NYT Arts story that conjectures critical (and popular) retro fixations are not only something new (or somehow newsworthy) but can be credibly associated with 9/11 sentiment.

September 11, 2002 9:27 AM

NYT Arts story that conjectures critical (and popular) retro fixations are not only something new (or somehow newsworthy) but can be credibly associated with 9/11 sentiment. Oh, and freshly minted art isn't as good or noteworthy as the old stuff, even if that old stuff (Nevermind, Eastwood's Unforgiven) is from the early '90s. Pick apart, please.
posted by blueshammer (15 comments total)

This is bullshit. Our country has had a retro problem for far longer that one year, and it wasn't due to fear, it was due to cultural malaise.
posted by interrobang at 9:31 AM on September 11, 2002

Well, Unforgiven is the best flick ever made, so you can't quite blame Ebert for fixating...
posted by mlaaker at 9:39 AM on September 11, 2002

When Blender had its debut last year, it included a regular two-page feature called The Greatest Songs Ever

Yep, before retro became big, no magazine ever did one of those.

Just proof that the Times is, for all its high-culture trappings, pretty out of the loop on anything a rung below.
posted by risenc at 9:40 AM on September 11, 2002

When Blender had its debut last year, it included a regular two-page feature called The Greatest Songs Ever

Yep, before retro became big, no magazine ever did one of those.

Just proof that the Times is, for all its high-culture trappings, pretty out of the loop on anything a rung below.
posted by risenc at 9:40 AM on September 11, 2002

Well, the piece argues both -- the malaise and the post-disaster search for security. But I reject the idea that retro is related in any significant way to cultural malaise, except to say that each generation, when they reach a certain age, gets blinded against innovation and new works by nostalgia.
posted by blueshammer at 9:41 AM on September 11, 2002

oops. Sorry about that.
posted by risenc at 9:41 AM on September 11, 2002

Well, early 90s stuff came out ten years ago. The people who enjoyed it then as mass-media consumers (mostly teenagers) are now ten years older, and the people who were teens then are twenty-somethings now with more disposable income to spend on stuff they remember as being "cool" from their childhoods. That's my theory, anyway, on why retro-80s and 90s stuff is coming back now. It's a cycle. In 2012, Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh will be making similar comebacks.
posted by wanderingmind at 9:54 AM on September 11, 2002

Same as it ever was ...

(runs off to listen to some talking heads)
posted by jragon at 10:00 AM on September 11, 2002

Not to mention the backward gaze that accompanies milestones like the turn of the century, the turn of the millennium. I'm not a history buff, but wasn't there a big rush of nostalgia, coupled with projections of the future, in the first few years of the 20th century?

It's hard to gain perspective on a trend while it's still in the process of happening.
posted by me3dia at 10:02 AM on September 11, 2002

Things have been going downhill since 1995, and the friggin icecream doesn't taste the way it used to and the music now sucks and the films are lousy and book? forget it. Crap. As for the Times: it was much better back then and they used better ink and paper. The computers back then were 5 times better and the girls? forgetaboutit!
posted by Postroad at 11:10 AM on September 11, 2002

Not to mention the backward gaze that accompanies milestones like the turn of the century, the turn of the millennium. I'm not a history buff, but wasn't there a big rush of nostalgia, coupled with projections of the future, in the first few years of the 20th century?

YES. It's been documented that art, fashion, architecture, entertainment, etc looks to past trends at the end of each century. It's as if people feel things are ending, and so feel nostalgic about them... or maybe they just can't imagine anything past that big 100, so they look backwards instead.

We're still close to the end of the last millenium, and the retro craze pre-dated 9/11...
posted by Shane at 11:19 AM on September 11, 2002

Those same kids might know an old guy named David Bowie released an album called "Heathen" this year, but might never have heard Mr. Bowie's 1972 opus "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars."

Because Heathen has been such a smashing success, especially with the young folk.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 11:27 AM on September 11, 2002

I'm old and I'm grouchy and I don't like the way things are now compared to the way they used to be.
posted by Ty Webb at 1:08 PM on September 11, 2002

When I read the article this morning I was surprised the author didn't mention the nostalgia craze of the early 1970's. In large part triggered by the release of American Graffiti this nostalgia for the pre-Vietnam/pre-Watergate era carried through much of the seventies.

I also tend to agree with wanderingmind that people grow up and revisit/consume the stuff they associate with the best times of their lives. This can happen at any time in adulthood but probably intensifies when the financial obligations of parenthood subside (if they ever do!)

And, of course, there's no better time to be alive than right now (except tomorrow) for a consumer, since s/he has access to much of the old stuff while being able to enjoy the best of the new. The best of the past 100 years of culture is always going to be better than the best of 2002.
posted by xiffix at 2:22 PM on September 11, 2002

xiffix: It's funny how rarely people associate Sha Na Na with Woodstock.
posted by raysmj at 3:20 PM on September 11, 2002