We are literally just hours away from the end of a decade. 2019 is desperately trying to tread water, gasping for its last breaths of fresh air before it sinks into the waters of history and disappears forever. The end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 marks the end of ten strange years of movies, TV and American pop culture. So much has happened in those ten years, from the end of Chris Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy to the loss of too many beloved icons to the bizarre transition of Kanye West from brilliant musical genius to MAGA-hat-wearing born-again Christian.
Yeah, it’s been a lot.
Let’s look at some of the highlights (and lowlights) of the last decade. I think a lot of folks will look back at 2010-2020 as a troubled, unsettling and transitional time for our culture and country. So many bad things happened. But a lot of good happened too. It’s important to remember that. Perhaps a stroll down memory lane will remind us all that these last ten trips around the sun weren’t all horrible. But, gosh, they were weird.
Here is a compilation of some of the biggest pop culture moments of the last ten years. I won’t tell you what’s a good moment and what’s a bad one. I’ll let you decide that.
Conan O’Brien (Briefly) Lands His Dream Job
Like some sort of ghost or STD, we just couldn’t get rid of Jay Leno.
The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien will forever remain a major moment in the constant civil war between capitalism and creativity. NBC promised it all to O’Brien. They gave him the most prized possession in late night: The Tonight Show. They then promptly panicked when ratings weren’t what they expected. The network tried to please both Leno and O’Brien, giving Leno a five-days-a-week primetime slot (all these years later, that STILL feels crazy) and slyly tried to move him back to 11:30 PM. O’Brien, to his credit, wouldn’t allow The Tonight Show to be fundamentally altered and pushed to post-midnight. He stepped down from hosting, giving back the duties to the man he replaced. However, Jay Leno’s return to the iconic show was tarnished, his image was never the same. O’Brien, on the other hand, became something of a folk hero to many. All in all, it was a truly surreal moment for fans of late-night TV and comedy. Battle lines were drawn and even after nearly ten years people are still very much Team Jay or Team Coco.
‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ Shows Hollywood How It’s Done
So beautiful. Should have sent a poet…
‘The Avengers’ Happens
And, boy howdy, do a lot of people see it.
Clint Eastwood Talks To A Chair
The 2012 Republican National Convention was quite a hoot. We had Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, attempting to sell himself and bring down President Barack Obama. What better way to appeal to Middle America then…a rambling, ad-libbed speech aimed at an empty chair from one of America’s greatest performers.
Eastwood certainly played to the crowd and the folks in attendance loved his takedown of the Commander-in-Chief. Audiences at home weren’t as keen on the whole affair, questioning why it happened and what the point was. It was just odd. And it didn’t help Romney at all, who was soundly beat by Obama in November. A lot happened in the 2012 election but Eastwood’s rage against a piece of furniture will forever stand out.
Sean Penn Writes a Novel
This is an actual passage from said novel:
Whenever he felt these collisions of incubus and succubus, he punched his way out of the proletariat with the purposeful inputting of covert codes, thereby drawing distraction through Scottsdale deployments, dodging the ambush of innocents astray, evading the viscount vogue of Viagratic assaults on virtual vaginas, or worse, falling passively into prosaic pastimes.
Delightful.
The Ice Bucket Challenge Captivates Hollywood
A bunch of celebrities get cold for charity.
Cynthia Nixon Runs for Governor of New York
Sex And The City star Cynthia Nixon isn’t the first person you think of when you think politics. But, hey, she gave it a good shot. A long shot but still a good one. When Nixon announced her run for the highest office in New York, few thought she would win. But that didn’t stop her from campaigning hard.
At first Nixon’s run was odd, then it was kind of inspiring, then it was odd again. In the end, she didn’t even come close but she did bring up a lot of important, progressive issues for New Yorkers. Plus, she ruined Andrew Cuomo’s chances of becoming president!
‘Game of Thrones’ Rules TV
And people will still be hating the final season in 10 years.
Glee Sings The Hits
It combined two things that everyone loves: high school and musicals!
‘Hamilton’ Makes History Hip
Broadway: the one thing that could make people want to learn about our founding fathers.
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s massive hit was the talk of the nation. Hamilton was everywhere, from the White House to the Tony’s to damn near every Spotify playlist on Earth. People loved the mix of history and hip-hop and the play proved to be the biggest Broadway hit ever. It launched multiple careers and created positive, important dialogue about Alexander Hamilton, race, music and more. Even if you didn’t get sucked into the hysteria (like yours truly) you have to admit just how revolutionary and huge this cultural moment was.
‘Serial’ SUCCEEDS
The podcast that made a million middle-aged parents ask their children “What’s a podcast?”
‘Fargo’ Surprises
Way better than it had any right to be.
Stranger Things $treams
Netflix finally delivers its generational touchstone.
The ‘Lost’ Finale Lets Millions Down
Finally a series finale that answered every question and satisfied all viewers*
*Just kidding
‘The Hunger Games’ Hits The mark
Jennifer Lawrence! Julianne Moore! One of the Hemsworths! This series had everything and audiences ate it up.
‘Frozen’ Gets Hot
Just reading that title makes some parents shiver with painful memories of hearing “Let It Go” half-a-million times.
‘Moonlight’ Confuses The Oscars
And people say the Oscars are boring!
It seemed that La La Land was going to be awarded the Best Picture prize at the Oscars but then, in the most wild Academy Awards moment in history, it turns out that the wrong envelope was opened and La La Land didn’t win…even though its entire cast and crew were already on stage accepting. Oops.
That final moment turned an otherwise-ho-hum affair into something that’ll never be forgotten. It’s hard to imagine that any Oscars moment will ever top this one. It was an embarrassing mistake for all involved but, damn, it made great television.
Universal’s ‘Dark Universe’ Arrives
…and then promptly leaves.
‘The Walking Dead’ Debuts
A bunch of grumpy survivors of the apocalypse fight for their lives so they can continue to be miserable and sweaty.
Kevin Spacey Gets Edited Out
One of the most impressive performers of our time squanders it all because he’s a God damn creep.
The last few years have seen a lot of powerful men go down because of their own actions but perhaps one of the most startling falls from grace was Kevin Spacey’s. The two-time Oscar winner lost his career after multiple allegations came forward from several young men. In one of the dumbest moves ever, Spacey tried to deflect the charges by coming out of the closet, something that folks of all sexual orientations saw right through. The damage was done and Spacey was dropped by Hollywood like a burning hot potato. It was so bad that he was actually edited out of Ridley Scott’s All The Money In The World, just months before the films as set to debut. He was replaced by the ever-talented, ever-charming Christopher Plummer, who ended up nabbing an Oscar nom for his performance. As for Spacey, he is now relegated to releasing unwanted online videos every year like some sort of bloated, creepy Osama bin Laden.
Letterman Retires
But moves onto Netflix.
Jon Stewart Retires
But moves onto HBO.
Carson Daly Retires
But moves onto…Crackle?
‘The Last Jedi’ Upsets “Fans”
Oy.
Schwarzenegger Takes Over for Trump
Here’s a sentence I never thought I’d read when I was a child: Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to Take Over Hosting Duties From President Donald Trump.
We truly live in a nightmare.
’Justice League’ Just Doesn’t Work
Farewell, Batfleck. We hardly knew ye.
Daniel Day-Lewis Calls It A Day
He retired to presumably become a cobbler.
Leo Finally Wins His Statue
And, darn it, the boy deserved it!
While some may say that he earned his Oscar for other films (See: The Wolf of Wall Street) it was great to witness the best actor of a generation finally get his due accolades. There were times when it felt like DiCaprio would never win an Oscar, he would always be a bridesmaid and never a bride. But that was before he crawled into the carcass of a God damn horse!
The best part about Leonardo DiCaprio finally winning an Academy Award is that it hasn’t stopped him from giving his all in every performance since. The man still brings it, every single time. Hell, his win for The Revenant might just be the first of many Oscars.