90s ... Deficit, terrifying poverty and crazy wealth, the rise of racketeering and organized crime. This idea of this era was entrenched in the minds of those who did not find the 90s. But this is a one-sided look. The nineties are the era of boletus, cassettes and cigarettes. A time of new hopes, trips abroad, fashionable clothes and imported goods. The time when Russia had not yet fought with the decaying West. However, if you ask contemporaries: “What do the dashing nineties mean? "- then many will say that it is the lads, the splendor and the poor, the elite courtesans and sorcerers on TV. Parents told us about all these phenomena, as if composing a horror story for the night. Often, they themselves were not part of all this: they learned about the rumors by rumors, talked about vouchers that they did not hold in their hands, embellished stories about the fall of MMM, transmitted from mouth to gullible ears. Therefore, years go by, and stereotypes do not change. And each generation of new children represents the 90s when the country was swept by an epidemic of crime and debauchery, and only the hard pressure of a strong hand prevented the catastrophe.
However, this controversial era still excites creative people, and the young singer Monetochka is no exception. She decided in her song to tell about the nineties with the help of cliches, sometimes mistakenly reproduced, which were firmly entrenched in the thoughts of young people.
What is the song about?
In the nineties they killed people
And everyone ran completely naked.
There was no electricity anywhere
Only fights for jeans with Coca-Cola.
Then they “killed” the arrow and “chopped” cabbage. Old rules were rejected, and new ones have not yet been invented. New criminal authorities appeared, there were clashes between clans, and civilians suffered. Ordinary guys, yesterday’s schoolchildren, became bandits, then bankers, and sometimes deputies; and it was not necessary at that time to have a crust; the main attribute of a novice entrepreneur was a weapon that solved all problems. But not everything was so easy, sharks got wealth, and small fishes formed kilometer-long lines of people with coupons in their hands who received their rations. Then everyone was hungry, had to spin, survive.
Hanged crosses on homies
Strawberry blazers padded.
And to the dancing - blood from all ears
After all, only "Tender May" played on the radio.
So, one of the mistakenly reproduced stamps was a strawberry jacket. In fact, this indispensable attribute of the new Russians was crimson. Jeans. .. Almost every young man in the 90s dreamed about this wardrobe item. But jeans had to be necessarily branded, of Western origin. Yevgeny Yevtushenko in one of his stories described how hooligans attacked a passerby, took off his jeans and were disappointed that they were not of Yugoslav production. There were many such scarce goods. Coca-Cola, sneakers, chewing gum ... These usual things for us then could be obtained only with great difficulty, but this also had its own trick. There was little entertainment. Nevertheless, discos were organized where people danced, talked and, even if only for a while, forgot about hunger, poverty, and killings.
I was conceived in a video salon somewhere under shooting
Under the barking and howling
In the early nineties, video salons were on every corner, and very soon this profitable business began to fade. The new Russians had their own VCRs, and everyone else simply had no time for it. Russia is mired in criminal cases, where they shared stalls, video salons, and the most dangerous ones - even the country.
The work of prostitutes was considered the best chance to build a female career and promised excellent prospects, and the film "Intergirl" played an important role in the romanticization of this profession. Chernukha-style appeared, almost porn, but with the necessary elements of violence, murder and perversion. The novelty quickly came to taste, and all because "it was impossible before, but now everything is possible." ..
It is impossible not to say about the video clip for the song. The concept of the video was the film "Brother", and Monetochka tried on the image of the hero of the 90s Danila Bagrov.
And again, a reference to postmodernism, but this time in the clip itself. In the scene from the home party, we see the ironic connection of the times. Next to the poster of the Nautilus Pompilius rock band, a poster hangs on the wall where a black guy dances a top break dance in Marty McFly sneakers. Postmodernism conceptualizes that the past and the future are no more. There is no sequence of times.
Idea
The coin is ironic, mockingly speaking about what has become a real political weapon in modern Russia. When young people begin to say that everything is bad today, the authorities are doing nothing, the country is in decline, they are always answered one thing: what are you, and the 90s? Then it was hundreds of times worse, and better than that then. They use eloquent tales about murders and robberies, about the weakness of the police and politicians, about the heyday of mafia structures and terrorism, and, of course, that without, you yourself know, we would not have broken through the foreign seine into which we drove our golden fish. Any changes are equated with an attempt to return the nineties. According to the logic of the generation of fathers, it is better not to do anything at all, if only it would not be worse. And we live in the expectation that everything, as then, will be decided without us, but this is how days, months, years go, and nothing changes. You can already see how young mothers say to children: “But in the 90s ...”. I would like to add: "When you were 10 years old, and you hadn’t figured out anything yet."
It seems to me that the song plays out exactly the retrospective attitude to life when people look not forward but backward, nourishing their imagination with gloomy pictures from the past. They live by what was, not what will be. Such a worldview is actively fueled from the outside, because everything that we love to be proud of is already far behind. The great victory, the conquest of space, the achievements in industry - all this was, but there is nothing new. And whenever we ask, “Why?” - they tell us: “And there were the 90s, and then there was nothing. The country is only 20 years old, what do you want? ” Probably, to get people from another country ... but incidentally, nonsense, all speculation, the song is not about that, the author of the article just seemed.
In a word, the performer wanted to make fun of these excuses with which the past puts sticks in the wheels of the future. Few of those who scare with similar stories have actually experienced something similar. So, he says that he heard from friends or saw in the cinema, and this subjective reality of twenty years ago should not be taken on faith.
Epilogue
The dashing nineties must be remembered. This is a harsh history of Russia, which plunged into chaos and failed to timely restructure and adapt. But in this story there is room for goodies, innovations, breakthroughs and progress, whatever it may be. Probably, it was worth going through this thorny path in order to finally establish the necessary updates that ensure the vital functions of the entire apparatus. Or do you want like in North Korea?
So now, when we hear the phrase that young people are trying to intimidate: “Do you want it to be like in the 90s?”, We must answer not with a set of empty stereotypes, but with real historical facts, because the 90s for the current twenty-year-olds it is nothing more than a beautiful propaganda stamp or (for more advanced ones) a historical era in which you need to deal with the same skepticism as in the causes of the Battle of Kulikovo.
Ranger
