speaking to her. i went to the grocery store 'cause i couldn't take it and i remember walking around and i was so shocked that everybody wasn't like knocking over the chip aisle. like i was like, why isn't everybody pissed off? my whole town seems like they don't even know, like i feel so alone. (high energy punk-rock music) - [ethan] kathleen hanna had an outlet for her anger. the seminal, all-girl, punk rock band, bikini kill. i still have their t-shirt. - [kathleen] one, two, three, four. (punk rock music) - [ethan] they invented a new genre called riot grrrl. that's g-r-r-r-l, riot grrrl.

- even in punk rock circles, which are very progressive and forward-thinking, there were still male-oriented bands, and in the audience the men were always up front. riot grrrl upended that. - [punk rocker] the more girls up front, the better. - at the forefront of it is bands like bikini kill, (punk rock music) 7 year bitch, (punk rock music) bratmobile. - part of what really shaped me as a young woman being like a baby-xer was being surrounded by like these powerful women as my role models. - they're kind of the stepping stone to other artists that come along. courtney love of hole, you get liz phair, and then you get alanis morissette. ♪ - i want you to know - this cute little girl from canada is basically singing about the same stuff that bikini kill is singing about. ♪ - and i'm here, ♪ to remind you ♪ of the mess you left when you went away ♪ - that music was super palatable,

but women were like, "oh my god, this is what i have thought, and this is what i've talked to my girlfriends about." - [steven] there was an opportunity for women to be angry. there was always a taboo around that. ♪ - you, you, you oughta know (orchestral music) - by the middle of the nineties, that taboo was totally smashed. artists who had more of a mainstream profile proved to be a more effective vehicle for the feminism and the forward-thinking anger that existed in riot grrrl. - the riot grrrl movement eventually ends up being co-opted by record companies. - folks, i wrote a fanzine. - bikini kill, we wrote a fanzine in 1991, and it was called, grrrl power. we turned on mtv years later, and there's these highly costumed women yelling, "girl power." ♪ yo i'll tell you what i want, what i really, really want. ♪ ♪ so tell me what you want, what you really, really want. ♪ ♪ i'll tell you what i want - you know it's girl power. - girl power. - girl power. - and then we start getting,

♪ oh, baby, baby - [lorraine] bubblegum pop. ♪ how was i supp... ♪ i'm a genie in a bottle, baby. ♪ - and then the power gets pulled out of it. - it's a sense of living life. - [interviewer] okay, so what's all this girl power thing? - you've cut me off, just completely interrupted what i'm saying. - you know what? i'm the interviewer, so i can chop you off when i want, can't i? - no you can't! - [all] no! - all right, relax, relax, relax. (somber music) - i'm very disturbed by what seems to be happening throughout the culture in terms of silencing people when they're trying to express their truth. it's not just women. all of the different ways in which the culture is devaluing some bodies and some voices, changed gen x. a lot of us decided that we needed to get involved. we needed to fight for queer rights. we needed to fight for civil rights. we needed to fight for gender equality, against sexual harassment, sexual assault. we needed to fight toxic masculinity. we needed to fight patriarchy. we needed to fight white supremacy. feminism is intersectional.

you are talking about the liberation of all of us. (applause)

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(tense violin music) powering possibilities. - in the nineties, there was this whole push towards independent films. like people felt like there was this other voice, and that you don't need to be part of a massive studio. - there was this category of film i would call backyard films, people making a film about their own environments, what they knew about. every now and then, an american indie would kind of come out of nowhere. - hey. - when i saw spike lee's, do the right thing, it was like watching me. it was pure, it was raw, it was honest. - dago, wop, (indistinct), - gold teeth, gold chain. - me no-speaky american. - goya bean-eating- - hold up! - he gave me the courage to know that i could do my own thing. (bicyclist yelling) - spike showed that there was an audience that was hungry for something different, and the door he kicked open

allowed so many interesting voices to come through. - john singleton with boyz n the hood, but you also have the hughes brothers, black filmmakers telling stories that are relevant to communities of color in ways that affirmed my humanity, that affirmed my culture. - if you were a person who loves movies at like the end of the eighties, the early nineties, all you've ever been told is that your generation just makes big studio comedies. nah, our generation is capable of creating our own corner of the universe. (dramatic music) (soft piano music) - [ethan] if you were gen x, you grew up with great movies in the theater. stone cold classics. as we got older, our movies became a mirror, reflecting our generation back to us. - for me, gen x movies start with john hughes. sixteen candles, weird science. i have breakfast with a couple of my friends every sunday, and i call them the bra heads. - why are we wearing bras on our heads? - because we're all just nerds.

- hey, babe. (girl screams) - in the early eighties, teen films were girls showing their breasts everywhere and john hughes figures out how to make a movie that not only feels quality but feels young and doesn't feel exploitative. he's able to give young women and the men around them, stories that actually feel like they reflect their own lives. - god dammit! - i was sick as a kid for a week, and my dad came home with a vhs tape of "the breakfast club" and he was sort of like, "i have heard you need to know about this movie." - breakfast club was about five kids in saturday detention at a public high school. the five kids realize they have more in common than they realize. john hughes would write about a character who was young, without that character being less. - when you grow up, your heart dies. - popularity, love, feeling like an outcast. if they're the biggest problems your generation knows, then they're big problems. john hughes respected that. - [ethan] and let's be honest, not everything holds up. a lot of scenes from a lot of movies from that era

have not aged well. - you're a bitch. (gong noise) - they're problematic, yes. (interviewer laughs) - [judd] well, certain social conventions will change. some things that are funny in 1980, aren't funny now. - but what he did get right, he always depicted the young people as having all the answers, and it was the adults that were lost. it was gonna be us that was gonna change the world. (upbeat classical music) - when i was making slacker starting in '89, i was sure it would work on my terms, but i just didn't have any faith that the world would either understand or connect to it at all. i was just making a film from my own backyard with my friends and the energy around me. - i may live badly, but at least i don't have to work to do it. - the camera kind of bops around, hangs out with this person, hangs out over here. you've got a day in the life of just austin's weirdos. - do you ever have those dreams that are just completely real? i mean, they're so vivid, it's just like completely real.

- i remember going into the screening, and there was a line around the block. and everyone in line looked like they were in the movie. young people with (laughs) t-shirts, and they got it. you know, they felt it was their movie. - me and my friends loved it. there wasn't even that much of a story. - hey, what's up? - hey, not much. - what have you been up to? - not too much. - so what are you up to? - same old, same old. - the directors of that time were influencing each other even before they met. kevin smith has no idea what he's doing with his life, and he watches "slacker," and he says, "well if that guy can make that movie, i can make that movie." - i'm not even supposed to be here today. i'm not even supposed to be here today i'm not even supposed to be here today. (soft classical music) - he sells everything he owns, he convinces the convenience store where he works to let him film there with his friends. the whole reason in, "clerks" that you have the door being stuck is just because they couldn't film in the daytime. - why don't you open the shutters, get some sunlight in here? - someone jammed gum in the locks. - "clerks" was so important to me and to my generation because it said, "oh, we can just do this." - i'll fuck anything that moves.

- [amy] and this becomes like the major touchstone for gen x authenticity. - in the nineties, the thing that always blows me away is how i could spend an entire day doing absolutely nothing. i think that is what explains the appeal of the hangout movie. - because it's friday, you ain't got no job, and you ain't got shit to do. - [steven] it was young people smoking cigarettes, talking, drinking coffee, - galileo. - galileo. - (in falsetto) galileo. - [steven] and doing nothing. - you just get these characters in a situation and then hang out with them. "empire records," you are literally just spending a day in a record store. whatever they're trying to do is not the important thing. - what are you doing here? - i was just about to ask you the same question. - [ethan] hollywood was eager to define the next generation of adults, who more than anything, did not want to be defined. and that's... - he will turn this place into a den of slack. - [ethan] how you get "reality bites."

- what the hell is your problem? - [ethan] it's a studio film, but kind of feels like an indie movie, talking about not selling out while trying also not to sell out. labeling a generation that despised being labeled. - define irony. - irony, irony. - [david] reality bites was put to us as a representation, - you guys better not be inhaling. - of "us." - the assignment was to write a movie about people in their twenties as a 20 year old. the premise is basically what happens after college, but before you have a family of your own. so your friends are kind of your family. - and this is just a story of some regular people that exist right now. people can call it generation x, but i don't think that the generation knows enough about itself or has been around long enough to be anything. i am really in love with you. (laughs) is that what you want to hear? - if we seem withdrawn emotionally,

i think it's because we distrusted sincerity. i think the movie is not perfect in the way that a diary is not perfect. like a diary was self-important, it's messy and it's overwritten in places, and that's why it's so embarrassing. - i was really gonna be something by the age of 23. - everyone who made the film was under 30. whatever we were saying, it was literally us saying it as 20 year olds. we were just speaking our truth. mr. clean ultra foamy magic eraser? it's more magic than ever. scrubbing power of magic eraser, cleaning power of dawn? it's the power of two in one! it makes bathroom soap scum here... disappear! compared to sprays, ultra foamy cleans up to 100% of dirt grease and grime with just water alone. magic! it makes this ring... a thing of the past! it makes you forgetti... about baked on spaghetti!

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- i remembered really crystal clear now.g the first report in june of '81 was of five gay men from los angeles who had pneumocystis pneumonia. - [reporter] scientists at the national centers for disease control in atlanta today released the results of a study which shows that the lifestyle of some male homosexuals has triggered an epidemic

of a rare form of cancer. - i really did get chills up and down my spine because i knew that we were dealing with a new disease. - [news reporter] bobby campbell is fighting for his life, one of a rapidly growing group whose battle has fascinated and frightened modern medicine. - i made a decision in that i was gonna just start admitting these young men who had advanced disease, and then we finally found the name for it. (dramatic music) - this country's newest four letter word, aids. (dramatic music) (protestors shouting) - you look at the civil rights movement, and you look at the women's liberation movement, the next obvious movement was going to be gay liberation. (parade music) and it was all set to happen, and then bam, bam. reagan combined with the aids crisis in the 1980s. (mimics explosion)

it knocked the gay liberation movement back by 20 years. - [ethan] for our generation, a scary new disease arriving just as we were coming of age changed how we thought about sex. - it was awful, it was fucking terrible. - [new reporter] aids is a killer that does not discriminate. - [tony] i was out of high school when the fear mongering was in full swing. - if you guess wrong and pick the wrong partner, the penalty is death. - [ethan] it was all of a sudden potentially dangerous. still, aids was, for the most part, something that happened to people who were older than us, - [news reporter] ryan white is 13 years old, a hemophiliac, and contracted aids last december after receiving a blood transfusion. - [ethan] until ryan white. - in the middle of this mix, when all of this is happening, this little kid in the midwest was thrown out of school because he tested positive. - but i'm making the decision on the basis of protection of the other 2000 students.

- my daughter's in two of his classes, and i will not permit her to be in those classes with him. - and he became this symbol of the expanding pandemic around hiv and the expanding epidemic of hate and fear. - if he sneezes or anything, kids can get it. - no, i don't want her to be around ryan because of the aids. - [lee] because i am gay, my mother told me, "you know, you should stay in la because i don't want you around the grandkids, you know?" and she loves me. - people in the usa diving used to have team meetings that i wasn't invited to because they had to figure out who was gonna room with the fag. - any man, woman, boy, or girl that will practice homosexuality- - my uncle had aids in the south. like that conversation was never had, and he passed away when i was 11. my dad actually was the only one who ended up, of the family, going to his funeral. - [greg] if somebody came over to their house that was hiv positive, people would say, "oh no, you can't come in here."

you know? and if they find out after you went to the bathroom, say, "oh my god, everybody get out of the house." that's how naive and stupid we were. - you know, no matter what people say about you, you still have to stand up for what you know is right. - [ethan] ryan white helped us realize that we didn't need to be afraid of hiv positive people. and that aids was not just a disease that affected gay men, but gay men were the hardest hit, and more were dying every day. - anybody who knew one person who died in that period of mass death, knew many people. i still have a book in which i would inscribe the names of those who had died so that they wouldn't be forgotten. - it took a while before the queer community in the country worked up the nerve to launch a national movement. (protestors chanting) - [bryant] playwright, larry kramer, founded act up. good morning, mr. kramer. - good morning, mr. gumbel.

- how would you define the objectives of act up? - we want to end the aids epidemic. - larry kramer gives a speech at the gay and lesbian community center on west 13th street in new york. he tells half the room to stand up, and he says, "that's how many of you are gonna be dead if we don't take to the streets." two weeks after that, i turn on the tv, and there's the demo. they were blocking traffic, over a hundred people arrested. and i was like, "oh, that's power." the new activism started. (dramatic music) we put on a show. (laughs) we had all this queer creativity. i mean, look at broadway, the visuals are gonna be tight. we're gonna have our chants ready. but kramer was right. if we did nothing, they were gonna let us all die. so, shit or get off the pot. (protestors chanting) - [news reporter] nearly a thousand aids activists converged with a noisy demonstration at the national institutes of health in bethesda, maryland. - sure enough, they came to the nih campus,

and they really demonstrated in a very theatrical way. i was looking out from the window over down at the bottom, and peter decided he wanted to do something to really call attention. so we jumped on the overriding canopy over the entrance. so i ran down immediately from my office. by the time i got there, he was already in handcuffs, and i ran up and he said, "tony, i did it. i got arrested. i told you i would." - and it worked. (protestors chanting) - [ethan] act up forced the government to pay attention. - [protestors] release the drugs now. - [ethan] the drugs got cheaper, the treatments got better, and if there was anyone still in denial, that was about to end. - [news reporter] here comes magic johnson toward the podium. - magic johnson is the biggest star in the nba in '91. he is at the apex of american sports. - um, because of the hiv virus that i have obtained,

i will have to retire from the lakers. - when he announced that he had hiv, i remember i was like, a ripple effect. - his condition shatters what has been a kind of national denial about the reach of the aids virus. - i mean, i know guys who had dates that night, didn't touch the girl, didn't even come close. they're like, "oh hell no." we have to recalibrate our sexuality for a minute. we thought magic was gonna die immediately. no one had any real information. - [ethan] but he didn't die and neither did hundreds of thousands of other americans who found a way to live with hiv. - i was all of 27. i got my results back. they came back positive. - at my 33rd birthday, i thought i was saying goodbye to all my friends because i thought i was on my way out. - i thought i was gonna lose everything. i thought i had about two years to live,

and i was gonna lose my job. i was gonna lose my family and my life. - every time i'd get a sniffle, every time i'd cough, i'd think, "oh my god, this is it." - [ethan] 700,000 americans have died from aids, but today, over a million americans are living with hiv. - they gave me six months, and apparently somebody else has another plan. - i got the right treatment, and i'm still here. - if you just take one pill once a day, you can live to old age. and that's, that's a miracle. (dramatic music) (luke) homes-dot-com is a new, elevated home-shopping experience. beautiful design, tremendously rich content, and, my favorite touch, it's the only site that always connects you to the listing agent. feels like a work of art! (marci) lovely. what about the app? (luke) uh-oh! look what i did. it's ringing. hello? hello?

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claims he will not withdraw from kuwait. - [female news anchor] more than two thousand troops from the 82nd airborne division and other units have been dispatched. (dramatic music) - george h. w. bush attacks iraq. (bomb explosions) ya know, i didn't remember vietnam, but the invasion of iraq was the first time that americans were watching a war 24/7. - there's this tremendous anxiety in the united states that this is gonna be another vietnam. iraq is the fourth or fifth largest army in the world. we're gonna get bogged down in this incredibly bloody fight. (men cheering and yelling) and we win in a hundred hours. - bush's ratings skyrocket, higher than any president has ever gotten at that point. - [female news anchor] president bush's record-breaking popularity has the democrats up against a wall. how can the democrats possibly beat that? (crowd clapping) - the world's dying to know, is it boxers or briefs? (laughter, crowd clapping)

- [bill clinton] usually briefs. (crowd clapping and cheering) - [ethan] after two terms of reagan, and one term of bush, it felt like no one under sixty five was ever gonna be president. bill clinton thought he could change that. - that is why today i proudly announce my candidacy for president of the united states of america! (crowd cheering) - bill clinton said he was running for office three months before the first primary. he was not a household name. - [tv anchor] forty-five years old, a lawyer, rhodes scholar, governor of arkansas. - [female news anchor] clinton cast himself as an innovative alternative to what he called "the vision-less leadership of george bush". - on the one hand, bush was seen as a figure of the past. a remainder man of the wasp ascendancy. on the other hand, bill clinton was seen as a new generation of politicians, the boomer generation. - i'm generation x.

now, my dad, ya know who grew up in the 1950's, was terrified of bill clinton. he thought he was basically this dissolute hippie. he was the apotheosis of baby boomers, it's the kind of people who, ya know, skipped vietnam. - [female news anchor] charges about draft-dodging are haunting bill clinton once again. - took drugs. - i didn't like it. and didn't inhale, and never tried it again. - who didn't work hard played by all the rules. - i was bill clinton's lover for twelve years. - there was a lot of resentment around that. - governor clinton's private life has become the overriding issue in the democratic presidential campaign. you're categorically denying that you ever had an affair with gennifer flowers? - i've said that before. - hillary went on television to defend him, but also really wanted to make the point that she wasn't just conservative, old-fashioned, stand by your man at any cost kind of woman. - i'm sitting here because i love him, and i respect him, and i honor what he's been through, and what we've been through together, and ya know

if that's not enough for people, then heck, don't vote for him. - not shown during the interview, the lights crash down. - jesus, mary and joseph! - and bill instinctively moved to protect hillary. - oh gosh, that was scary. - are you all right? - oh, i'm all right! - they did stand by each other in fact. - [ethan] to win, clinton was gonna have to run up to score with my generation. - you realize there's twenty six million people, all between the ages of eighteen to twenty four? twenty six million people! - [ethan] most of us were voting for the first time, so we were up for grabs. so he came to us. - [female news anchor] bill clinton added some unconventional campaigning to his tuesday appearances, the arkansas governor did a guest shot on the arsenio hall show, complete with blues brothers sunglasses, flower tie, and saxophone. - he went on tv and he played the saxophone. he was really handsome, he was charming, he had a twinkle in his eye. a lot of young people thought he was cool.

(crowd cheering) - the big man! he was electrifying. - he spoke in a language that we would understand. and he did it in spaces where those young eyes were. like on mtv. - joining us is arkansas governor bill clinton. governor welcome. - [girl] what was your first rock and roll experience? - did you play any sports? - [girl 2] what's your sign? - if you could play in any band which one would it be? - do you personally participate in recycling? - if you had it to do over again, would you inhale? (crowd laughing and clapping) - i'm very skeptical, and i'm also very cynical. - sure if i could, i tried before. (crowd laughing and clapping) - it's just like you could just see it was all just pandering. (crowd cheering) but after two terms of reagan, and then a term of george bush, it was a breath of fresh-like air. (music and cheering) - on this day, the american people have voted to make a new beginning.

(crowd yelling and cheering) - bill clinton wins as the avatar of this rising generation. - clinton prevails against what had seemed an invincible foe. by emphasizing his own youth, with a message that is saying "our best days are ahead as americans", and it works. (crowd cheering) - it mattered that we felt seen by bill clinton. that we felt included. i think that's part of his appeal to gen-xers. but there are things on the horizon that are gonna taint that legacy in a significant way. (bell chimes) check out mahomes scrambling into t-mobile to get the new iphone 16 pro, built for apple intelligence. cuz is holding it up like it's a baby lion! now at t-mobile.com get the new iphone 16 pro on us. and families can save 20% every month versus the other big guys. you'll love this! centrum silver is clinically proven to support memory in older adults. so you can keep saying... you mastered it! you fixed it! you nailed it! you did it!

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most teeth whitening toothpaste brands use harsh ingredients but i made the switch to lumineux non-toxic teeth whitening toothpaste about a year ago and haven't looked back. this toothpaste is truly non-toxic and uses real ingredients like dead sea salt, coconut oil, and lemon peel oil so it'll deep clean your teeth and whiten your teeth without any sensitivity. i recommend this toothpaste to everyone and they always have the same response. kyle, why did you not tell me about this sooner? find lumineux toothpaste at a walmart and target. - i totally rejected the idea of making videos kyle, why did you not tell me about this sooner? that were like the videos that were on mtv. find lumineux toothpaste at a walmart and target. i didn't lip sync until eleven years after the band started. it just seemed really fake, and dumb, and my generation had established this idea of integrity and this idea of not being fake, and not selling out. - you just, you didn't sell out, and being a sellout was a bad thing. - don't be disingenuous, don't be like the 80s.

- [man on tv] grunge is hot! - when the things you loved started getting popular, was really exciting, and really disorienting, and kind of upsetting all at the same time. - underground culture had never been embraced by the mainstream really, and there was a fear that the art would be compromised, and ya know there was a litmus test, who is gonna remain authentic to who they've always been and who is gonna be corrupted by money. - flannel shirts, the seattle grunge look was very very big. - okay. (dramatic music) - you were telling me that a city to watch in the new year is seattle, why? - absolutely. seattle they say it's a livable city. it's also a hot city for music. - seattle wasn't even a city that a lot of bands visited on their tours, because they were out of the way, they weren't major markets. but in places like minneapolis, athens, you started to see the growth of all these regional scenes. and what that does is it encourages a lot of the musicians in the city to form bands to entertain themselves.

- [ethan] from seattle, came grunge. and we saw that it was good. - it sounds like some thing that's rotting in a basement ya know like scuzzy, disgusting stuff. (rock music playing) - [ethan] soundgarden. mud honey. alice in chains. pearl jam. but the flagship band, was nirvana. (band playing) - nirvana was an honest expression of not being ashamed to put your angst on the front page. - kurt cobain was a young hesher, ya know a bit like black sabbath band, but he also had an ear for beatles-esque tunes and was into sonic youth and other like, weirder bands. - i was actually in new york interviewing a band

for thrasher magazine, and someone from the label said "hey we have this new nirvana." and they put it on in this room and... ♪ smells like teen spirit - everyone stopped what they were doing and everyone looked around, and you just knew. like, you knew this is it. ♪ i found it hard, it's hard to find ♪ ♪ oh well, whatever, nevermind - i remember listening to it and going "holy crap". it was a revelation. - for a child who was raised in a southern baptist home that was told never to watch mtv. i was like what is this? it was like my eyes were wide open. - me and the anarchy cheerleaders just felt like something is suddenly being expressed and just like, barfing out of your tv screen. - i was maybe twelve, watching nirvana on snl play

"smells like teen spirit", and i expressed verbally to my sister, "this makes me feel like nothing matters". and i remember just being spiritually crushed and also totally liberated. (strings crescendo) (crowd cheering) - i don't know how it just was like oh, we have a new world order. - [ethan] "nevermind" rocketed to number one, and dethroned the king of pop. - they're moving units. and that's when the major label world wakes up. - [ethan] suddenly, grunge was everywhere. there was "singles," a movie set in seattle, with cameos from pearl jam and soundgarden. then came lollapalooza, also featuring pearl jam and soundgarden. selling out cities across america. - you see grunge go from being this underground form of music, what they called alternative music, to not being the alternative, but being the thing in the center.

- [tv reporter] the grunge look is an urban lumberjack, anything-goes ensemble of duck boots, tattered shirts, and long underwear. - my perception of grunge is it was the next phase of hippie-dom. it was sloppy, it was tattered. - my parents will look at me and be like, "did you pay for those jeans?" yes, i paid for these jeans. and it's the worst joke ever, if you are of the boomer generation, do not make that joke. (laughter) - what does it stand for? - you know it's really funny, i've always been considered a slob, ya know, and now i'm in fashion. all of a sudden, i'm hip! - you even had heroin chic, which was making models look like they were strung out. i mean, this is kind of where things were. - all of a sudden, people who had had something very very underground and tribal, it was no longer their personal secret to keep. - ya know, i went to umass, and my friend's roommate had a nirvana garbage can, and it was like what? what? - i don't- i know that i'm too stubborn to allow myself to ever compromise our music.

- because of nirvana there was a little moment there where you could be like "no i'm not selling out, you know, you wanna come to me you come on my terms". - trying too hard to be cool was worse than any social crime you could commit. can you picture kurt cobain, taking a selfie with a straight face? - we're not as popular as everyone thinks, we're not as rich as everyone thinks, ya know. - as we know, cause we now have access to his journals, he really did want to be a star. he wanted to be in the biggest rock band in the world, which he achieved. but at the same time, he really didn't want to be seen as wanting that. - it was this tightrope that he had to walk. - [interviewer] you like fatherhood? - vodka? yes i love vodka. - he had an incredible sense of humor. he was really playful, and really fun, and really funny. when he was in a good way. when he was in a bad way, he was in a bad way. - hi i'm kurt loder with an mtv news special report on a very sad day. kurt cobain, the leader of one of rock's most gifted and promising bands, nirvana, is dead.

cobain's body was found at a house in seattle on friday morning, he was dead of an apparently self-inflicted shotgun blast to the head. - [ethan] everyone in our generation remembers this day. - i didn't want to believe that he would kill himself. - i'm shocked. he could have gone so much more places with his talent. - i just keep seeing his face and just like i just don't understand it, that's all. - in 1980, when john lennon was assassinated, the nation stopped. years later when kurt cobain died, and gen-xers said "this was our hero", the baby boomers refused to acknowledge that kurt cobain could have that much meaning. that in some sense encapsulates the way that gen x thinks about itself. we mattered... what happened in those decades mattered. - a generation never ends. a generation carries on. i relate to kurt because i was there. and later on in my life i became suicidal, and i'm fortunate to still be here. so i got a responsibility to talk about it.

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and he has a gun at his head. - i didn't understand if this was a tv show, or the news. - the nba finals were on, and then they did picture-in-picture of the white bronco chase, like "this is the greatest entertainment of all time". - it would be like lebron rolling down the 405. - like, that's not gonna happen these days. - [reporter] o.j. simpson is almost back home. [crowd yelling, juice! juice! juice!] - you knew from then that "oh my god, it's on". - [reporter] o.j. simpson has given up tonight. the stand off, which has been going on all day long, has ended peacefully. - we're gonna be inundated with this for, you know, however long this takes. - [reporter] tonight, o.j. simpson is in a los angeles jail cell. - [renée graham] and we were. - [male voice] o.j. simpson could be facing the death penalty. (crowd cheering, music playing) - there was something about football that i was attracted to cause they were kinda like super heroes to me. and i remember every season i had to have number 32.

there was just something about the grace, and beauty, that o.j. ran with. he had the hertz commercial! - there's only one super star in rent-a-car. hertz! - with him running through the airport! - go, o.j., go! - and then, then oh my god, he was brilliant in the "naked gun" movies! - until the murders happened, o.j. simpson was the person that i wanted to be. he was my superman. - [news reporter] la's criminal courts building is now the headquarters of hype. this story is being told by journalists from more than 100 news organizations. - [protesters] oj the juice, guilty of abuse. - [news reporter] t-shirts and buttons and souvenirs are for sale. - [judge ito] how do you plead to counts one and two? - [oj simpson] absolutely, 100% not guilty. - [ethan] it was a made for television courtroom drama. - i remember the trial was the only thing on tv and the only thing people talked about.

- there was something for everyone in oj. it was a sports star. it was murder. it was interracial relationship. - [reporter] defense attorney f. lee bailey grilling detective mark fuhrman about allegations he's a racist cop with a motive to frame simpson. - did you see a star war... no. did you go to... nah. oh, i gotta get up and work. no, you're not going to work no more. it was so captivating. it was so hypnotizing and intense. - these allegations get more outrageous by the minute. - [ethan] marcia clark. - it's the filthiest, dirtiest, nastiest word in the english language. - [ethan] chris darden. - this is a blockbuster. this is a bombshell. - [ethan] johnny cochran. all of them became celebrities in their own right. - the latest ruckus, prosecutor marcia clark's new do. nbc's kelly o'donnell has a report. - [kelly] marcia clark is playing it straight. gone are the trademark curls. - [journalist] what do you think of marcia's hair? (laughing) - it's come to this. - watching oj simpson go on trial

was the first time i really understood intersectionality. oj may have been black, but he wasn't black in the same way that i was black. he wasn't black in the same way that rodney king was black. - [tv reporter] simpson smiling. johnny cochran laughing, as prosecutors struggle to explain why the killer's bloody gloves did not appear to fit oj simpson. - he had money and influence and could wheel those things to get the best lawyers available to him. - if it doesn't fit, you must acquit. if it doesn't fit, you must acquit. - and watching that, i was like, oh, this is not like if me or somebody i knew was accused of a crime. this is like celebrity. this is theater. - i've always wondered, is there really a difference between the trial of a century and a circus? because they seem to go hand in hand. - it became a joke on the tonight show with jay leno and the dancing itos. - the dancing itos with special guest, marcia clark! ladies and gentlemen! - i'm so saturated by the irresponsibility of the media

that i'm beyond being outraged. i mean, i'm almost numb to it at this point. - this isn't a punchline. this is murder. - [kelly] today, the final act in what has been a national obsession. whatever verdict is read later today, los angeles police are prepared, but don't expect trouble. - as an african american, i did not want oj simpson to be guilty. - [judge ito] all right mr. simpson, would you please stand and face the jury? i remember they wheeled the tv into the lunchroom. there was such a big deal that this stopped school. - i remember being in the newsroom the day that the verdict came in. a black friend of mine had an office. and all the black people kind of went into his office to watch the verdict. we just knew that if he was acquitted, it was going to be a thing. - everybody felt like they fucked over us so many times and there's so many of us in jail for shit that we didn't do, let us get off for once. - [ethan] over 100 million americans were watching,

live at 10:00 am pacific time, as the jury announced its verdict. - [jury forewoman] we the jury in the above entitled action, find the defendant, orenthal james simpson, not guilty of the crime of murder, a felony upon nicole brown simpson. (horns honking) (crowd screaming, cheering) we the jury and the above entitled action, find the defendant orenthal james simpson, not guilty of the crime of murder, a felony upon ronald lyle goldman, a human being as charged in count two of the information. (crowd screaming) (horns honking) - i'd like to think of it as like a racial rorschach test. - i think the jury made excellent decision. you know, what are you gonna do? - i think he's guilty as hell. - money talks, (beep) walks. - white people were mad as hell. - i think it's the biggest miscarriage of justice and i am ashamed to be an american right now. - go find the killer. oj is innocent.

- that was the trial of the century. - finally, we shall overcome. - but what was really on trial was race in america. - i can't believe what's happening to our country. - [interviewer] what do you mean by that? - i think, you know. when a tough cough finds you on the go, a syrup would be... silly! woo! hey! try new robitussin soft chews. packed with the power of robitussin... in every bite. easy to take cough relief, anywhere. chew on relief, chew on a ♪ robitussin ♪ some people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance by checking allstate first. okay, let's get going. can everybody see that? like you know to check your desktop first, before sharing your screen? ahh..uhhh. no, that, uhhh. so check allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds.

[♪♪] so chdid you know,first there's a detergent that gets your dishes up to 100% clean, even in an older dishwasher? try cascade platinum plus. for sparkling clean dishes even on the toughest jobs. just scrape, load and you're done. switch to cascade platinum plus. - [tv reporter] nbc news has confirmed that independent counsel kenneth starr, is investigating allegations that president clinton may have pressured a 24 year old former white house intern to lie about whether she had an affair with the president. - clinton was the first political scandal to play out largely on the internet. - [news reporter] someone leaked the story to internet gossip columnist, matt drudge, who quickly sped the story on its way online. - there's serious problems of sexual malfeasance in the white house. - was a big deal. it was a big deal. - it's as close to a watergate as we got in our generation for sure. - i did not have sexual relations with that woman.

indeed i did have a relationship with ms. lewinsky that was not appropriate. in fact, it was wrong. - [reporter] she is monica lewinsky, who was at the time, a 21 year old white house intern. - after a president has quit, after a president has been shot, the idea that a president could get a blowjob suddenly was no longer the end of some type of innocence. - [ethan] politicians did as politicians do. - he's disgraced the office and he should resign - [ethan] on the right they said clinton's presidency was toast. - there should not be a rush to judgment on what legal standard means high crimes and misdemeanors - [ethan] on the left, they said it is what it is. but that depends, of course. - it depends upon what the meaning of the word is, is. - i can't think of a single 18 or 19 year old,

who wouldn't be like, yeah i'll take a swing with the president. and i think it's absolutely ludicrous to deny it. it's power is sexy. i'm not even particularly fond of men but even i was like, yeah, he'd get it. - [tom brokaw] the future of the bill clinton presidency is in a locked vault in a congressional office building. the voluminous report of independent counsel ken starr, transcripts, depositions, video and audio tapes. - [brian williams] the report from ken starr is out. the details are tough to take decidedly not for the faint of heart. - oh my god. - [brian williams] the customers here at the java cafe are among the millions reading the starr report all over the country and around the world. - you knew it was going to say that he'd had an affair with monica lewinsky. you knew that it was going to say he had lied about that affair under oath. what you did not know was that the report was going to be extremely graphic. - [journalist] copies of kenneth starr's extraordinary report with all its graphic detail

of the president's sexual behavior went on sale hingtothis morning. the queue stretched around the block. - i was like an early "dot comer" so. i remember reading it online uh, and, - at one point, the report says she lifted up her jacket to expose the visible straps of her thong underwear. he fondled her. he performed oral sex. - that was basically like soft-core porn for that era. i distinctly remember being in the hallway of my high school in seattle, standing there against the lockers like gawking over this. there was a clear underlying feeling that like, who was this slut? - [depositioner] for the record, would you state your full name? - yes, monica samille lewinsky. - the people who were punished socially, politically, in the press, were monica lewinsky and hillary clinton and not bill clinton.

(reporters yelling) eporter]onica lewinsky, at the center of a presidential scandal, was surrounded last thursday. some would say trapped like an animal - it's always called the monica lewinsky scandal. it's never called the bill clinton scandal. - [reporter] the monica lewinsky scandal. - [reporter 2] the monica lewinsky scandal. - [reporter 3] the lewinsky matter. - all the language used to describe her... - what a saxophone player that monica lewinsky turned out to be. (laughing) - yes, he was impeached but he also skated out of that white house known as the big dog with a kind of sexualized admiration. - kind of stunned that he lied to us all, you know, all that stuff. but you know, i still, i forgive him. and i think everyone else should because he's been trying to do his best. - bill clinton's reputation has taken a hit or three but he's always going to be former president bill clinton. and she is always going to be the intern who had sex with him. this is a human being and this was a profound trauma that she endured. - [brian williams] said lewinsky quote, "i never expected to fall in love with the president. i was surprised that i did."

at times, she believed he loved her too. - i don't know that i really understood how horrible we were at the time. and later on realizing, wow, that was just my own sexism and misogyny embedded in me that i didn't even know i had. - you know, we've become more enlightened to an extent as a culture. we understand things like power dynamics now. we can look at something like that and understand that there's more than meets the eye. - i think we're at a moment where we're in desperate need of more middle ground and desperate need for the understanding that we're all flawed. and we all screw up. and none of us wants to be judged by the worst thing we did. and that all of us yearns for the opportunity for redemption. - [ethan] in the end, maybe that's the lesson for this generation.

we don't wanna be judged for what we live through, if we wanna be remembered at all. we want to be remembered for the things we did, the sights we saw, the art we created. our generation, for all its ups and downs, reminded everyone of a few universal truths. be bold. be stylish. be yourself. be independent. get lost sometimes. work hard, play hard, but don't get greedy. learn how to do nothing, perfectly. tell the truth even when it's hard. love each other. keep a part of your soul that is not for sale. don't take yourself too seriously. don't expect a trophy. and, always wear sunscreen. - when i think of gen x, we're the ones that get shit done without all the fanfare. - the default philosophy for a gen x kid was like, just do it.

be self-reliant. set your own goals. figure things out. so if i had any words of advice, don't wait for the praise. go do it. i don't know, figure it out. (orchestral music) (orchestral music) former president donald trump and his allies continue to lie about the federal response