Despite the many horrible things that have happened in history, we continue to be fascinated by nostalgic images of the past. Across from my bed are three posters. One is an image (probably digitally altered) of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean. It's black and white, except for a single muted red rose next to Dean. Next to this poster is the famous "Kissing on VJ Day" image, in which a sailor is kissing a woman after returning home in Times Square. Perpendicular to this poster is an image of the Eiffel Tower. Like the James Dean and Marilyn Monroe poster, this one is mostly black and white, except for a light blue car which sits in front of the Eiffel Tower and holds a couple.
These "vintage" romantic images are not the only ones being marketed these days. The "hipster" scene seems to especially enjoy culture of the 40s, 50s, and 60s. Pin up art and fashion are still popular and vintage decorating styles in homes continue to be relevant.
But as much as people like to say that the past was a "simpler time," I don't feel that is actually true. People of the past had just as many (if not more -- think of the Great Depression, for instance) problems as we have today. What makes a difference is that the problems were different, not that they were any less in number or less in seriousness. Though we are engaged in military combat frequently, we are not experiencing a World War. We have managed to wipe out many diseases that killed ruthlessly in the past that we so romanticize.
Even bits of history that never made it to the mainstream audience in their time have come to the surface and become bits of nostalgia for us to rest our hearts on. "Keep Calm and Carry On," (another poster I happen to own) for example was fairly obscure at the time of its production. Now, however, it has turned into a popular internet meme.
I do not have an answer for why we build up the past so much. Perhaps it is only that we are enough distanced from it so that we are able to remember it fondly, much like we remember our childhoods fondly, even though we spent much of that time throwing temper tantrums and dying for the day when we were grown-ups.
The stillness and distance of the past appeals to us. But the past was not still or distant when it happened, so what we pine for is an allusion. Fifty years from now, people will pine for the easy and simple days of 2013, when we only had Smart Phones instead of graphic interfaces implanted in our brains, like in MT Anderson's young adult novel Feed.
But maybe there is something to be said for the quality of the past. During much of my adolescence, my mother worked double shifts at the nursing home on the weekends. My brother would spend these nights in his room or with his friends, leaving Dad and I to figure out what to do with ourselves. We started a tradition of watching Cary Grant movies on Saturday nights and eating cheesy popcorn. Some of our favorites were Holiday, Bringing Up Baby, Arsenic and Old Lace, and The Philadelphia Story. Many of these films are classified as comedies and rely on quick humor, slap stick, and just plain good writing to entertain its audience.
Today's films are of bathroom and sexual humor -- humor that is, in some ways, classic, but cliched and immature at the end of the day. We're entertained by it, but nothing more. It's a shot of humor, as opposed to a glass of wine-humor. So maybe there is something to be said about the quality of the past.
Still, people of the 40s, perhaps, longed for the comedy of 1890, when the jokes were original and the action was live and right before your eyes.
We cannot be objective about things that are not before us. We can only see things through warped lenses that mystify and romanticize things that once were, even when we see the dead, bloated bodies of World War II victims and the desolate landscapes of the Great Depression.
Maybe things aren't so great now, and maybe they were better in the past. Maybe things will be better in the future or maybe they'll be worse and we will look on today as a magical time. For now, all we can do is appreciate today, focus on what is great of today, and release ourselves from a past we never really knew.
Edit: After writing this blog post, my boyfriend showed me Midnight in Paris, which is a great artistic piece which gets at what I write about here, but with more eloquence and elegance. Check it out.
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