{"id":689253,"date":"2025-11-13T19:18:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T16:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=689253"},"modified":"2025-11-13T19:18:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T16:18:10","slug":"how-a-tiny-independent-film-from-1995-changed-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=689253","title":{"rendered":"How a Tiny Independent Film from 1995 Changed The World"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On Monday, January 17, 1994, at 4:31 a.m., the Northridge Earthquake shook Los Angeles\u2019 San Fernando Valley, killing at least 57 people, injuring more than 9,000, and causing an estimated $35 billion in property damage. It was The Big One \u2014 the largest in the area since 1971. Shaking could be felt as far away as San Diego, Las Vegas, and Phoenix. The vibes were decidedly end times.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That morning, Johnathon Schaech and James \u201cJimmy\u201d Duval went to work. Schaech picked Duval up in his Toyota truck and drove them to the set of the movie they were starring in, The Doom Generation<\/em>, alongside then-unknown Rose McGowan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe go all the way to the Valley, and pieces of the freeway had fallen,\u201d Duval, now 52, says over lunch in South Pasadena, California, where he lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were both so naive to it,\u201d Schaech, 55, adds over a phone call from his home in Nashville. \u201cBuildings around us had collapsed. It was bizarre. No one really knew what was going on.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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They were too busy creating their own apocalypse. A small, independent film with a budget of $800,000 and directed by the budding auteur Gregg Araki (Nowhere<\/em>, Mysterious Skin<\/em>), The Doom Generation<\/em> wasn\u2019t a hit at the time. \u201cI ask that question a lot: \u2018How many people saw Doom Generation<\/em> in the theater?\u2019 And literally it\u2019s like three people,\u201d Araki joked in a 2023 interview with filmmaker Richard Linklater.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Photo12 \/ Why Not Productions \/ Teen Angst Movie Company \/ Alamy <\/div>\n

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But 30 years later, the second entry in Araki\u2019s so-called Teen Apocalypse Trilogy \u2014 which was restored and rereleased by the Criterion Collection last year \u2014 looks more prescient than ever. With its jumbled-up sex, violence, ironic comedy, and moments of deep sincerity, it was a peek at the confused world that would come out of so much collision.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Araki continued making films steadily through the late \u201990s and early 2000s, sticking to his artsy, indie roots, albeit with somewhat bigger budgets. The auteur took a 10-year break from film after the Shailene Woodley\u2013starring White Bird in a Blizzard<\/em>, creating Now Apocalypse<\/em> for Starz and picking up directing stints on Riverdale<\/em> and Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Then, last spring, it was reported that Araki had kicked off a new film project: a psychological thriller called I Want Your Sex<\/em> about an artist who hires a young man to be her \u201csexual muse.\u201d Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman \u2014 son of Philip Seymour \u2014 star, along with just about everyone else: Charli XCX, Margaret Cho, Daveed Diggs, and Chase Sui Wonders. After a shoot in October, the always perfectionist Araki admits he\u2019s been ensconced in editing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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McGowan, Duval, and Schaech, seen here in exclusive behind-the-scenes photos, were all novices when they joined the cast of The Doom Generation.<\/div>\n

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While not much is known about the movie itself, production is almost certainly a far cry from the Doom Generation days. Duval \u2014 Araki\u2019s ethnically and sexually ambiguous \u201990s muse \u2014 seems happy just to have survived production. \u201cIt was an insane shoot. All nights in the middle of winter, freezing cold. It was grueling and psychologically challenging,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd there were certainly times I think Rose, Johnathon, and I felt like it was us against the world, which also became a very organic thing that shows through the movie.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Araki saw that 1994 earthquake as a \u201csign from the cosmos that the universe did not want the movie to happen,\u201d he says. \u201cBut we said, \u2018Fuck the world,\u2019 and did it anyway.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The plot of The Doom Generation<\/em> is simple: A young couple, Jordan White (Duval) and Amy Blue (McGowan), has a meet-cute with drifter Xavier \u201cX\u201d Red (Schaech) after he flees a fight. When the three accidentally behead a convenience store clerk, they drive off across an increasingly wasteland-like America \u2014 all while discovering their own free-spirited desires.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The sexual play among Jordan, X, and Amy is a constant where-will-they-take-this tease, with the two male actors giving each other some of the most lustful looks ever committed to celluloid. A crystal meth-addled Amy sleeps with both of them indiscriminately.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The movie\u2019s opening credits start with a statement: \u201cA heterosexual movie by Gregg Araki.\u201d This is meant as a joke, or a warning, or both. Coming off the explicitly gay The Living End <\/em>and Totally F***ed Up<\/em>, which echoed the despondency of the AIDS crisis, Araki wanted to subvert expectations of what kind of story he would \u2014 or could \u2014 tell.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cI had a producer once say to me that I needed to make \u2018a heterosexual movie\u2019 because my queer movies were too punk rock and upset mainstream gays,\u201d Araki says. \u201cDoom has outrageously over-the-top homo subtext. It\u2019s intentionally the queerest hetero film ever made.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Araki is \u201cthird-generation Japanese American, but I grew up in Santa Barbara, which is very white, very middle class suburbia,\u201d he told Bomb<\/em> in 1992. \u201cMy friends say that I\u2019m whiter than they are, because that\u2019s just my upbringing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

His films don\u2019t easily slide into categories like \u201cwhite,\u201d \u201cAsian,\u201d \u201cgay,\u201d or \u201cstraight,\u201d instead demanding that audiences expand their cinematic language and, more broadly, their understanding of the world. Araki has tattoos, has dated men and women, and populates his films with weirdos of all skin colors and sexual proclivities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTo a large extent, my outlook is not exactly embraced by a lot of the gay community, especially the \u2018Stonewall Generation.\u2019 You know, the characters are definitely gay, but they\u2019re fucked up. There are problems,\u201d Araki told Bomb<\/em>. \u201cI realize that my work is bound to be marginalized. Not just because of the queerness of the subject matter, but because of the whole punk thing, which probably much more than being gay or Asian is the biggest cultural influence on me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Duval, who is of mixed Vietnamese, French, Irish, and Native American ancestry, also defied labels at a time when \u201csociety was labeling everything,\u201d he says. He and Araki first connected at the now-shuttered Double Rainbow cafe on Melrose near Hollywood. They bonded over their shared taste in records: The Smiths, Slowdive, Cocteau Twins, the kind of aching alt rock that speaks to listeners who feel displaced no matter where they come from, and which soundtracks every Araki project. Araki told Duval he\u2019d be \u201cgreat\u201d for a role in his \u201cno-budget\u201d 1993 indie Totally F***ed Up<\/em> \u2014 the first script Duval ever read \u2014 and ended up casting him as the lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cDoom has outrageously over-the-top homo subtext,\u201d Araki says.<\/div>\n

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Strand Releasing, Strand Releasing, Strand Releasing<\/div>\n

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\u201cThere was an outsiderness, but also a certainty. While being lost and looking for yourself, you also have a pretty good idea of who you are in the sense that it\u2019s not what other people are telling you you are,\u201d Duval recalls. \u201cI got tired of people telling me what I was about, what I was thinking, and they were all wrong.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Duval, who dates women, once bristled at assumptions that he was queer because of his involvement in Araki\u2019s movies. But he\u2019s more open now, confirming that he\u2019s attracted to more than one gender. \u201cWhen we were kids, we all experimented. It was natural. I just didn\u2019t talk about it,\u201d he says. \u201cWhether people want to admit it or not, we\u2019re all somewhere on that Kinsey Scale.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Criterion calls The Doom Generation<\/em> \u201can unapologetic vision of sexual fluidity,\u201d which makes Duval chuckle. \u201cIt\u2019s a term for something that didn\u2019t have a term at that time. Literally, there was no nomenclature for it. Maybe you were bi or \u2018try,\u2019 like \u2018try anything.\u2019 But it is a big part of those movies. And I think it\u2019s beautiful to see how the new generation relates to it. Everyone can claim their own identity, which is important. But we were trying to get rid of identifiers. \u2018Don\u2019t put me in a box.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Jordan White\u2019s last name is not an accident. He\u2019s the only innocent in the whole mess, prone to lines such as, \u201cHe\u2019s not so bad.\u201d Amy and X are broken, but they\u2019re survivors. Duval compares Jordan to a lamb led to slaughter. Things do not go well for him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Not unlike Araki and Duval when they shot Doom<\/em> in 1994, Jordan, Amy, and Xavier go through life trying to enjoy themselves \u2014 including some threesome action \u2014 only to be told they\u2019re someone else. In a running joke, Amy is constantly mistakenly recognized by strangers who refer to her by a different pet name. X and Jordan are heckled as \u201cfaggots\u201d by the main antagonists toward the end of the film, George, Dan, and Pat. (Duval tells me they were named for Republicans George H.W. Bush, Dan Quayle, and Pat Buchanan. \u201cIt was not supposed to be subtle on any level.\u201d)\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Araki and Duval on the set of Nowhere.<\/div>\n

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James Duval<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe were all pretty pissed off\u201d going into Doom<\/em>, Duval says. The result is \u201cthe angriest of all of Gregg\u2019s movies, what he calls his Nine Inch Nails movie.\u201d It\u2019s also the director\u2019s most gruesome work. When it premiered at Sundance in early 1995, there were walkouts. Roger Ebert panned Doom<\/em>, giving it zero stars. \u201cThat was a badge of honor for us,\u201d Duval says. \u201cIf he would have liked it, that would have meant that we did something wrong.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The climax is pure brutality: After Doom<\/em>\u2019s central trio consummates their three-way inside an abandoned warehouse, the right-wing zombies George, Dan, and Pat enter, blasting a deranged version of \u201cThe Star-Spangled Banner.\u201d They rape Amy. Jordan protests, crying.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou, dude, are going to die,\u201d George tells Jordan. He cuts off Jordan\u2019s genitals with garden shears, leaving him to bleed out. Amy breaks free. There\u2019s more struggle, more chaos, more death.\u00a0<\/p>\n

By the final shot, we\u2019re left with Amy and X in her vintage Lincoln Continental, speeding away. Silent. Shattered. The absence of Jordan is too heavy. All they can do is smoke cigarettes and eat Doritos.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was tough because I\u2019m kind of living that character,\u201d Duval remembers of the pain of acting out his fate. \u201cThere was anxiety, knowing what my future was, and not being able to change it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Could he relate to Jordan\u2019s unbridled innocence, in spite of all that? \u201cThat part of Jordan is always going to be a part of me,\u201d he says. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t say I\u2019m innocent enough to be sent to the slaughter, but I\u2019m not as jaded as I could or should be, because I made the choice that I don\u2019t want to be jaded.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m not as jaded as I could or should be,\u201d Duval (left) says, \u201cbecause I made the choice that I don\u2019t want to be jaded.\u201d<\/div>\n

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Doom<\/em>\u2019s portrait of three disaffected youth who refuse, their own wellbeing be damned, to be anything but themselves has resonated with the kinds of people who were missing that self-reflection at the time. \u201cIt\u2019s been quite moving for us to help people who didn\u2019t understand or know their sexuality and watch something and go, \u2018Oh my god,\u2019\u201d Duval says. \u201cTo spark not just that self-realization, but self-acceptance.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The film gives fans \u201cconfidence, oddly enough,\u201d Schaech adds. \u201cI remember I was sitting on a plane, and there was a man next to me, and by the end of the flight, he turned his entire body to me and said, \u2018I just have to tell you, The Doom Generation<\/em> changed my life. It allowed me to understand who I was.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The world has caught up with the kids who always identified with Araki\u2019s brand of queer, for better and worse. \u201cThe millennial generation is much more like Nowhere<\/em> [and Doom Generation<\/em>] than young people were at that time. Unfortunately, this sense of apocalypse and chaos and the madness of this world that we live in is so much crazier now than it was in the \u201990s,\u201d Araki said in 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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But therein lies the power of the Teen Apocalypse Trilogy in general, and Doom<\/em> in particular, past and present. \u201cI love that Doom<\/em> pulls no punches and is so honest and unapologetic about what it is,\u201d Araki says. \u201cIt\u2019s a small, indie art punk film that comes from a very pure artistic place \u2014 it\u2019s not made to please all the people, all the time.\u201d As for the noise it still makes among Gen Zers: \u201cThat the movie matters and means what it does to so many is the greatest honor I could ever hope for.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source URL: http:\/\/highsnobiety.com\/p\/gregg-araki-james-duval-the-doom-generation\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Want to stay in the loop?We’ve got you coveredDownload the Highsnobiety\u00a0App now On Monday, January 17, 1994, at 4:31 a.m., the Northridge Earthquake shook Los Angeles\u2019 San Fernando Valley, killing at least 57 people, injuring more than 9,000, and causing an estimated $35 billion in property damage. It was The Big One \u2014 the largest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":689254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[56],"class_list":["post-689253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-highsnobiety-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=689253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/689254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=689253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=689253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=689253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}