Millennial disentitlement: Greta Gerwig’s post-recession hipster stardom

Abstract

ABSTRACT Through often derogatory mediated coding, the figure of the hipster has been positioned as an exemplar of Millennial privilege and a leading advocate for neoliberalism. However, such representation often elides how the Millennial generational cohort in which the hipster is embedded has been impacted by the 2008 financial crisis. For many young people this period has been marked by precarity, exorbitant student loans, unpaid internships and minimal opportunities for upward mobility. This paper argues that actor/director Greta Gerwig’s generationally-identified stardom in the post-recession period becomes a constructive site of interrogation for such anxieties. Gerwig’s representations of hipsterism are concurrent to the taste culture’s repositioning in the post-recession economy, where facets of hipster ‘cool’ and ‘taste’ are mined by urban economies to position cities as ‘global centres.’ I argue that her performance style also elicits tensions in the expected amiability associated with contemporary neoliberal subjectivity. By examining Gerwig’s star persona as well as her central roles in Frances Ha (2012) and Mistress America (2015) it becomes apparent that Gerwig’s ‘quirky’ affect renders the normative codes of contemporary work culture as farcical.