‘Human Traffic’ and ‘Brat’: the roaring twenties revisited through clubbing culture
Many have attributed the rise of technology to the death of simpler pleasures.
We no longer chat with people on the phone, have uninterrupted conversations, or speak to strangers in public. Libraries and cinemas are dying, and most of all, modernity has killed spontaneous, unadulterated fun. If you’re brave enough to step foot into a club, then the element of anonymity and community that used to define this experience has been eliminated through the presence of our phones, with obnoxious flashlights glaring through the crowd as people film each other and ruin a once freeing experience by honing in on the element of ‘cool’, obsessing over how they are perceived with performative freedom in which they aren’t quite letting go because there’s someone in the corner secretly filming them. No one wants to end up as a cautionary meme on social media where thousands of people will see you, so you opt for safe dance moves as you wiggle your foot up and down. Now, this is truly living.
But over the last couple of years, a few global events have caused a shift in the performative fun paradigm. The pandemic made us grateful to leave our homes, political unrest and upheaval made us angrier than ever and in desperate need of a release, and to top it off, global warming has made us worry about how much life we actually have left to live. And through the resurgence of global anxiety and a general mood of hopelessness about our place in the world, an unexpected joie de vivre has arisen from our collective nihilism, and the roaring twenties have finally returned, something that was predicted in Justin Kerrigan’s Human Traffic.
Towards the turn of the millennium, people started to freak out about what would happen when the clocks finally crept towards that triple zero mark, with people predicting that the world itself would implode and technology would consume us all. While the world did not entirely end, there was a definite sense of uncertainty about the possibilities of a new century, and it arguably signified the point of no return as we descended towards uncharted territory.
But the ’20s it came to be defined as the ‘roaring’ decade because of those who were also in the clutches of peril and unrest about the future, retreating to the simpler pleasures as a way of coping with all that they couldn’t control, choosing to escape through drinking and riotous parties that distracted them from this uncertainty. And we can see the same thing in Human Traffic, with a group of young people feeling afraid about the overwhelming path before them as they embark on the journey to adulthood.
The film follows a group of 20-something friends as they set out on one more fuelled weekend in Cardiff, trying to delay the inevitable by partying and avoiding their responsibilities. While it is a chaotic and infectiously joyful film, a strand of melancholia runs throughout as we realise that this hedonistic pursuit is motivated by a need to ignore a glaring reality—that everything is changing and life is out of their control.
John Simm’s character struggles with some sexual problems, and while it is passed off and discussed in a jokey way, it resembles his inability to be honest about what he really wants and his secret longing for stability. Towards the end of the film, there is a moment as the friend group drives home from a house party, sitting in complete silence as the antics of the evening start to wear off in the harsh sunrise.
Partying is a way of delaying the inevitable and avoiding truth in our lives. We go out when we’ve had a bad week when we’ve been dumped when we want to forget something. And as we are once again faced with another period of global uncertainty, catastrophic unrest and suffering, we find ourselves once again retreating to the clubs. To house parties and old friends that remind us of something familiar and comfortable.
Human Traffic captures a niche period in time in which we were both hopeful and terrified about the future, something that has returned with the rise of Charli XCX’s album Brat, which acts as a similar reflection on the precariousness of our world. The resurgence of this era is inextricably linked to the turmoil and chaos of our world, and perhaps the roaring twenties have returned once more. Much like Human Traffic, the album encourages us to dance, party and return to the clubs because, ultimately, the world is ending, so we might as well enjoy ourselves while it lasts.
