Nostalgia and the Film Industry
Nostalgia is one of the leading topics in today’s pop culture. Just think about it for a second: How often have you seen a sequel be announced for an older movie and thought, “Did that really need a sequel?”
Twister, The Polar Express, Gladiator, Beetlejuice, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit are all getting sequels at some point within the next few years, some of which are scheduled to come out later this year. All of these movies have satisfying endings, yet Hollywood continues to remake these same movies over and over again instead of opting for anything “new” or “creative.”
Adorno and Horkheimer (1944) claim that the movie industry became strictly a business nearly a century ago. According to the authors, “Movies and radio need no longer pretend to be art. The truth that they are just business is made into an ideology to justify the rubbish they deliberately produce. They call themselves industries; and when their directors’ incomes are published, any doubt about the social utility of the finished products is removed” (Adorno & Horkheimer, 1944, p. 1).
So, in the modern age of film, the executives within the industry have preferred to utilize the ideas that make the most profits instead of those that actually provide intellectual value to society. By looking through this lens, one potential theory could be that they have determined that using nostalgia and bringing back classic movies are ways to both get the public’s attention and make the most revenue from a single film.
This would certainly make sense given that in 2022, the second and third highest-grossing movies of the year, Top Gun: Maverick and Jurassic World Dominion, were sequels to films released in the 1980s and 90s (“2022 Worldwide,” n.d.).
The readings and videos show that the film industry overuses many different tropes, themes, and cliches to lazily “add more” to their movies so the film industry’s financial desires can be seen even on an individual level.
This begs the question: how else have you seen a movie, TV show, or other media “cut corners” to make more money?
References
Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. (2011). The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception (1944). Cultural theory: an anthology, 40-52.
2022 Worldwide Box Office. (n.d.). Box Office Mojo. https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/world/2022/
I'm not sure sequels, revamps, and reboots cut corners per se'. The Thomas Crown Affair was a brilliant remake, maybe even better than the first (I think). You've Got Mail was definitely an upgrade. Rather than view them as "cutting corners," they make me watch the original version as well. I think the medium that cuts corners is the literary medium. Books are published electronically without the former editing process. These books are poorly crafted and reach larger populations than before.
ReplyDeleteI actually don't think that studios or publishers are trying to "cut corners" when they create sequels. They are using something that people know already and are more likely to purchase it again. The movie business is just that, a business. I think that Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer made the point that since they are a business, they are trying to oppress certain groups in society. They saw these things in Germany leading up to World War II.
ReplyDeleteThis is why I enjoyed John Fiske explaining that oppression doesn't necessarily happen because of what you brought up, a sequel might not be what you enjoy and thus you can refuse to watch it. The audience does have the power to choose which pop culture they want. In the end, there are other films done by lesser known businesses that show the intellectual rigor being sought after.