Manufactured nostalgia

Interesting question posed to me in the comments last night. So we are faced with an A Team movie, a remake of Red Dawn, a remake of Melrose Place and every other show includes at least one vampire. Has Hollywood run out of ideas? And more importantly, how much nostalgia can be mined until it becomes meaningless.

Let’s start with the remakes of classic franchises. Seemingly every show from my youth (except for Alf for some reason) has been made into a feature film. Transformers, GI Joe, Brady Bunch, Speed Racer, Lost in Space, Flintstones, if you can name it they have probably made a movie of it. Even worse are the relaunches of television series with Melrose Place, Knight Rider, and 90210 all being prime examples. This is a phenomena that needs some further analysis.

First off, one of the reasons that Hollywood is sold on remakes is that it takes zero marketing dollars to tell people what the show is about. I have seen no commercials or adds about the new Melrose Place series but I can describe in perfect detail what the typical plot line will entail. Compare that to a show like Flash Forward, which I still don’t quite understand and I have read up on it. It is cheap and lazy to create remakes but that is what Hollywood thinks that people want.

That is another aspect of it. Remakes offer no intellectual challenge to the viewer. Now I have no problem with brain dead entertainment. I still watch pro wrestling for the sheer fact that I have no need to think while watching it. But remakes take even the most minimal requirements of attention to detail on a new show and throws them out the window. The viewer doesn’t have to pay attention to what is going on because they already know the story. We don’t need to think as to why there are giant robots on earth. The good guys are Autobots and the bad guys are Decepticons. Everyone knows this.

But if you pay attention you’ll notice that remake shows never last as long as you would think. The shows get cancelled, the movies make less money and all in all they are less successful each and every time. That is because Hollywood has completely misjudged the idea of nostalgia. I am not nostalgic for the shows of my youth. I’m nostalgic for my youth. Yes, I remember sitting on the couch watching the A Team as a ten year old and you know what I want: to go back to being a ten year old without a care in the world. My longing isn’t for a show featuring Vietnam vets who were unjustly prosecuted and now work as underground enforcers. All I want is to be a kid again. We enjoy the memories of the shows for who we were then; not for the shows themselves. And remaking the shows only causes a brief return to those moments and then we are thrust back into our boring, everyday lives.

Is Hollywood out of ideas? That seems to imply that they had any to begin with. I think they have a strong feeling that the average consumer is an idiot and they produce their products appropriately. If you hate the fact that mass media is treating you like a moron you know what you do? Ignore mass media. There is a whole lot of great art being made out there if you take the time to look. We all have hundreds of cable channels at our disposal and broadband lines capable of bringing us nearly anything that was ever made. Find what you like and tell Hollywood to take a hike. Enough people do that and they will get the message.