Thursday, June 4, 2009

Is our nostalgia a crutch?

My closest friends and I were born across 1979 and 1980.
And I know every generation thinks this of itself, but I really do believe that our generation is unique.

We were alive at the peak of mass broadcasting, sandwiched between genX, the MTV generation & genY. Post-martial law deprivation, we grew up feeding on our parents’ media gluttony. Fat and happy on our 80s TV, music videos and family computers, we followed the format wars from BetaMax, then VHS rentals through laser discs, compact discs, and now, HD & Blu-Ray.

Sometimes I still have to shake off the urge to go to Odessey or Music One to buy the music I want. Riiight, it doesn’t even have to come in a CD now. Or some with argue, with a purchase.

Unlike our younger sisters & brothers (born in the 90s, imagine!), we saw the shift from analogue to digital. And unlike our parents, we don’t have the excuse of ignorance. Not quite as wide-eyed as our parents, but not quite as savvy as our younger siblings, again, we find ourselves in between.

Don’t get us wrong, it seems to be a happy in-between.

Get any number of us around a dinner table and start a conversation on any 80s cartoon or TV show, and wham! The ice is Care Bear stared. It’s almost a cliché, the way we light up at the mention of He-Man, She-Ra or the Thunder Cats Hoooe! Look at me, even I’m smiling as I write this.

We will be the last generation to have shared exactly the same TV fodder at a mass scale. Classic movies through Holy Week on RPN 9 & Channel 13; McGyver, Duck Tales on Saturday morning, X-Men/Batman Dark Knight/Spiderman on Friday Nights. Beverly Hills 90210 (original!). We test each other on ‘obscure’ shows – Parker Lewis can’t lose, California Dreams, the Charmings.

Heck, we’ll be the last generation to share TV. What with people now picking & choosing their own content at their own times.

We will be the last generation to have shared nostalgia over media.

It’s happy. It’s comfortable. It’s fun. We all know it. And that’s why it’s a crutch.
I just came from Terminator Salvation (I saw all the other Terminators on Million Dollar Movies). Before the show, there was a trailer for the new Transformers. A week before, I’d seen the new Star Trek. A month ago, it was Watchmen. Where the wild things are is coming up. And many more besides.

With varying success, directors are taking nostalgic icons to make films of cultural significance, instead of making their own, new, personal visions. The way most great cinema starts. It’s profitable. And I suppose producers have to cash in on this last nostalgic generation. But IMHO, it kills the possibility of better things.

Sure they may not hit nostalgic notes, but it will be fresh, exciting, surprising, and definitely water cooler ready.

2 comments:

mignac said...

Ditto. Straddling the past and future, I think we're in the best place to... know it all. Haha.

IE. I feel so lucky to have learned and used film, yet I had no trouble transitioning to digital.

'79 was a good year to be born.

Monica said...

well said. We will always have interesting stories to tell the next generation and the generation after that.