“My Own Private Aberdeen: Grunge Politics in the Films of Gus Van Sant”

Abstract:This article revisits the films My Own Private Idaho (1991) and Last Days (2005) through the lens of grunge and politics, showing how Gus Van Sant portrays grunge as an unstable aesthetic continually in flight from closure. The films’ protagonists are silenced either by the forces that co-opt them or by their own violent rejection of those forces, suggesting Van Sant does not envision a way out of corporate culture via a grunge ethic apart from death, madness, or a refusal to participate in social politics altogether. However, reading the form of these films reveals a road map for a more viable political vision than their plots—and grunge’s detractors—suggest.