By Forrest Maynock
American culture exists in a time of an unprecedented abuse of nostalgia. From the movies we watch to the food we eat, nostalgia dominates. I grew up in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. Nostalgia was present at that time, but it was more of a longing that the older people around me had, not a widespread social tool that dominated media and general everyday life.
Nowadays everyone young and old seems to wish for a different time and place from the distant past. This is not to say that nostalgia was absent in the recent past, but it now dominates media at an extraordinary rate.
Instead of moving forward and breaking new ground, people prefer to regress and look back on the past while wearing rose-colored goggles. I too fall into this trap often. I prefer the styles and media of the 1980’s to many of the current day alternatives.
Nostalgia is a powerful force, but it is not an evil or fully negative one either. If used properly nostalgia can actually help propel something to another level of quality. Simply slapping in a recognizable reference does not elevate a product, and in some cases, it can hurt that product.
Nowhere is this nostalgic takeover more notable than in Hollywood, where films from past American cinema are being remade or reimagined at an alarming rate, and new and original content is sparse at best. Fanservice is one way of describing this media phenomena.
I personally would not place the blame of this occurrence directly at the feet of Hollywood studios, but instead chalk most it up to consumer demand. People want to relive their childhoods (or at least an idealized version of them). They don’t want unfamiliar territory where they have little to no control. Exploring new territory is a risk that many film studios may not wish to invest in since the market seems to lean backwards to familiar nostalgia fueled media.
An example of this can be seen in the recent Star Wars revival. A film like Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) or Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) were received well by audiences and made billions of dollars combined; these two films are especially egregious in the fanservice and nostalgia bait department. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) for example is little more than a retread of Star Wars: A New Hope (1977), but with new underwritten characters and a messier plot.
Alternatively, a film like Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) which took several creative risks and tried to take the franchise in a new direction (for better or worse) was lambasted by audiences. Since Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Disney has been on a bit of an audience appeasement tour with mixed to negative results.
Another even more prevalent example of nostalgia fuel can be seen in the book (2011) and later film (2018), Ready Player One. Both the film and book rely heavily on past iconography from American “geek” culture. Watching the movie in particular accentuates this, and I personally left me lost in a hailstorm of images and references that made me feel warm inside even though I only recognized about half of said references.
After leaving the theater I gradually began thinking less and less about the film till the point came when I could not remember the name of it without some coaxing. I actually still can’t remember the names of the main characters. Countless pop culture references and little substance does not make for a good finished product; if anything, it acts as a big distraction to cover generic plots and shallow characters.
This is the power and downfall of nostalgia. In return for happy images and references to past events and films, we lose many of the creative elements that have helped film, literature and other forms of media evolve over the years. We sacrifice going off the beaten path for walking in circles on a very populated and decorated racetrack. A storied franchise like Star Wars has regressed to sloppy retreading of familiar ground instead of evolving to a new stage.
Remember, there are clearly examples of nostalgia being used properly. One good recent example would be the recreation of late 1960’s Hollywood in Quinten Tarantino’s 9th film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019). The nostalgia here is not used to distract or please the audience but is instead utilized to recreate a particular period in time, and make the finished product feel genuine.
Nostalgia is nothing new, many films and other pieces of media from the past are “remakes” of or heavily influenced by previous media, but the reliance on familiar territory was nowhere near as prevalent as it is today. Nostalgia is now one of the primary fuels for American media. Nostalgia and cheap fanservice sell.
Why nostalgia is so negative in today’s media landscape is not due to the love of the familiar itself, but instead the suffocation of original creative ideas. Repeating the same ideas constantly may have a negative effect one the coming generations as their childhood stories will likely be poorly done rehashes of past media that their parents enjoyed. The money from major studios for example will more likely go to an established franchise with a with audiences.
Independent and smaller budget films are still being made, and TV has evolved from being the boob-tube to being arguably the new frontier of creative storytelling, but even these mediums have become a little corrupted by the sweet taste of memberberries. For example, a show like Stranger Things, great first season aside, is little more than 1980’s nostalgia bait.
So enjoy the fourth and fifth seasons of Stranger Things, and Indiana Jones 5, and Bill & Ted Face the Music… actually, I’m looking forward to Bill & Ted, I love the dynamic between those two characters…also the new Dune movie, but only because the director is great. Oh, who am I kidding? I’ll probably watch the next big Star Wars extravaganza to come well as well; but if any of these movies stink of oversaturated nostalgia I’ll be the first one to point it out.
Clearly everyone can enjoy some good oldfashioned nostalgia in their media intakes, they just shouldn’t let it replace a good story or quality characters.
The Polyphony 