Brokaw’s BOOMER$: Movers and Shakers, Consumers and Critics

I mentioned in a previous post on millennials that I have a thing for generational studies. It should come as no surprise, then, that I tuned in last week to the documentary Tom Brokaw Reports: Boomer$. Still airing on CNBC, Boomer$, as its name implies, explores the past and current states of the Baby Boom generation, those Americans born between 1946 and 1964. Here’s a teaser.

Brokaw’s Boomer$ begins at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, about 40 minutes north of where I currently live (and a stone’s throw from the nostalgic Michigan Theatre, about which I have also written on this blog). To start, Brokaw singles out a handful of boomers who have returned to U Michigan for homecoming weekend. Well-dressed, articulate, and looking a bit younger than her/his actual age, each subject appears to be living the same life: happy, prosperous, and one seemingly better than his/her parents’ — or those whom Brokaw has christened The Greatest Generation.

Brokaw interviews a University of Michigan alum.

After introducing these five Michigan alums and their families, Brokaw reveals several old photos that depict the now 60-year olds in their youth; unsurprisingly, the images feature flowers, bell-bottoms, polyester, and long hair. Then crosscutting back to the present, Brokaw invites us into the boomers’ current homes, which are large, plush, vibrantly colored, and filled with lots o’ furniture and pictures of family. It fitting that Brokaw begins here — with these representations, with these middle- and upper-middle-class boomers — because a discussion on money is where he’s headed. (I suppose the dollar sign in the title of the report and the documentary’s presence on CNBC should clue us into this as well.)

Like every generation, the Baby Boomers are a mixed bag. For instance, observe the good they’ve accomplished, all of which Brokaw’s Boomer$ considers in detail:

• Civil Rights
• Women’s Rights
• peaceful demonstrations
• the space race
• the creation of computers, video games, mobile phones, etc.
• the New Hollywood
• the music (yes, we all sincerely thank you for the music)

However, Brokaw also points out that Baby Boomers have contributed greatly to the downfall of our current economy. Unlike their parents, who survived The Great Depression by pinching pennies, boomers are consumers. They have, Brokaw says, “an insatiable appetite for real estate,” trading the traditional 1500-square-foot home for a modern mansion. Huge master bedrooms and kitchens are a must.

This excessive living combined with the current economy has also put many boomers in a bind, we learn. For example, some who once earned six figure salaries are now unemployed, unable to make house payments, and incapable of paying for their children’s education. In the same vein, Boomer$ suggests that the sheer size of this aging generation — 78 million, the largest ever — will likely burden our (already failing) healthcare system. Finally, at the end of the documentary, the tables are turned and a boomer interviews Brokaw, asking, “What do you think of our generation?” The reporter retorts rather swiftly and simply, “Unrealized.” And he leaves it at that.

Brokaw with boomer Tom Hanks.

I’d say that about 75% of Boomer$ features the generation’s accomplishments, and the remaining 25% considers Brokaw’s (valid) concerns about its spending habits and potential drain on healthcare. So overall, the Baby Boomers don’t come across too shabbily. Viewers like Gayle Fine, Todd Macke, and Matt Binder agree and further encourage their Twitter followers to DVR Brokaw’s documentary when they get a chance. Interestingly, one viewer even admits that Brokaw actually “cut [the boomers] a break.” S/he continues, for a “generation of narcissists who treated our own spouses like disposable cameras, our own children like personal accessories and spent the last 30 years gazing at ourselves in the mirror and buying stuff,” we are depicted rather well (ddrhh274). However, a quick search on blogs and Twitter reveals that several people — mostly boomers themselves, it appears — see Brokaw’s report with different eyes. Here is a sampling:

• Brokaw’s comment that he would sum up the boomers generation as “unrealized,” is insulting. His vaunted “greatest generation” never allowed a black man or a woman to run for president. Who does he think pioneered the invention and development of the plethora of technological advances in use today? Who does he think developed the medical technology now available to AIDS is no longer a death sentence? (Robert Kelly)
• To Brokaw: The Greatest Generation left us plenty to do. Boomers took on civil, gay and women’s rights. And you’re disappointed in US? (@CarolOrsborn)
• Sorry, but Brokaw has hated Boomers for years, and makes no bones about showing it. It’s a mistake to buy his book. (@marciamclean)
• Tom Brokaw the point of your “BOOMERS” is a ‘generation’ of Clintons of acting globally even without thinking first? (@jphoganorg)
• If they ever release a version of Boomers with Brokaw completely edited out, I’ll watch. He is a black hole of pompous boredom. (@Rocky1542)
• Brokaw calls boomers ”unrealized,” saying we were too cocky about our own authority & ability, set the bar too high and didn’t reach it. (@boomerconsumer)
• Brokaw on CNBC “Boomers!”: Waste of time. Surprised CNBC bothered to air it. Obviously no adult supervision during production. Gag. (@BruceDetterich)
• Watched Brokaw’s “Boomers’ for 14 min. He gets just about everything wrong & he can’t speak clearly. Now I know why it’s on CNBC. (@pauzul)
• [Brokaw] uses that old widely-discredited 1946-1964 Boomer definition at a time when most actual experts now divide that demographic boom in births into two distinct generations: the real Boomer Generation and Generation Jones. (commonsense)

I am a part of Generation X, the child of two baby boomers. I am also a film professor who has taught/studied cinema history and all of the internal and external events occurring between 1945-1960′s that changed Hollywood forever (e.g., the Paramount Decision, television, the end of WWII, McCarthyism, the move to suburbia, the disintegration of the Hays Code, the introduction of the ratings system, etc.). As a result, there is much in Tom Brokaw’s Boomer$ — good and bad — with which I agree, much about the generation that appears logical, convincing.

At the same time, I am also aware that documentaries, no matter who’s behind them — even the former Most Trusted Name in Nightly News — depict a mediated reality; in other words, they are in some ways slanted, representing “a reality” that is manipulated formally and stylistically. As a result, I suppose I also understand why some viewers see Boomer$ as “insulting” and “a waste of time.” Still, I wonder whether these opinions are mainly the result of hurt feelings, defensive behavior because the Baby Boom generation is portrayed with warts and all, in a less glorified light than The Greatest Generation? Then, I wonder just how I’ll subjective I’ll be if/when Brokaw produces a special on Gen-X…

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