Making our own rituals

Xers don’t trust big institutions -- we knew that (and this site, which features an excellent rundown of the overarching characteristics of Xers, includes this as one of the defining ones). Sometimes it’s because those institutions want nothing to do with us.

I’m thinking of my pal Gabriel Shanks, a fellow online film critic -- he posts at Mixed Reviews -- a fellow founding member of Cinemarati and a regular poster at our new group blog -- and a fellow blogger, at Modern Fabulosity. He got married on August 14th, and because his beloved happens to be a man, he and his intended were excluded from participating in the usual civic and religious rituals that people in love typically participate in when they want to formalize their relationship.

But you know what? Gabriel’s wedding was the most moving I’ve ever been to. Gabriel’s a theater director (when he isn’t blogging and reviewing films) and his new husband is a singer, and they created their own ceremony, one bursting with poetry and song and ritual, and every single moment had personal meaning to both of them. I’ve attended some religious wedding ceremonies where every moment is dictated by tradition to the point where it all becomes nothing but rote regurgitation, and hence appears to have no overt meaning to the participants. But there were moments during Gabriel’s wedding that were so intensely emotion, so revealingly personal, that I almost felt I shouldn’t be watching.

The most remarkable aspect of the ceremony, though, was the exhilarating defiance in every word, every action, every kiss. This is what Xers do: when traditions don’t suit us, we create our own and make them really mean something important. It’s not always so fierce as it was at Gabriel’s wedding, but reinventing little bits of society here and there, where the old ways have either broken down or never suited us in the first place, is something Xers do deliberately, and do well.