Winona Ryder Is Still The GenX Queen

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice opens in theaters this weekend so Winona Ryder is all over the media these days making promotional rounds with the rest of the cast. I love that for her, but I’m not sure she loves that for herself.

Winona has always been our most fragile Gen X Queen. Uneasy with her own fame, she’s always presented herself on red carpets and in interviews as awkward and unsteady. But, when you think about the Hollywood environment when she was coming up, the lack of protection for young women and child stars, and no social media to shine a light on bad behaviors, Winona comes by her shell-shocked, wide-eyed ingenue vibe naturally. She has seen some shit. But she loves the film industry. The Criterion Closet is her “church” and she has an astounding knowledge of film history.

Ryder first came on the scene in the 1986 drama Lucas, which starred Corey Haim and several other famous ’80s teen actors. Whatever fondness you may have had for that film was destroyed after Haim’s death when Corey Feldman accused Charlie Sheen of raping then-13-year-old Haim during filming.

In last week’s Esquire magazine interview, Winona counted herself among the victims of Harvey Weinstein’s mercurial temperament.

Ryder famously ended a four-year relationship and engagement with Johnny Depp in 1993. It was unbelievable at the time. They were a Tim Burton-themed fairy tale couple, but she sure dodged a bullet there.

After that, she fled Hollywood, dated and eventually lived with Soul Asylum’s lead singer, David Pirner, in Minneapolis. She’s featured in the band’s music video for “Without A Trace” as the ‘bearded assassin.’

Proving to GenX once again that love is bullshit, the couple split amicably in 1997.

She was in three movies released in 1988, Beetlejuice, 1969 (starring problematic kings Robert Downey Jr. and Kiefer Sutherland), and Heathers. For the next six years, she was Hollywood’s quirky It Girl with her shaggy pixie cut and bold red lips.

The pinnacle of her reign was 1994’s Reality Bites. That movie, and 1992’s Singles, defined Generation X so succinctly that society washed its hands of us as a generation. We’re snarky burnouts, up to no good, and with little ambition to be productive members of society. Get a haircut! Except you, Ben Stiller. You’re good.

via GIPHY

Winona starred in a number of projects throughout the ’90s including Gillian Armstrong’s Little Women as fiery Jo March, 1996’s The Crucible, Alien Resurrection, and Girl, Interrupted with Angelina Jolie. But there’s no doubt that those first few years of her career are her cultural legacy.

Her 2010 appearance in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan was an unexpected surprise. But her real comeback was a little anti-rom-com called Destination Wedding. It reunited her with her Bram Stoker’s Dracula co-star Keanu Reeves and ignited a spark in the cold, dead hearts of a million GenXers. It also paved the way for her supporting role in Netflix’s blockbuster series Stranger Things, transitioning her from the pretty, young thing into Hollywood adulthood.

Neurotic Mom Winona is the natural evolution of all of her roles and feels incredibly honest and normal despite the paranormal and interdimensional goings-on in the show.

Now, she’s back on the big screen with the sequel to Beetlejuice, reteaming with some of the original cast and adding Jenna Ortega, who could be considered her heir apparent in all things spooky and weird. There’s a direct line from Winona to Christina Ricci to Jenna Ortega. Each woman speaks to the Weird Girls of their generation in a timeless way that allows them to transcend that niche without any sense of competition between them. Jenna reshaped the role of Wednesday Addams in a show that also starred Christina Ricci. Now she’s playing Lydia Deetz’s daughter with Winona. It’s lovely to see them doing publicity together, arms around each other, supporting each other on the red carpet.

Last week Entertainment Tonight posted this clip to their Instagram.

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It shows us how much more agency women are starting to have over themselves in these situations. It also communicates that Winona is still our Fragile Queen, and the “Free Winona” message has surpassed the meme from her 2002 shoplifting arrest to become actionable.

Ortega was also a child star. While she faced different challenges than Ryder did on her path to adulthood in the industry and has developed a healthier relationship with her fame than Winona ever did, she’s in a unique position to understand how truly overwhelming this can all be and how hard it is to advocate for yourself when faced with the demands of the press, your fans, managers, and agents coming at you from all sides.

Spooky Weird Queens supporting Spooky Weird Queens. That’s the way it should be. Ortega has Winona’s back the way all GenX women do. We would ride at dawn for Winona, and it’s good to see that the younger generation understands that.

I hope the Winona Ryder resurgence continues, supported by these younger actresses. Long live the Queen.