Why Modern Television Is Looking Towards The Past

We live in a society that is defined by innovation. 

Our phones can unlock by simply recognizing our faces, our cars can glide into parking spots without us touching the wheel, and just as Back to the Futureonce predicted, our sneakers can even lace themselves. We will settle for nothing less than greatness, forging our way into every unexplored frontier through relentless trial and error. Our gaze is unapologetically fixed towards the future, but when it comes to what we watch on television, we find ourselves looking in the other direction.

Presently, we are obsessed with the past. Nostalgia is the driving force behind some of our most popular television shows, whether they involve children combating monsters in an alternate dimension, or undercover Russian spies posing as the perfect American family. We are shamelessly excavating artifacts of the past, filling our television with period pieces, reboots, and remakes.

But this craving for nostalgia isn’t new. In fact, it’s almost 330 years old. The word “nostalgia” was created in 1688 by a medical student, from the Greek words for “homecoming” and “ache.” For centuries, nostalgia has been used as a way to combat feelings of loneliness and anxiety, but in our current culture, we’re placing an unprecedented value on it.

In the Season 2 premiere of Netflix’s 80’s-homage hit Stanger Things, the show’s main characters Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo) and Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard), frantically search around their houses. This time they aren’t looking for their missing friend, but for quarters to play Dragon’s Lair at their local arcade. As they dig between couch cushions for that last coin, and happily speed away on their bikes, it’s obvious what the appeal of Stranger Things really is: simplicity. 

Sure, we watch the show for the frightening Demogorgons and the unknowns of the Upside Down, but we also watch it for the pure, childhood friendship depicted by the misfit main characters. They scuffle around in Nikes, coordinate group Ghostbuster costumes for Halloween, and shamelessly devote hours to playing Dungeons & Dragons together. And then there’s the one thing we can’t help but notice is missing: modern technology. 

Part of the nostalgia of Stranger Things is one for a pre-digital age. None of the kids ever have their faces buried behind cell phones—the closest they even get to communicating on mobile devices is through their walkie-talkies. Forced to socialize face to face, the kids are more outgoing, their friendships more complex. They’re able to sneak off on adventures at a moment’s notice, because their parents don’t have the ability to monitor their every move. Family dinners at the Wheeler house are fueled by actual conversations, never interrupted by the ping of a cell phone notification. Perhaps the most fantastical element of Stranger Things to us isn’t the Upside Down, but the fact that no one is shackled to a smartphone.

New research from the American Psychological Association (APA) found that 86 percent of adults in the U.S. admit to constantly checking their smartphones. According to the APA, our attachment to our devices is directly linked to higher stress levels and anxiety, which are largely influenced by social media. 48 percent of Millennials and 37 percent of Gen Xers worry about the negative affects social media is having on their physical and mental health—the same two generations that have the most influence on television ratings.   

This fascination with technological regression speaks to a larger dissatisfaction in our culture. In his National Review article “The Shows of Yesteryear,” Matthew Continetti relates nostalgia to decadence, “Not the decadence of orgies and debauchery, but the decadence of drift, stagnation, and repetition.” In a society marked by progress, enduring norms don’t exist anymore, and because we’re still craving that sense of stability, both politically and socially, we put it in our television. Our nation is trapped in a nostalgic mode, with a President at the helm whose own campaign slogan echoed sentiments of a past greatness in America, seeking a return to an indeterminate time. 

This is where the success of the reboot comes in. 2016 saw the creation of Fuller House, a spin-off of the 90’s sitcom Full House,a show that wrapped up our family values with a neat little ribbon at the end of every episode. In the Fuller House premiere, D.J.’s son Max proudly proclaims that he knows “all of the bad words,” and lists out “darn, booger, and Donald Trump,” evoking an eruption of laughter from the audience. 

When Will and Grace, the then-groundbreaking LGBTQ sitcom of the early 2000s, premiered its reboot this September, many wondered how it would navigate 2017 terrain, where a television show with queer relationships isn’t revolutionary anymore. So instead, the show decided to get political, and didn’t shy away from a few Trump jokes of its own. In the first episode of the season, Grace begrudgingly agrees to redecorate the Oval Office, pulling out a bag of Cheetos to help her match a curtain swatch to the President’s skin color. Before she exits, she leaves a “Make American Gay Again” hat on his desk. 

These reboots serve as a measuring stick between what was and what is, playing up the past while simultaneously rooting us in the present. And there’s no other way to say it—our present kind of sucks. We’ve completely lost faith in our political system, disillusioned by an onslaught of lies and deceit. This isn’t to say this hasn’t happened in the past before (read: Nixon), but a romanticized nostalgia only allows us to remember the past for its valor.

 In Alan Siegel’s article “The Year Nostalgia Took Over” for the online publicationThe Ringer, he says, “It makes sense we’re constantly looking to the past for comfort, hope, and answers.” Show likeFuller House and Will and Grace allow us to not only revisit familiar friends, but see them live through the same trying times that we are. Here nostalgia isn’t just a vehicle for escape like on Stranger Things. Instead, it becomes a sort of primer we use on how to live through unpredictable times. If Will and Grace can navigate Trump’s America, then so can we right?

Roseanneis television’s most recent resurrection. At the time, the 90’s sitcom had a huge impact on our culture by completely rejecting the theory that entertainment had to be aspirational. Instead, Roseanne spoke about class and a self-proclaimed “respectable white trash family,” at the heart of it all. The reboot aired on ABC on March 27, dropping us right into present day with the Conners family. The family is poorer than ever, both Roseanne and Dan voted for Trump because he promised jobs, and they still have yet to see results. The Roseanne reboot captures life under the Trump administration from a working-class perspective, and its current context allows us a certain sense of stability as our beloved 90’s family is figuring it out right along with us. 

In other television shows, nostalgia serves as a backdrop to make certain events and ideas in our own lives seem more palatable. The sixth and most current season of The Americans, an FX drama about Russian sleeper spies Elizabeth and Phillip, feels dangerously relevant to today’s cold war politics that dominate the media. When it first aired in 2013, the show originally captured the tumultuous Russian-US relations of the 80’s that we felt safely removed from at the time. But with recent political events, The Americans seems more present than ever. This season centers on Elizabeth’s staunch resentment of American culture, and after living there for over 20 years, still looking at them as the proverbial “other.” She praises the Russia that she knows as the motherland, blinding herself its harsh realities and her terrible childhood there. Elizabeth’s almost robotic insistence on Russian greatness shows a kind of purposeful historical revision as response to trauma, not unlike the ways we employ nostalgia into our television, choosing to remember only what was great and ignore what was bad. 

The same goes for Amazon’s hit comedy series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Set in the late 50’s, the show tells the story of its titular character Midge Maisel, who discovers she has a knack for stand-up comedy after her husband leaves her. Midge is an extremely wealthy New York City housewife, and her lifestyle romanticizes a time of doting mothers, pillbox hats, and Pyrex dishes full of homemade meatloaf. While focusing on the golly-gee goodness of the late 50’s, the show completely glosses over the civil rights movement and a nation on the brink of war. Instead, the show’s backdrop provides a convenient platform to push feminist ideals. A character as loudmouthed and quick-witted as Midge might seem off-putting, even annoying in present day, but her roots in the 50’s give her a groundbreaking charm. Her timestamp renders her a “palatable” kind of feminist, unaware of the road she is paving, but paving it nonetheless. 

Maybe there will come a time when we’re nostalgic for this particular moment, when our culture of instability and change seems exciting. But for now, we’ll shy away from the challenge, retreating back to what’s familiar, or dragging what’s familiar right along with us. After all, history does always have a way of repeating itself.