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Why Does Nostalgia Matter So Much?
7 years ago
General
In eternity, where there is no time, nothing can grow. Nothing can become. Nothing changes. So death created time to grow the things that it would kill and you are reborn but into the same life that you've always been born into.
I just watched an editorial about the reaction to the new Thundercats series that's being produced. Fan reactions to it have been largely negative, if you watched and enjoyed the original series and/or the 2011 reboot, and then see the preview for this new series you'll understand why. Hell, Thundercats was how a lot of people I know on here got into the Furry Fandom. But this video I just watched discussing the negative reaction and such was a very negative discussion about peoples' reaction(s) to the preview, which he summed up in the description box underneath it by saying some people need to grow the hell up or get a life or most likely both. I've been coming to a point where I'm taking issue with that train of thought. In a big way.
Even when someone adapts or reboots a property in a different style than the original that's objectively good, that does not guarantee success. Because, whether you like it or not, the people who grew up with the original will still have an impact on how it's received. You know, for that matter, why hasn't Speed Racer ever been redubbed? I know there's been at least one other Speed Racer series and that movie, but I'm talking redubbing the original. What about the original Voltron? And yes, that new Voltron series on Netflix kicks ass but the original, in all its camp, still has a firm grip.
When I got into all of those series, Speed Racer, Thundercats, Voltron, and others I must have been 9 or 10 years old. I watched those shows on Cartoon Network, during their original Toonami block. The one where Moltar from Space Ghost was the host, not Tom. I had transferred schools, finishing 3rd grade at one school and starting 4th at another school. It was an advanced magnet school. A lot of my classmates at my old school were very familiar, I'd known several of them since Kindergarten. It was my choice to transfer, but it was an almost surreal experience. You don't ever think about the new smells that you're going to experience, but the new school's cafeteria had an interesting smell even though they had the same kind of food my previous school had.
I started having my first encounters with bullies in school. I was also on a new medication (new for me, anyways) because my teachers thought I had ADD or something. I always had trouble with focusing on schoolwork and would daydream and all of that. Back then, ADD was the hot new mental illness, before Asperger's/ASD, and depression. The medication gave me really bad headaches. So I'd make it through school, go home, eat a snack, and watch all those shows and others on Toonami, some stuff on Nickelodeon. Didn't have to listen to people drone on anymore or read passages in textbooks, oh yeah and I can't remember being able to do much of anything at all during those few days when a neighbor on my street went all psycho on his girlfriend and her kids and became a fugitive before it was revealed he had a record of child molestation and had been molesting his girlfriend's daughter...yeah cartoons were great during that time!
Those shows were fun, but my big one? Dragon Ball Z! Gundam Wing was awesome too, and I even watched Sailor Moon (admittedly being able to watch that series while going through puberty was a lot of fun). As things do around that age, though, my world started to change. I noticed things about friends and family that I couldn't forget. My world was getting bigger than what I was ready for, so I clung to those anime and cartoons and other shows to hold onto that one piece that was still there.
Nostalgia is a remarkably bittersweet thing. I have watched interviews with voice actors who were in those shows and anime that I'd watch, like Dragon Ball Z, and one thing they frequently talk about is how every convention, they will have fans who come up to them and tell them how much an anime or whatever they did a voice in helped them through something like their parents' divorce, a loved one fighting cancer, them going through their own recoveries, etc. One that stood out to me was Steve Blum talked about how a big guy who was a lot older than the usual age range of his fans came up to him, covered in tattoos, and told him about his autistic son who was almost non-functional, and how they noticed he took to his character in Digimon Tamers, so they would all watch it together and over time they'd talk more and his son opened up more and improved greatly.
Not everyone's story is that dramatic, obviously. Dragon Ball Z had changed dubbing studios in 1999-2000 some time, and that took some getting used to, but that was the time I started noticing problems in my own home. I started noticing things like how my little brother might be a real, unbelievably selfish piece of shit who would NEVER get in trouble without taking you with him (spoiler alert, if you read some of my previous journals, he's 26 now and a piece of shit). Even more so, I was coming to realize that my dad was VERY unhappy with his life, mostly because of financial stress. I was 13-14 and still wasn't doing well in school so there were a lot of times where I was an outlet that would stop short of him getting physical with me because I was 13-14 and my brothers were 9-10 years old at that time. And I was observant enough to be able to tell it wasn't actually me he disliked so much and thought of so negatively, but that didn't help.
I'm kind of dancing around what I really want to get to here, which is why these shows are so important to older people who some would think shouldn't give a shit anymore, and why when a remake/reboot is slated to be made and it looks little to nothing like the original, the response is usually negative.
Nostalgia is a double-edged sword. It might be different for many of you, but when I watch a T.V. series, a movie, listen to a song, or whatever from back in the day and no matter how dated it may be, it takes me back and I remember friends whose names or faces I can't recall, the way the breeze felt on a particular day, feeling and emotions I experienced...and the most important thing I experience, and this is really hard on an emotional level to really express, but the person we were when we first watched those movies, those shows, listened to those songs...that person does not exist anymore, or if they do then there are usually only traces left. You have friends and family who are not in your life anymore, maybe because they've passed away. Pets, toys, clothes, blankets, sheets, any manner of things that brought you comfort are gone and even if they aren't, they are not the same either.
Even the series and movies that I have on DVD/Blu Ray/whatever can't ever be the same that I experienced when I was a kid. I've learned between episodes of Dragon Ball Z, whatever Gundam series was showing, and whatever other shows that came on weekday afternoons that my brother would steal and break my toys and other belongings and when I got mad and raised hell, he'd make sure I got in as much if not more trouble than him, especially because I was older and should know better and should set an example for my little brothers. I learned that when my dad doesn't have control of a situation and he doesn't know how to handle something, he will say cruel things and take it out on whoever happens to stumble across the trip wire. I learned that you will have stuff going on with you that you don't know how to describe, explain, or ask for help and nobody else will be able to do that either.
Those are all hard and difficult lessons I learned mostly from age 9 through age 15. I can't go back to how I was before those lessons and even just one or two of those lessons, that happened within a span of months, weeks, or even days, changed me into a completely different person, not always for the better, than the person I was before that lesson. Nostalgia gives me a brief, bittersweet glimpse at that person who I was and it lets me enjoy something, even the littlest thing, that I had through the best times and the worst times.
Art is not created or experienced in a vacuum. Context means everything. When you hear or see someone complain about the direction an adaption of something they enjoyed at a younger age is, the problem might not be that they need to "get a life" or "grow the hell up". The problem might actually be kind of the opposite. They were at a point where they had to grow up and they weren't just little kids anymore. Maybe they still have trouble accepting that, but for some people those actors in those anime, T.V. series, and movies were there for them more consistently than parents, other family, friends, whatever. Don't be hateful towards people who don't like what they see in a remake. And, on the flipside, if you don't like what you see in a remake you are free to complain about it and criticize it, but don't be hateful and don't threaten people over it. Life sucks enough as it is.
The video that discussed the Thundercats reboot also got me thinking about nostalgia, which made me think of this clip from the T.V. series "Mad Men". I haven't seen this series yet so I can't really say there are spoilers, but you can read the context.
Even when someone adapts or reboots a property in a different style than the original that's objectively good, that does not guarantee success. Because, whether you like it or not, the people who grew up with the original will still have an impact on how it's received. You know, for that matter, why hasn't Speed Racer ever been redubbed? I know there's been at least one other Speed Racer series and that movie, but I'm talking redubbing the original. What about the original Voltron? And yes, that new Voltron series on Netflix kicks ass but the original, in all its camp, still has a firm grip.
When I got into all of those series, Speed Racer, Thundercats, Voltron, and others I must have been 9 or 10 years old. I watched those shows on Cartoon Network, during their original Toonami block. The one where Moltar from Space Ghost was the host, not Tom. I had transferred schools, finishing 3rd grade at one school and starting 4th at another school. It was an advanced magnet school. A lot of my classmates at my old school were very familiar, I'd known several of them since Kindergarten. It was my choice to transfer, but it was an almost surreal experience. You don't ever think about the new smells that you're going to experience, but the new school's cafeteria had an interesting smell even though they had the same kind of food my previous school had.
I started having my first encounters with bullies in school. I was also on a new medication (new for me, anyways) because my teachers thought I had ADD or something. I always had trouble with focusing on schoolwork and would daydream and all of that. Back then, ADD was the hot new mental illness, before Asperger's/ASD, and depression. The medication gave me really bad headaches. So I'd make it through school, go home, eat a snack, and watch all those shows and others on Toonami, some stuff on Nickelodeon. Didn't have to listen to people drone on anymore or read passages in textbooks, oh yeah and I can't remember being able to do much of anything at all during those few days when a neighbor on my street went all psycho on his girlfriend and her kids and became a fugitive before it was revealed he had a record of child molestation and had been molesting his girlfriend's daughter...yeah cartoons were great during that time!
Those shows were fun, but my big one? Dragon Ball Z! Gundam Wing was awesome too, and I even watched Sailor Moon (admittedly being able to watch that series while going through puberty was a lot of fun). As things do around that age, though, my world started to change. I noticed things about friends and family that I couldn't forget. My world was getting bigger than what I was ready for, so I clung to those anime and cartoons and other shows to hold onto that one piece that was still there.
Nostalgia is a remarkably bittersweet thing. I have watched interviews with voice actors who were in those shows and anime that I'd watch, like Dragon Ball Z, and one thing they frequently talk about is how every convention, they will have fans who come up to them and tell them how much an anime or whatever they did a voice in helped them through something like their parents' divorce, a loved one fighting cancer, them going through their own recoveries, etc. One that stood out to me was Steve Blum talked about how a big guy who was a lot older than the usual age range of his fans came up to him, covered in tattoos, and told him about his autistic son who was almost non-functional, and how they noticed he took to his character in Digimon Tamers, so they would all watch it together and over time they'd talk more and his son opened up more and improved greatly.
Not everyone's story is that dramatic, obviously. Dragon Ball Z had changed dubbing studios in 1999-2000 some time, and that took some getting used to, but that was the time I started noticing problems in my own home. I started noticing things like how my little brother might be a real, unbelievably selfish piece of shit who would NEVER get in trouble without taking you with him (spoiler alert, if you read some of my previous journals, he's 26 now and a piece of shit). Even more so, I was coming to realize that my dad was VERY unhappy with his life, mostly because of financial stress. I was 13-14 and still wasn't doing well in school so there were a lot of times where I was an outlet that would stop short of him getting physical with me because I was 13-14 and my brothers were 9-10 years old at that time. And I was observant enough to be able to tell it wasn't actually me he disliked so much and thought of so negatively, but that didn't help.
I'm kind of dancing around what I really want to get to here, which is why these shows are so important to older people who some would think shouldn't give a shit anymore, and why when a remake/reboot is slated to be made and it looks little to nothing like the original, the response is usually negative.
Nostalgia is a double-edged sword. It might be different for many of you, but when I watch a T.V. series, a movie, listen to a song, or whatever from back in the day and no matter how dated it may be, it takes me back and I remember friends whose names or faces I can't recall, the way the breeze felt on a particular day, feeling and emotions I experienced...and the most important thing I experience, and this is really hard on an emotional level to really express, but the person we were when we first watched those movies, those shows, listened to those songs...that person does not exist anymore, or if they do then there are usually only traces left. You have friends and family who are not in your life anymore, maybe because they've passed away. Pets, toys, clothes, blankets, sheets, any manner of things that brought you comfort are gone and even if they aren't, they are not the same either.
Even the series and movies that I have on DVD/Blu Ray/whatever can't ever be the same that I experienced when I was a kid. I've learned between episodes of Dragon Ball Z, whatever Gundam series was showing, and whatever other shows that came on weekday afternoons that my brother would steal and break my toys and other belongings and when I got mad and raised hell, he'd make sure I got in as much if not more trouble than him, especially because I was older and should know better and should set an example for my little brothers. I learned that when my dad doesn't have control of a situation and he doesn't know how to handle something, he will say cruel things and take it out on whoever happens to stumble across the trip wire. I learned that you will have stuff going on with you that you don't know how to describe, explain, or ask for help and nobody else will be able to do that either.
Those are all hard and difficult lessons I learned mostly from age 9 through age 15. I can't go back to how I was before those lessons and even just one or two of those lessons, that happened within a span of months, weeks, or even days, changed me into a completely different person, not always for the better, than the person I was before that lesson. Nostalgia gives me a brief, bittersweet glimpse at that person who I was and it lets me enjoy something, even the littlest thing, that I had through the best times and the worst times.
Art is not created or experienced in a vacuum. Context means everything. When you hear or see someone complain about the direction an adaption of something they enjoyed at a younger age is, the problem might not be that they need to "get a life" or "grow the hell up". The problem might actually be kind of the opposite. They were at a point where they had to grow up and they weren't just little kids anymore. Maybe they still have trouble accepting that, but for some people those actors in those anime, T.V. series, and movies were there for them more consistently than parents, other family, friends, whatever. Don't be hateful towards people who don't like what they see in a remake. And, on the flipside, if you don't like what you see in a remake you are free to complain about it and criticize it, but don't be hateful and don't threaten people over it. Life sucks enough as it is.
The video that discussed the Thundercats reboot also got me thinking about nostalgia, which made me think of this clip from the T.V. series "Mad Men". I haven't seen this series yet so I can't really say there are spoilers, but you can read the context.
