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Toy Story 3 might be the best movie of the year according to critics (pg. 7)
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| quote: | Originally posted by Paradox Lost
...though I would have to disagree that the nature of this 'developed' love exists by virtue of aspects such as cheesy dialogue and special effects, or dichotomized in such a way so as to contrast it between loving it for inadvertent silliness or its dramatic and artistic qualities. |
Then what do you think is the main reason people our age love such films? I'm trying to figure out what it is about the movie itself that they genuinely enjoy. Obviously they like the general mood the movie puts them in, sort of playfully nostalgic perhaps, but that seems less a function of any characteristic of the movie itself than the very contingent, accidental fact that they just happened to see it at a certain point in their youth. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
I don't think they really do, though. At the very least, I don't think they view the movies in anything like the light they did when they first saw them. Otherwise we have to posit that, for example, people our age take Bastian's struggles in the Neverending Story as seriously as they did when they were six or seven years old. That seems more than a bit far-fetched to me. If they "love" the movies at all, they love them for the unintentional humor of the cheesy dialogue and chintzy special effects, not for their drama or artistic merit. |
Of course they're not going to view these movies in the same light as they did when they were six. That difference of perspective is a necessary part of nostalgia, it's what makes nostalgia different to simply remembering a happy moment.
For me, a large part of nostalgia is about loss. Nostalgia is more powerful than simple happy memory because there is a strong element of yearning and wistfulness. If I think of all the parts of my life that I get nostalgic about, they are phases of life I cannot go back to. I was not nostalgic about school until I left it. I was not nostalgic about university but now I can be, and so on.
What makes people enjoy films or cartoons from their childhood so much is not the unintentional humour or the cheesines: you can derive that entertainment from any amount of from any number of eras, including the present day. People like these films exactly because they can no longer view them as a six year old, and yet they can remember viewing them as a six year old. They have lost that innocence and their nostalgia is a yearning to reclaim it. Irony is an appropriate reaction because it is the opposite of a child's uncomplicated, earnest enjoyment of something. These jaded-before-their-time ironic twenty-somethings are yearning for something they don't seem to be able to do: the ability to enjoy something genuinely, in the moment. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
What makes people enjoy films or cartoons from their childhood so much is not the unintentional humour or the cheesines: you can derive that entertainment from any amount of from any number of eras, including the present day. People like these films exactly because they can no longer view them as a six year old, and yet they can remember viewing them as a six year old. They have lost that innocence and their nostalgia is a yearning to reclaim it. Irony is an appropriate reaction because it is the opposite of a child's uncomplicated, earnest enjoyment of something. These jaded-before-their-time ironic twenty-somethings are yearning for something they don't seem to be able to do: the ability to enjoy something genuinely, in the moment. |
Interesting explication there. That does sound about right to me. So basically it is a combination of fond memories and a kind of "mourning" their loss of the capacity to enjoy it without reservations. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
I'm still working through this all in my head. There's a cultural/social theory here that I'm not sure has been widely expressed. I keeping raising the issue in discussions like this to see which parts people bounce back at me.
I think there are two different but connected types of youth-nostalgia at work amongst our generation. The first is the kind discussed in this thread - this premature nostalgia and idealisation of a lost innocence ahead of time. The second is the idealisation of something we never had in the first place, which is commonly manifested on TA by this love of 90s trance/prog/whatever as a better era, but is manifested in other musical circles as a love of 80s synth pop, the Beatles or other trad staples. I've seen a huge number of kids that have this idea that the best era of music has already been and gone, and they have a yearning to "be born 10/20/30 years earlier" to capture this lost zeitgeist. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| Maybe social misfits just have a hard time figuring out why they're not happy, so they ascribe their woes to having been born at the wrong time. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
I don't think this just applies to social misfits, although it doesn't seem to apply for everybody.
EDIT: It would be helpful if I could figure out if this issue is generation-specific or if it happens to many people at this stage of life, and I'm only noticing it now because I'm in my twenties and my parents aren't. It's difficult to imagine the Baby Boomer generation experiencing such feelings. |
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| EddieZilker |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
EDIT: It would be helpful if I could figure out if this issue is generation-specific or if it happens to many people at this stage of life, and I'm only noticing it now because I'm in my twenties and my parents aren't. It's difficult to imagine the Baby Boomer generation experiencing such feelings. |
As far as nostalgia trips are concerned, I am certain that it is a multi-generational phenomena. If you got past the advertisement for Sex and the City 3 or Gillette Penn's over-played sarcasm, the sociology professor verifies this. The full episode, which I've seen, also talks about how nostalgia trips are localized to a time which the individual has idealized, whether it's something they lived through, or not.
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
The second is the idealisation of something we never had in the first place, which is commonly manifested on TA by this love of 90s trance/prog/whatever as a better era, but is manifested in other musical circles as a love of 80s synth pop, the Beatles or other trad staples. I've seen a huge number of kids that have this idea that the best era of music has already been and gone, and they have a yearning to "be born 10/20/30 years earlier" to capture this lost zeitgeist. |
People who are fans of Renaissance fairs - especially prevalent here in America, for instance, love the over-played concepts of chivalry while they either play down or eliminate, altogether, the Black Death, Witch Hunts, persecution of Jews, wars, et al, which allows them to treat it as a singular event experienced by everyone, across Europe. |
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| WittyHandle |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
I've seen a huge number of kids that have this idea that the best era of music has already been and gone |
I can't speak for others, but as someone who lived through rave's golden age, I can say it was better than it has been for the past few years. I think it would be a mistake for anyone to put limitations on the future by saying that it can't be amazing again though. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| quote: | Originally posted by EddieZilker
People who are fans of Renaissance fairs - especially prevalent here in America, for instance, love the over-played concepts of chivalry while they either play down or eliminate, altogether, the Black Death, Witch Hunts, persecution of Jews, wars, et al, which allows them to treat it as a singular event experienced by everyone, across Europe. |
Good point about those. I think the "nostalgia for something you never had" may just be plain old romanticism, not really nostalgia. Then again, I think what SYSTEM-J is talking about may be different than Renaissance fairs, because even if the twenty-somethings themselves never experienced, say, the '60s or '70s, they know plenty of adults who did. That kind of connection is lacking in Renaissance / medieval times enthusiasts. So maybe it's like a "borrowed nostalgia" or "nostalgia by proxy?" |
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| darouge11 |
| I watched cloudy with a chance of meatballs the other day, and I was laughing so much |
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| EddieZilker |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
Good point about those. I think the "nostalgia for something you never had" may just be plain old romanticism, not really nostalgia. |
Perhaps it might be stretching the definition to its threshold of elasticity, but minus a former possession of the romanticized object, I think many of the same criteria occur. Red Letter Media (http://redlettermedia.com/), in his review of Avatar, cites an article(s) about a jump in suicides prompted by the idealized world of Pandora and a yearning to live there. Such a phenomena could hardly be considered 'nostalgic' being that the beholder has only witnessed a conception of something which does not exist.
What nostalgia is, whether it approaches pathological thresholds or not, is a form of escapism. That said, I don't think anyone is immune to it. Since I've left Austin, TX, for instance, I have yet to find as consistently decent, a culinary land-scape anywhere else I've lived. Now, without having lived in foodie cities, like Chicago, New York City, or San Francisco, I can't say Austin's the best but I still have my preferences - even for restaurants in Austin which have since closed.
Even those places I have been, outside of Texas, which offer cuisine comparable with or even better than what I've had in Austin, seem to be missing that indefinable, supernatural zest; that essential flavor of home which rests over each bite of food, like a regional accent permeating even the words of those who are living there from abroad. It is in the Pizza. It is in the Mexican and Chinese food. It is in the staid, quintessentially American greasy spoon. That flavor which says, I am home. This is who I am. This is where I am from.
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
Then again, I think what SYSTEM-J is talking about may be different than Renaissance fairs, because even if the twenty-somethings themselves never experienced, say, the '60s or '70s, they know plenty of adults who did. That kind of connection is lacking in Renaissance / medieval times enthusiasts. So maybe it's like a "borrowed nostalgia" or "nostalgia by proxy?" |
Well, I think in the end, where it crosses thresholds into possibly pathological territory, is when you have a triangle of idealization, minimalization and devaluation. There is the idealization of whatever the nostalgic holds dear, in which the object is imbued with qualities which make it special. Minimalization is concurrent to idealization as a part of dismissing otherwise perceived qualities which detract from the uniqueness of the object. Devaluation occurs with objects which are in competition to the uniqueness of the object.
Not that I oppose to distinctions being made, but whether one has experienced it or not, may largely be immaterial since essentially the same mechanisms appear to be at work. |
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