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CAT CARDENAS, LIFE&ARTS EDITOR | @thedailytexan Friday, March 4, 2016
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Illustration by Chester Omenukor | Daily Texan Staff
Lace up your high tops. Crank up some Nirvana. Break out the Scooby Snacks. With the Blanton Museum of Art’s latest exhibit, “Come As You Are,” bringing the 1990s back to campus, The Daily Texan explored the decade and everything that made it great. Boo-yah!
MUSIC
SPORTS By Kartik Sridhar
By Megan Hix
Dynasties don’t come often in sports, but the 1990s provided sports fans around the country with historically significant teams. Chicago, New York and Dallas were lucky enough to be home to storied franchises in the NBA, MLB and NFL, respectively. The Bulls of the 1990s were, on paper, one of the most prolific dynasties that professional sports have seen. Winning six titles between 1991 and 1998, coach Phil Jackson’s Bulls livened the city of Chicago with their two three-peats. Of the six championship teams, The 1996 Bulls set the record for wins in a regular season by finishing 72-10. Led by shooting guard Michael Jordan after his season-long retirement and short stint in the MLB, the 1995 Bulls created a benchmark for success that teams have unsuccessfully chased. This season’s Golden State Warriors, however, have high hopes of beating the record as they are currently on pace to do so. Interestingly, Golden State is coached by Steve Kerr, a former Bulls player who hit the crucial go-ahead shot against the Jazz to win the 1997 NBA Finals. While Kerr hopes to continue the Warriors’ exciting season behind the play of reigning MVP Stephen Curry, this season’s success will likely not overshadow Michael Jordan’s stardom and the Bulls’ presence on the court. While the contributions of small forward Scottie Pippen, sixth-man Toni Kucoč and power forward Dennis Rodman were instrumental in the success of the dynasty, Jordan’s persona lives on more than SPORTS page 5
While modern charts are dominated by pop anthems and rap mixtapes, the alternative sounds of the ‘90s still have a firm hold on today’s youth, even though many weren’t born early enough to remember the heyday of Nirvana or Bikini Kill. English associate professor Neil Nehring, who teaches a class on popular music and youth subcultures, said while many millennials may not consider grunge artists like Pearl Jam and Nirvana innovative, they were different enough from the hair bands of the ‘80s to interest a new generation in rock music. “[Nirvana was] so huge that all the people saying [rock was dead] had to shut up — specifically Nirvana shut them up — because here was this vital music that melded metal and punk,” Nehring said. “There were a lot of alienated young people and it really appealed to them.” Grunge and riot grrrl emerged out of the Pacific Northwest, but riot grrrl set itself apart by focusing on bands with feminist messages, like Sleater-Kinney and Bikini Kill. “Young women found a point of injecting themselves into rock music with riot grrrl,” Nehring said. “It’s one of the few subcultures that had people organizing beyond the music.” GRUNGE page 5
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MOVIES
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FASHION
By Cat Cardenas @crcardenas8
When Eazy-E or Wu Tang Clan’s RZA rapped, they took listeners to the streets and told them to pay attention. Rappers from East Coast to West Coast came onto the scene imbuing hip-hop with a message about the racial tensions that defined the ‘90s. Though the two hip-hop scenes were united in their message, rivalries emerged between the coasts, peaking during Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G’s infamous feud. In the West, rappers such as Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre epitomized gangster rap, with lyrics and funk beats that often glorified their drug use and violence. Rappers on the East Coast from Nas to Mobb Deep ushered in the East Coast Renaissance, known for it’s aggressive, hard-hitting style. Radio-television-film professor Craig Watkins and author of “Hip Hop Matters” said gangster rap and political rap were efforts to report what was going on in poor black communities. “Gangster rap was a window into the world of urban poverty,” Watkins said. “Groups are basically rapping about African-American history and social justice.” The rise of “reality rap” gave way to the trademark aggressive style of rap popular today seen RAP page 5 in artists like Kendrick Lamar.
TV
By Charles Liu
By Hannah Shih
By Stephen Acevedo
The films of the 1990s were defined by an emphasis on the real and the spectacular. During the decade, independent films, such as “Pulp Fiction,” “The Shawshank Redemption” and “Fargo” experienced considerable box office success. Radio-television-film professor Kathryn Fuller-Seeley explained the Hollywood conglomerates wanted to cash in on the profitable indie scene, developing independent studios such as Sony Pictures Classics and Fox Searchlight to produce their own arthouse pictures. “The market started to fall apart when too many indie films became expensive to make, so the major studios closed their indie divisions,” Fuller-Seeley said. “[Now] the smart money is instead going to edgy cable TV series and web series.” The modern blockbuster also arrived with Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park,” which brought the dinosaurs back from extinction with lifelike computer-generated effects. A slew of expensive, CGI-heavy summer pictures followed — the welladvertised “Independence Day,” the misguided remake of “Godzilla,” the cheeky “Men in Black” and the abysmal “Armageddon.” Then there was the phenomenon: James Cameron’s “Titanic,” which earned an unprecedented $2.1 billion at the box office. The tragic, epic romance launched Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet into superstardom and won a record 11 Oscars, tying with 1959 historical drama “Ben-Hur.” Fuller-Seeley attributed the success of “Titanic” to its appeal to women. Many of today’s biggest filmmakers made their mark during the ‘90S. The Wachowskis blew audiences away with “The Matrix,” Michael Bay wowed with “The Rock,” David Fincher asked what was in the box with “Se7en” and Quentin Tarantino delivered a gripping crime story in “Reservoir Dogs.” The ‘90s set the stage for the new millennium, establishing a new age of blockbusters, creating the foundation for our current TV landscape and bringing the film industry ever closer to making our fantasies even more real.
The fashion of the 1990s hearkens images of Liv Tyler circa her role in “Empire Records” dressed in oversized flannel, scuffed Doc Martins and faded ripped denim. Gold Reebok hi-tops, black opaque leggings and over-sized band T-shirts crowded the streets with a new minimalistic take on fashion, compared to the more ornate and showy trends of previous decades. Recognized as the anti-conformist fashion era, casual chic and grunge fashion soared in demand and alternative rock and hip-hop brought an unkempt, oversized fit to the forefront of ‘90s fashion. Textiles and apparel senior Marisa Garcia said the grunge era has remained a huge inspiration to her personal aesthetic. “I associate that style with rock and metal music I liked from that era like Primus, Rage Against the Machine, Smashing Pumpkins and Blink 182, so it’s not just a fashion trend, it was part of a scene that is nostalgic to me,” Garcia said. While UT textiles and apparel lecturer Ockhee Bego agrees that icons like neon-wearing Will from “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” impacted the trends of the time, she attributes the casual, free-form style of the ‘90s to the economic turnaround. “Fashion has a lot to do with the economy,” Bego said. “The ‘90s was when everything started to come back around. People got more comfortable with themselves, and they didn’t want to be restricted in any way at all — freedom.” This carefree attitude and individualized expression translated to flowy babydoll-cut dresses paired with white slouch athletic socks and bold, geometric prints. Though not quite FASHION page 5
The ‘90s brought about a new era of comedy, especially in television. Although the majority of current UT students were born in the latter half of the ‘90s, the influence of the decade on comedy did not go unappreciated by millennials. “I think the most important contribution the ‘90s had to comedy was its ‘Saturday Night Live’ lineup,” radio-televisionfilm sophomore Will Conant said. “The transition to people like Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, Chris Rock and David Spade brought a much edgier feel to popular comedy.” While “Saturday Night Live” was using sketch comedy to introduce new approaches to conventional humor and catapulting cast members into super stardom, shows like “Seinfeld” were breaking new ground for the traditional sitcom. “‘Seinfeld’ did something completely new by giving people a show that wasn’t ending each episode with a resolution to a conflict and moving forward with an overarching COMEDY page 5
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POLITICS By Megan Hix @meganhix95
As Republican and Democratic presidential candidates move further away from center, it’s easy to look back on the more bipartisan politics of the ‘90s as part of a “golden decade.” Brendan Gaughen, an American studies professor and Ph.D. student who teaches a class dedicated to the ‘90s, said the resurging nostalgia for the decade may say more about today’s affairs than the past. In this year’s presidential race, an increasing number of voters are lending support to anti-establishment candidates such as Sen. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Gaughen said the trend represents a slow shift away from the more moderate political leaders of the ‘90s.
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“Politics became a bit more polarized in the decade,” Gaughen said. “Generally along party lines, people become more liberal or conservative and those polls move further away from each other.” While young people in particular are drawn to these campaigns, English associate professor Neil Nehring, who teaches a class on youth subcultures, said many of the underlying causes important to young voters are the same today as they were 20 years ago. “Young people are always worried about their economic futures,” Nehring said. “In 1991, they were talking about young people wondering, ‘What’s out there for me,’ and that certainly hasn’t changed.” When it comes to the issues themselves, today’s candidates in both parties acknowledge policies that took root in the ’90s, such as President Bill Clinton’s 1994 crime bill, may require a second look. “There was definitely an increase in mass incarceration in the ’90s, particularly among populations of color,” Gaughen said. “I think we’ve definitely seen a resurgence in activism on that front with groups like Black Lives Matter in the past few years.”