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decade nostalgia


Decade nostalgia, is nostalgia for certain aspects of a past decade, in contemporary popular culture. The term is mostly used in reference to U.S. culture, focused on the period from the 1950s to 1990s.[1]

Pre-1950s nostalgia

Elements of decade nostalgia existed prior to the creation of 1950s nostalgia. In the 1920s through the 1940s, a nostalgic interest in the 1890s (known as the "Gay Nineties") existed and was portrayed in the films The Naughty Nineties, She Done Him Wrong, Belle of the Nineties and The Nifty Nineties. Nostalgia for the 1890s no longer exists (as there are few surviving people from that period and all them were young children at the time) and the term "nineties" is now chiefly used to refer to the 1990s. The 1920s became known as the "Roaring Twenties", continuing the trend to divide the culture of the past according to decade. A slight nostalgia of the 1930s took place in the 1970s with shows such as the Waltons and a comeback of overalls as men. That took place around 1974. Some 1940s nostalgia took place in the late 1990s, especially around the year 1998.

1950s nostalgia

The Fifties remain a popular nostalgia decade even as of the 2000s and are often seen in America in simplified terms by both proponents and detractors. Nicknames for the decade include the "Fabulous Fifties" and the "Nifty Fifties".

In the United States, different decades have approached Fifties nostalgia differently. Few people cared for Fifties nostalgia during the 1960s. The vast societal changes of the Sixties, particularly during the latter half of that decade, made the Fifties look repressive and square. Underground cartoonists such as Robert Crumb satirized Fifties middle-class culture,[2] while Frank Zappa's 1968 album Cruising with Ruben & the Jets spoofed 1950s doo-wop.

During the 1970s, some people started viewing the Fifties as a calmer, more innocent time, a time devoid of the scandals, wars, assassinations, riots, and racial strife that had marked American life during the 1960s and early 1970s.[3][4] Thus the success of mostly idyllic Fifties-themed entertainment such as the movies American Graffiti and Grease, and the TV series Happy Days and its spinoff Laverne & Shirley. Also, John Waters' 1972 gross-out classic Pink Flamingos takes place in the present but uses Fifties music, fashions, cars, and decor as an ironically "innocent" counterpoint to bestiality, incest, murder, cannibalism, and especially coprophagia; Patti Page's 1953 hit single "(How Much Is That) Doggie in the Window" plays over the final, infamous sequence of the drag queen Divine actually eating dog excrement. Fifties nostalgia also appeared in popular music. 1970s songs such as Don McLean's "American Pie", Elton John's "Crocodile Rock", and Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock and Roll" reflected the early years of rock and roll and how popular music had changed since then.

During the 1980s, the Fifties started losing their golly-gee image, turning sexier and more dangerous--e.g., the teenage sex comedy Porky's trilogy, the 1985 movie and rockabilly revivalists such as the Stray Cats.

1980s hipsters and other non-mainstream sorts, possibly as a reaction to Ronald Reagan's presidency and a resurgent Fifties-style social conservatism, started depicting the Fifties as a goofy, cornball, and clueless era replete with hidden perversion, violence, and paranoia. The science fiction film boom of the 1980s echoed the same sci-fi boom of the 1950s and referenced that time frequently. John Carpenter remade the 1951 film The Thing from Another World as The Thing in 1982. In general there was a resurgence of monster movies set in small towns, and often these films would place televisions airing 1950s sci-fi movies in the background. Results of this revisionism include the 1982 Cold War/nuclear documentary The Atomic Cafe; David Lynch's 1986 movie Blue Velvet (which, as with Pink Flamingos, uses clothes, music, and decor from the "innocent" Fifties as an ironic counterpoint to present-day crime and degeneracy); Daniel Clowes's proto-lounge comic book Lloyd Llewellyn;[5] and the character Pee-wee Herman. Donna Deitch's 1986 movie Desert Hearts, a lesbian love story set in the 1950s, examined the sexuality and homophobia of that decade in a way similar to how 2000s movies would cover those and other aspects of the Fifties.

The 1990s brought lounge culture, a somewhat ironic reaction toward allegedly constricting political correctness; lounge revived Fifties manly-man drinking, womanizing, and consumerism. The 1992 book CAD: A Handbook for Heels and the 1996 movie Swingers remain the best documents of lounge. Daniel Clowes also satirizes Fifties nostalgia in his 1990s comic book Eightball by contrasting the Eighties version (Stray Cats) with that of the Seventies (Happy Days).

2000s filmmakers tend to avoid turning out American Graffiti-style fantasias or Pee-wee Hermanesque campiness, instead examining Fifties racism, sexism, sexual repression, and political repression in a realistic manner; the results often are allegories for the present day. Oughts Fifties movies include Todd Haynes's Far from Heaven (2002); George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck (2005); and Mary Harron's The Notorious Bettie Page (2005) . The TV show Mad Men (2007-), although set in 1960, explores similar themes.

Sometimes, what is thought of as the "fifties", particularly in the field of music, more or less covers the period from 1955 to as late as 1963, as the first half of the decade blends right in with the second half the 1940s.

The decade is seen by many as an idealistic, calm time [citation needed]. The 1950s were not without their share of turbulence in the US, as the civil rights and women's rights were suppressed in the conservative time which would have backlash effects in the 1960s and the Cold War weighed on the public conscience. The 1950s have been considered nostalgic since the early 1970s.

Stores that sell 1950s nostalgia items often use the phrase Atomic Age in the name, of or in advertising for, the store [citation needed].

Staples of 1950s nostalgia

1950s nostalgia films

1950s nostalgia TV series

1960s nostalgia

What is thought of today as the sixties actually started from about the end of 1963 and lasted until as late as 1974. Much of the early part of the decade was very similar to the 1950s. The 1960s are often called the "Swingin' Sixties" for the great cultural changes during that decade, and also for the popularity of swinging. The 1960s have been an object of nostalgia since the 1980s. While some of these things, such as hippies and The Beatles are also considered 1960s nostalgia in Britain, mods, rockers and skinheads have also become a significant part of British 1960s nostalgia, although in the United States, they are not as closely associated with the decade.

Staples of 1960s nostalgia

1960s nostalgia movies

1960s nostalgia TV series

1970s nostalgia

In the United States, the 1970s, in a nostalgic sense, do not so much mean 1970 to 1979, but moreso the latter half of that decade, because the first half of the 1970s was blended in with the late 1960s. Thus, the 1970s are often called the Disco era because that type of music was very popular during much of the decade. In the United Kingdom, the nostalgic view of the 1970s covers the decade somewhat more evenly. Punk rock and disco (the latter not as all-encompassing as it was in the US) were most closely associated with the second half of the 1970s. However, it is the image of glam rock (which peaked during the first half of the decade) that is arguably most strongly associated with the 1970s stereotype in Britain.

Staples of 1970s nostalgia

TV series associated with the 1970s

1970s nostalgia movies

1970s nostalgia TV series

1980s nostalgia

The Eighties were ridiculed during most of the Nineties, although began to be seen as nostalgic as early as 1997 because of how radically different the Eighties were from the Seventies and the Nineties. The period that is nostalgized as "The Eighties" more or less coincides with the 1980s decade, but is often considered to have started with the fall of Disco in 1979 and have ended with the advent of Grunge in 1991 in a pop-cultural aspect.

The Eighties are often called the "Decade of Decadence" or the "Greedy Eighties" because of the obsession with getting rich during the decade (exemplified by the rise of huge companies such as Wal-Mart), the popularity of glam metal, and an increased interest in BDSM sex as a form of safe sex. In recent years, Eighties nostalgia has been growing among some video game fans, who enjoy the video games of the time. This has led to the magazine Retro Gamer, and record prices on eBay.

Beginning in 2003 among many young people, the house music of rave dance culture (played in massive venues) began to go out of style and a new kind of music called electroclash (played in smaller) venues became popular that is modeled on the music of the early 1980s.

Staples of 1980s nostalgia

Films associated with the 1980s

TV series associated with the 1980s

1980s nostalgia movies

1980s nostalgia TV series and videogames

1990s nostalgia

As of 2007, Nineties nostalgia is only in its infancy as the decade is so recent. The period that is nostalgized as the "nineties" are actually culturally to be considered the period from the end of 1991 until September 11, 2001 when the War on Terrorism would shape the following decade. The fashions and music from the first couple years of the decade are similar to the 1980s. In the United Kingdom, phenomena associated with the 1990s include Britpop and Trip hop music, the Rave scene, and Loaded-style "lad culture", but there is not yet a strongly-defined form of Nineties nostalgia. Notably, although house music was the single most dominant form of dance music n the country from the late-1980s to the early-2000s, it has not (yet) become associated with the decade in general. The 90's is also the decade the Internet first took off.

Things and people associated with the 1990s

Music associated with the 1990s

TV Series associated with the 1990s

Films associated with the 1990s

Examples of 1990s nostalgia

2000s nostalgia

2000s nostalgia will probably take place in the 2020s at the least. During that time, many staples of the trends that make up the 2000s will occur. Such examples may include reality TV, cell phone and other electronic device use, Web 2.0 and MySpace.com, emo, gangsta' and pimp, and many other trends.

Notes

  1. ^ Michael Thomas Carroll (2000). Popular Modernity in America: Experience, Technology, Mythohistory. SUNY Press. ISBN 0791447138. 
  2. ^ Crumb, who grew up during the Fifties, feels no nostalgia for that decade. In the 1994 documentary Crumb (film), he calls the Fifties "suffocating and so dreary and depressing" due to the adults who had lived through the Depression and World War II and now wanted an "unthreatening and flat" life, an "Ozzie and Harriet shell" that ended up having "a kind of creepy, nightmarish, grotesque quality to it".
  3. ^ James L. Baughman (2006). The Republic of Mass Culture: journalism, filmmaking, and broadcasting in America since 1941. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0801883164. 
  4. ^ Johnathan Rodgers, "Back to the '50s," Newsweek, October 16, 1972, p. 78. Also see Douglas T. Miller and Marion Nowak, The Fifties: The Way We Really Were (Garden City: Doubleday, 1977), pp. 5-6.
  5. ^ In a 1992 interview, Clowes says he created this comic book series as a way of "rebelling" against his avant-garde upbringing. Similar to the way lounge devotees would embrace a long-gone, anti-PC culture, he became "really obsessed with all these old men's magazines and this whole weird vision of the world in the '50s that never came to fruition", a world of "weird space age machismo". Gary Groth, "Daniel Clowes Revealed!", The Comics Journal, November 1992, pp. 61-2.

See also


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