In Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ seminal 1986 comic, Watchmen, Veidt Enterprises (the company owned by former superhero Adrian Veidt) heavily markets a perfume/cologne/aftershave called Nostalgia. Using Nat King Cole’s song “Unforgettable,” the brand identity of Nostalgia is one that echoes a safer, less troubled past. Veidt understands better than most that when facing an uncertain future, people cling to the past, but not a real past, a past of the imagination. In the 2009 film adaptation by Zack Snyder, the commercial we see near the beginning of the movie is a direct reference to a 1979 commercial for Chanel No. 5 directed by Ridley Scott called “Share the Fantasy.”
Nostalgia is one of the central themes of Watchmen. Moore’s characters are superheroes, and at the outset of the story, his central figures are all more concerned with the past than the future (except for Adrian Veidt, aka Ozymandias). In Watchman specifically, Moore is calling out nostalgia as the reason superhero characters (and adults who read ongoing superhero comics) suffer from arrested development.
In a recent interview, Moore expanded on the idea of nostalgia:
Nostalgia isn’t really a narrative tool, but more something that one uses narrative tools to dismantle. It’s probably a reliable commercial tool, however, in that as the world becomes more complex and overwhelming, more and more people seem to be retreating from their responsibility to help create a tolerable present by seeking refuge in an imagined idyllic past or in their own childhoods, when they felt safe and happy and as if they understood things. Nostalgia is, and always has been since the word was first coined, an illness. It literally means ‘homesickness’, but in effect refers to all of our yearnings for a world that, with our serial view of time, we feel we have inevitably and irrecoverably lost.
Like today, post-Watergate America was also a time of intense nostalgia. By focusing on the “glory days” of the past—and not the real, historical past—you can decry our current ills while ignoring the ones that existed in his imaginary gestalt historical period. If you are arguing you want to “Make America Great Again,” you don’t need to define when America was last previously great because each member of the audience will have their own personal nostalgia to pull into their mind and associate with your message.
For the past month, I have been reading historian Rick Perlstein’s excellent and engaging history book, The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan, which covers the years 1973-76 across over 800 pages. It is a cultural history as much as it is a political one. Perlstein traces Reagan’s life from childhood through Hollywood and becoming governor of California as well as Watergate, the presidency of Gerald Ford, the battle for the 1976 Democratic nomination, Hank Aaron, Patty Hearst, the Bicentennial, and other pop culture phenomena. This book is largely the inspiration for this set of essays on nostalgia, because Perlstein’s central thesis is that Reagan (and to some degree, Jimmy Carter) portrayed themselves as throwbacks to a ‘simpler’ time. A time before Watergate and hearings about the illicit activities of the CIA were dragged out in front of the American public, a time before “stagflation,” and a time before ‘racial strife’ and high crime rates. The 1970s were a challenging decade for this country, and it turns out that generally speaking, we longed for a more innocent America that never really existed.
In the last 15-20 years, nostalgia has had a tight grip on popular culture, from Stranger Things to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, to the fandom battles over Star Wars and Star Trek, and beyond. This is why franchises can never die, and we seem stuck in this endless cycle of reboots, legacy sequels, and Scrubs returning to television. All of these forces are tied together, and I am looking forward to examining them over the next few newsletters.
I don’t think that any amount of nostalgia is automatically bad, nor is this a “old things are bad and were bad and no one should like them anymore” argument. But even if you view nostalgia as good, there can easily be too much of a good thing. It is clear to me that America is addicted to nostalgia, and I want to explore the dangers of nostalgia being the central mode of our politics and culture, and what we might be able to do about it. I will do this over the course of four more essays, looking at politics, pop culture, at movies specifically, and also at some works that I would classify as “anti-nostalgia.” I hope to see you then!
▶ Podcast in my ears: Blank Check
▶ Current reads: The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty
▶ Album on repeat: You’re Living All Over Me by Dinosaur Jr.
▶ Find me: https://linktr.ee/silberwhatever
SOFIE UPDATE
