Tag: person

Eliza Dushku

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Eliza Dushku (b. 1980) used to be an actress. As such she played more than a few roles that resonated with the GenX stereotype in her time. First, she was Dana Tasker, the sneaky latchkey-kid daughter of a spy in 1994’s True Lies. Later, she played Faith Lehane, the sexy, ass-kicking bad seed who surrendered to her demons and then fought them back down in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel TV shows, and also Missy Pantone, the sardonic gymnast slumming it as a cheerleader in 2000’s Bring It On. Other notable performances included Dollhouse, in which she played Echo, an amnesiac-for-pay, and Bull, where she was a shrewd lawyer. At all times, she came across onscreen as someone who was a lot of fun to watch but you’d better watch out for what she might do.

But that’s just what we saw. Turns out Dushku was abused on the set of True Lies, and then again mistreated while on Bull. So she did something about it: she told the truth, and she got out. She doesn’t act anymore; she got a Master’s in clinical mental health counselling. She’s a therapist now, helping others deal with the things she had to deal with. Good for her.

Crystal Minton

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A couple of elements of the Generation X stereotype are a) we are kind of bad, and b) we cut through to the truth.

Many people were surprised by Donald Trump’s first election victory, and didn’t know how to process it. Didn’t know what to expect from it. Didn’t know how to react to the things he did. Some of these were Trump’s own supporters, who found that they had released forces they couldn’t control.

One such person was Crystal Minton (c.1981), a Trump voter and prison employee who was displeased with how the government handled hurricane relief in Florida. She said, of Trump, “He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.” And, for a lot of GenX, that’s what it’s all about. Are enough of the right people getting hurt?

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“Trump voter: ‘He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting'” MS NOW, Steve Benen, Jan. 8, 2019.

Cubie Burke

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Cubie Burke (1964) was one of the first GenXers of note in music. His family, the Burkes, had a vocal group, the Five Stairsteps. When Cubie was three years old, he began performing with them, mostly dancing. He went over big with audiences and they marketed the act around him. He even sang lead on some songs, including “New Dance Craze.” But he wasn’t that interested in singing, and had stopped performing with the Stairsteps by the time they had their big hit in 1970, “O-o-h Child”.*

Cubie’s interests lay more in dancing than singing (although he did release a single, “Down for Double”, under his own name in 1982, which was still early days for GenX in music), and he eventually had a distinguished career as a dancer, dance teacher, and choreographer. Died young, of complications from an old brain injury, in 2014. He didn’t get the hit song. But he did what he wanted to do.

*”O-o-h Child” is a notable for-GenX song itself. It’s sung from the perspective of an older person telling a younger person, presumably a small child, that things may be terrible now but, someday, they’ll be better, and we’ll live to see it.

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Platforms; Pagan Kennedy. St. Martin’s Press, 1994. Page 131.
“The Five Stairsteps and Cubie – 1968 – Our Family Portrait”. Album review on funkmysoul.gr website.
“The Five Stairsteps”. Biography on last.fm website.
“Cubie Burke Dies…”; Bill Buckley. Article on soulandjazzandfunk.com website, 2014.