Is "Retromania" destroying culture?

[Marc Chevalier]

And during the fifties those stuffy middle-aged Americans everyone loves to disparage looked back fondly on their zany raccoon-coat-and-ukulele shiek-n-flapper days in the twenties. "Singin In The Rain" remains as a tangible reminder of that fad.

And that was foreshadowed by a 1940s spate of Roaring '20s-themed parties at colleges around the country. In other words, postwar varsity kids pining for the "carefree fun" their pre-Depression/WWII parents had had.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I seem to remember there was an episode of Dennis the Menace that had to do with the curmudgeonly Mr. Wilson's old raccoon coat.

 

[Deco-Doll-1928]

I think that the interest in "retro" or vintage culture just goes to show how bland and base popular culture has become. Things are just too casual, grunge, and sloppy. There is little expectation that anyone will strive to look, act, be at their best behavior. I think we are looking for something to sustain our souls.

You took the words right out of my mouth!

I think it's also safe to assume especially in hard times, it's natural for people to want to look back on times when the economy was better. Therefore, vintage and retro become popular. I also think the retro/vintage culture is popular also for the same reasons why movies are popular. For some people, that world is a sense of "escapism" from the everyday world. Judging the state of affairs our world has become, there might be a lot more things we want to escape from more than ever! lol I know I do!

Ugghhh....I hate it when people refer to the 90s as "retro". It makes me feel old and the 90s were not that long ago! I remember when it had turned the year 2000. The "flashback lunch" on the radio was always usually songs from the 80s. To my dismay, they had a flashback to the 90s for the lunch hour! ????!!!!

BTW, welcome to the FL O2BSwank!

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Ironically, the commercialized and packaged "retro" reaction to our "bland and base popular culture" is, in itself , bland and base ... and lazy. It's a cheap way to make a buck off the public. No need to come up with something original; just rehash what's already out there (and you own the rights to).


Take Ralph Lauren's "Polo" line. At first, he copied vintage WASP stuff and added some contemporary touches. Now, he re-copies his own earlier copies from several decades ago. That's even cheaper to do than hunt around in thrift shops. Ralph Lauren's archived sample storeroom is the thrift shop.

 

[Deco-Doll-1928]

Read over someone's opinion made me think of this too. I don't think today's society has any problem moving forward (like the article seems to imply). I just think there's no real distinct style right now like there were in decades past. Style is much more subtle now. When it comes to architecture, we don't have a fabulous Art Deco building. We have a box. A stupid functional box for a building. Errrr...... However, we do see some "retro" looking buildings in some shopping malls. In my area, there are examples of retro Art Deco everywhere. I see it at Downtown Disney, I see it at the Grove, and the Americana. Heck, even Disneyland is retro! Just look at Main St. Does that look like a typical 1950s style? Of course not. Okay. I'll be quiet now. I can feel my blood boiling when it comes to this subject. lol!

 

[Lady Day]

That's just pretty much what has been happening throughout human history.
There's always plenty of new stuff around, albeit underground.

And to its advantage, you can call popular culture a necessary evil. In the past, it took an underground phenomenon (music, dance, fashion) altered it for a more conservative palette, and sent it to mainstream. Think of it as spreading genes. Underground culture has a tendency to die off quickly if it has never been embraced by popular culture. Sure indy gets changed somewhat in this process, but it survives.

Now, we are loosing a lot of indy things because popular culture is too busy rehashing stuff it's already rehashed.

LD

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Now, we are loosing a lot of indy things because popular culture is too busy rehashing stuff it's already rehashed.

Yes. And the magic gap seems to be about 20 years between original and rehash. Then there's the rehash that never dies: the '70s "revival". It began in the early '90s ... and is still going.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

I think a lot of human nature has to do with it, too. People like what they're familiar with. It's easier to put someone in clothes that they've seen something similar to a million times before than to try to market some out there fad. That's just my opinion, though.

 

[Nathan Dodge]

Ironically, the commercialized and packaged "retro" reaction to our "bland and base popular culture" is, in itself , bland and base ... and lazy. It's a cheap way to make a buck off the public. No need to come up with something original; just rehash what's already out there (and you own the rights to).

The thing I've always found irritating about so-called retro styles gaining popularity is that the masses only wear the stuff because it's popular. They tend to be ignorant of anything related to where and when said style is from and there interest is superficial. Perhaps a few latch onto its origins and become incurable retrophiles, but usually not.

 

[Fletch]

I won't start to worry about the state of our culture until groups of people aren't convinced it's going to hell. So long as half the world thinks the world sucks at any given moment, we're all good. That's just how it should be. That's just how it's always been.

That's a helluva thought. It's a call to not be complacent!

 

[Edward]

One thing that's causing a lot of concern in the vintage-movie-enthusiasts world is that the increasing push toward online streaming means that fewer and fewer films will be released in "removable media" format. Couple this with increasingly advanced Digital RIghts Management technology to foil bootleggers and media thieves, and there are rather dire predictions that within a very short time the "Golden Age of Accessibility" for vintage entertainment will be over -- and we'll be back to watching what they want us to watch and nothing else. The Man always wins in the end.

Unless, of course, you're still using a VCR. And have TCM.

Yes, this concerns me too - much more broadly. I read a lot of this in my professional context, and it constantly concerns me to see copyright law especially being increasingly stacked in favour of the "rightsholder" to an extent where the original 'balance' of the 'copyright bargain' is rapidly disappearing. The worst of it all is that the "rightsholder" these days typically means the exploitative middleman, and not the actual creative artist, the latter being often as badly screwed over by the entertainment industry as by consumers who prefer pirate options over legitimate copy.

And to its advantage, you can call popular culture a necessary evil. In the past, it took an underground phenomenon (music, dance, fashion) altered it for a more conservative palette, and sent it to mainstream. Think of it as spreading genes. Underground culture has a tendency to die off quickly if it has never been embraced by popular culture. Sure indy gets changed somewhat in this process, but it survives.

Now, we are loosing a lot of indy things because popular culture is too busy rehashing stuff it's already rehashed.

LD

Fair point.

The thing I've always found irritating about so-called retro styles gaining popularity is that the masses only wear the stuff because it's popular. They tend to be ignorant of anything related to where and when said style is from and there interest is superficial. Perhaps a few latch onto its origins and become incurable retrophiles, but usually not.

To be honest, it doesn't bother me if someone gets into vintage for the style alone. There are other thing I appreciate about the era myself (though I'm sure glad I live now and not then), but I'd rather see more people sharing my stylistic preferences than not, irrespective of anything else. In some ways, it's more of a tribute to the style of the eras if they are interested in the clothes for their own sake rather than, in effect, simply following another fashion trend because "that's what people wore in the era in which I am interested". I think there's room for all those approaches, really. [huh]

 

[Fletch]

The folks who remember things taken away and ask "what happened?" are not the same folks who threw them out, built new and were happy.

The preservation-minded are always outsiders - not just culturally, but socially, ethnically, racially, sexually, and chronologically. The internet and (before that) a media-and-affluence-guided culture began to open up access to their treasures, which once required a very pricey ticket to an unpleasant main event. Now those preserving are no longer the only ones consuming. If you're reading this, you're proof - things like the Lounge could not exist otherwise.

This is a good thing in some respects, but a very bad thing in one respect. As the socially normal get to access the treasures of old, the marketers get smart to them. They become just another selling tool to be messed with in any way that pleases the front office. Change them, pick and choose them, take them away entirely when fashion and numbers give the nod.

Lizzie is right (isn't she always?...) The movies, especially, may be taken away as easily as given. But the outsiders remember what it is to have things taken away. They - probably they alone - will copy, circulate, lengthen the chain, keep things quietly alive. Samizdat. If you care and are a little strange, start today.

 

[Oroboros]

Sorry for being late to the party, but I blogged on this a couple of months back here:

A vote for Retromodernism

I haven't worked out all the aspects of retromodernism, yet. For example, there's the spiraling cycles of fashion. Also, there's a history of homage in films and Quentin Tarantino has made cinema kleptomania an artform. In Pulp Fiction, with the dance in the diner, QT pays homage to Travolta's earlier incarnation in Saturday Night Fever, Marsellus crossing the street and identifying Butch evokes Psycho. And plenty more allusions in the film makes Pulp Fiction a classic exemplar of retromodernism where there's hundreds of styles in the toolbox to pilfer and redeploy.

When retro borrows the style of an older era and becomes successful, it turns into a genre of its own.

If necessary, a master argument for proliferation can be presented in favor for retromodernism, against the monoltihic idea of originality within the bounds of a linear, progressive history.

The argument of the original writer of that Salon article, Reynolds, is mostly about music and that he hasn't heard a new sound since his halcyon days. Which is a weak claim IMO. Another jumped-up child of the 60s without the slightest distance from the concept.

A counterweight to Reynolds is Cline's new book: Ready Player One. Pop culture soaked novel set in 2044. Everyone is plugged in a vast virtual reality game completely saturated with retro references to the 70s & 80s.

 

[Fletch]

If necessary, a master argument for proliferation can be presented in favor for retromodernism, against the monoltihic idea of originality within the bounds of a linear, progressive history.

Not everybody can be all original all the time. What happens when you want to look back? Should god turn you into a pillar of salt? If nothing else, it's lousy ecology: culture alone is excused from the ethic of "don't abuse, reuse."

Then again, what do we make of nostalgia for a time before our own? Is that always due either to a. marketing or b. outgroup membership? Is it less honest if the kid who's sold faux retro gets into the real thing and learns to cherish it, even without being mentored (and maybe not just mentored) by a grand, an old lefty relative, mother's queeny friend, or the neighborhood packrat?

 

[Drappa]

If you want to look back then you'd just be retro and wouldn't claim to be creating something new though.

 

[rue]

Will nostalgia destroy pop culture?

Gee, I hope so.

Somehow I think the writer of the piece would have a stroke if he visited the FL.

That was my exact thought!

The folks who remember things taken away and ask "what happened?" are not the same folks who threw them out, built new and were happy.

The preservation-minded are always outsiders - not just culturally, but socially, ethnically, racially, sexually, and chronologically. The internet and (before that) a media-and-affluence-guided culture began to open up access to their treasures, which once required a very pricey ticket to an unpleasant main event. Now those preserving are no longer the only ones consuming. If you're reading this, you're proof - things like the Lounge could not exist otherwise.

Well said

 

[Talbot]

Yes. And the magic gap seems to be about 20 years between original and rehash. Then there's the rehash that never dies: the '70s "revival". It began in the early '90s ... and is still going.

Well said that man!:eusa_clap:eusa_clap

I'd have said betwen 20 and 30, but not prepared to have an argy bargy with you over it .

Now we're rehashing rehash! Is that possible?

T

 

[LoveMyHats2]

Time for a very fitting line that really was never said in the movie, "Play it again, Sam"....

 

[pineapplefruitcake]

Personally I think it's wonderful to live in age where it's easy and acceptable to take influence from all the eras that have come before us, whether you try to be as authentic as possible or try to create something new using vintage as your inspiration. I'm 18 and I've always felt a strong pull towards nostalgia but at the same time - I have to say I love a lot of modern music and culture too, whether it's based off "retro" ideas or not. My issue starts when people aren't using their creativity - I definitely agree that it's pure laziness to simply re-release something ( The new Footloose anyone?) and I get frustrated when I see people blindly agreeing with the magazines and wearing Mad Men clothes when they've never watched the show or taken any interest in it before. As long as an individual enjoys what they're creating or wearing or listening to - good on them - it's the general air of "follow the leader" that really scares me...

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

My issue starts when people aren't using their creativity - I definitely agree that it's pure laziness to simply re-release something ( The new Footloose anyone?)

Now the remakes are being remade.