And now it’s time to break down the remaining five moments and/or trends I believe defined and shaped pop culture in the last ten years.
In case you missed it, click here to read my first five.
- LGBTQI Representation – The 2010s was a very successful decade for LGBTQI representation, with significant strides being made in the media portrayal of various members of the community. It was a particularly significant decade for transgender representation in mainstream media and pop culture. We saw the breakout of various transgender actors/actresses and activists, including Laverne Cox, Jazz Jennings, Janet Mock and more; as well as the first mainstream television show featuring a core cast of transgender actors, i.e. Pose. The decade also saw a significant rise in the representation of people of color of the LGTBQI community. Per GLAAD’s 2018 annual diversity report, it was found that for the first time ever, LGBTQI people of color actually outnumbered white LGBTQI characters across various entertainment and media shows. Moonlight, a film featuring the story a young gay black man, won Best Picture at the Academy Awards, in 2017. There is still a long way to go but very important steps were made in terms of members of the LGBTQI community seeing themselves represented in mainstream media.
- The Reign of Queen Bey – When the decade started, we were still recovering from the reign of Sasha Fierce and all likely still doing the Single Ladies dance. The world was pumped and ready for what Queen Bey was going to deliver next. And then came 4. Now don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a bad album. In fact, it was actually a very good album. But it wasn’t exactly what the world had come to expect from Beyonce. And so the album did merely okay, with the lead single Girls (Who Runs the World), a pale shadow of the success of Single Ladies. However, what many did not yet realize, is that 4 was only the warm-up act for what was to come. The 2010s Beyonce was no longer the young woman from Destiny’s Child. She was now a wife and in early 2012, became a mom. And on New Year’s Eve, 2013, the world got to hear just how much she’d grown into a more sexually confident, bold and aggressive woman, with the release of the self-titled, Beyonce album. With no warning, the pop culture universe went into mass Beyonce meltdown when just before the clock struck midnight in 2014, Queen Bey unleashed her boldest album to date. And then came Lemonade in 2016. Where the Beyonce album was intimate on a sexual and passionate level, Lemonade brought us into the singer’s life on a deeply personal level she’d never shared before. It was angry, heartbreaking, aggressive, inspiring and hopeful. As the decade comes to a close, the cult of Beyonce shows no signs of slowing down. Bow down, indeed.
- Marvel Dominates – It all began with a little film called Iron Man, in 2008. A lot was riding on the success or failure of the film, as it was the first major motion picture produced by Marvel Studios. Up to this point, while many of Stan Lee’s legendary Marvel characters had been immortalized on film, most notably Spiderman, they had all been produced and owned by various other motion picture studios. Any fears were soon squelched, as the film soared at the box office, grossing over $500 million worldwide, proving to be a critical as well as commercial success. By the start of the decade, Marvel Studios had followed up the success of Iron Man with the releases of The Incredible Hulk and the equally successful Iron Man 2. That was only the beginning and a mere morsel of what was to come. Marvel would go on to dominate the box office throughout the 2010s, releasing a total of 20 films, including the critical and commercial blockbusters Black Panther and Avengers: Endgame. And the studio’s reign on the box office shows no sign of slowing down, heading into the 2020s, having just announced the cast and films for Phase Four of the franchise’s legacy.
- Taylor Swift – Whether you love her or hate her, it’s hard to deny the formidable force that was Taylor Swift in the 2010s. Whether it was breaking records on the music charts, selling out stadiums around the world, speculation, and gossip about her love life or feuds with Kimye and Scooter Braun, Ms. Swift was hard to escape this past decade. 2010 started with Swift still riding high on the success of her Grammy Award-winning album Fearless. Speak Now, her third full-length studio album, would soon follow later that year, though not to the same level of success as Fearless. It would also be the last of Swift’s albums to be considered “country”. 2012’s Red was critically considered one of, if not her best work. However, it was 2014’s 1989 that introduced the music world to full-fledged Pop Queen Taylor Swift. Shedding all pretenses of being country, Swift wholly embraced her new pop persona, complete with the sounds of legendary pop music producer, Max Martin. 1989 would grant Swift her biggest selling album to date and her second Album of the Year win at the Grammy Awards (*cough, Kendrick was robbed, cough*). It was and currently still is, the highest commercial and critical point of her career. Of course, you know what they say, the higher you reach, the greater the fall. And while Swift is still seeing strong success with her music, some incredible personal woes followed the success of 1989. It started with her breakup with Calvin Harris, which was soon followed by an inescapable whirlwind romance with Tom Hiddleston. A relationship that left many scratching their heads and mocking the two mercilessly. To no one’s surprise, the relationship died as quickly as it started. Then came a revival of the Taylor vs. Kanye saga, complete with Kim Kardashian exposing videos suggesting that Swift lied about having knowledge of Kanye’s controversial song Famous, prior to its release. #TaylorSwiftisOver quickly began trending all over social media and mayhem ensured. Swift disappeared from the public eye for almost a year and a half, returning with her album Reputation, for which she did virtually no media promotion, saving all her responses to the controversy, for the songs on the album. As the decade comes to a close, Swift is locked in a vicious legal battle with Scooter Braun and her former label manager, Scott Borchetta, over ownership of her Masters. Oh, and she also starred in Cats, which bombed spectacularly at the box office (if you want to see what true savagery is, I suggest reading some of the reviews for the film if you haven’t already). It’s not all bad though. She is ending the year with the number one selling album for the year, with Lover and she’s seemingly very happy in what is at this point her longest relationship, with British actor Joe Alwyn. As you can probably tell, this turned out to be the longest paragraph of this post. Because as I said at the start, love or hate her, it’s hard to deny the dominance Taylor Swift has had on pop culture in the last decade – be it professionally or personally.
- MeToo/TimesUp Movement – It all started in October 2017, when The New York Times and The New Yorker, simultaneously published bombshell articles alleging that Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein had sexually harassed, abused and raped dozens of women over multiple decades. The article spread like wildfire and soon took on a whole new life when multiple women publicly came out to share their own stories of being harassed, abused or raped by Weinstein. One of the most famous names to come forward was Gwyneth Paltrow, who admitted that in her early days of working with Weinstein and his legendary studio Miramax, the former inappropriately came on to her. As more women came forward, other women felt more emboldened to share their stories and soon a wave of social activism against the systemic abuse of men in the industry against women, erupted. Actresses, writers, directors, crew members, etc. all came forward to share their stories of being harassed in some form or another or sometimes violently assaulted by fellow actors or male directors, producers, etc. Along with Weinstein, the movement saw the takedown of once-legendary entertainers like Bill Cosby, R. Kelly, news media mogul Roger Ailes and news anchors Bill O’Reilly and Matt Lauer, just to name a few. It is hard to say yet how much the industry has truly been changed for the better since the movement began. Some criticism has even been sparked, with a few voices declaring that it was less a movement and more a trend/fad that will disappear as quickly as it started. Only time will tell of course, but if nothing else, the situation allowed for some very critical conversations about the struggles of women in the industry, at the hands of powerful men and more importantly, some of those once very powerful men are now paying for their crimes.
And because this would have been way too long, had I also discussed some of my favorite films, albums, books, etc. of the past decade, I’ve decided to end this article by simply listing my top five for each category. My favorite songs were impossible to pin down to only five and so that ended up being ten.
Movies
- Spotlight
- The Social Network
- The King’s Speech
- Moonlight
- Inside Out
Music
- 25 – Adele
- The Truth About Love – P!nk
- Recovery – Eminem
- Lemonade – Beyonce
- To Pimp a Butterfly – Kendrick Lamar
Books
- All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
- Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman
- More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera
- The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
- Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
Television Shows
- Mr. Robot
- The Crown
- Hannibal
- Stranger Things
- Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Songs
- Love the Way You Lie – Eminem feat. Rihanna
- Someone Like You – Adele
- Sorry – Beyonce
- The Blacker the Berry – Kendrick Lamar
- Dancing on My Own – Robyn
- Fire Away – Chris Stapleton
- Raise Your Glass – P!nk
- Happier – Ed Sheeran
- Young & Beautiful – Lana del Ray
- Chandelier – Sia
PoPnOgR@PhY 