seriously? people feel the need for backstory in this one? no way.
(the following is not a defense of not needing backstory
)
i'm playing with the idea that this is a critique of Reagan-era politics. Reagan the performer, as conservatives love to claim, pretends to be about the working class stiff. working class stiffs are pretending that everything is (mostly) okay (just as, by-and-large, they were doing in the 80s). the working class stiffs, here performing - and performing soul-bearing labor - are not only not getting ahead, but seemingly losing ground - their making believe is killing them. the 90s, which sucked, in the film represented by the whiney Cobain-type, is an era of sincerity, uncertainty, and being knowingly messed-up. even if the complaints are true, people don't want to hear them, they just want to party and pretend like everything is okay (and make do with what is known)
i don't know, something like that maybe