Dose Our Generation Have a Nostalgia Gatekeeping Problem?

[exochaft]

It really depends on what we're talking about, because I feel the term 'gate keeping' gets misused a LOT.

I think an inherent misconception is that nostalgia is the main cause behind some of the uproar about newer shows/movies, especially those that are reboots or reimaginings of older content. While there may be some nostalgia involved, I guarantee it's an extremely small amount, because there's an insane amount of media that gets remade/updates/etc. across all spectrums (music, TV, movies, books, etc.)... and there's no backlash at all. Even in the cases of extreme departures, you don't always get the backlash. So what's the difference?

The main difference is how they are being remade and why. One big aspect is whether you are respecting what came before it, whether it's from the perspective of lore, messaging, etc. For a lot of the newer remakes, they are not just disrespecting and warping what came before it, they're burning it down and urinating on the viewer and telling them it's raining. If the creators of the new content actually enjoy what came before it and want to add onto it, it's easily shown, and no one makes a big fuss over it unless it's really bad (then everyone makes a fuss usually). However, we get producers talking about how their goal isn't to entertain people, but turn shows into a messaging platform for their own views. This is typically done by destroying everything they don't like about the previous content (by making massive fundamental changes that typically aren't in-line with anything the previous show was about). In the end, you get something with the same name as the old content, but it's nothing like the old content... and as of late, it tends to insult the old content and anyone who enjoyed it.

Putting the views aside, the storytelling and writing has been getting pretty bad, and it stands out when the aforementioned issue comes alongside it. If anything, it's nostalgia that blinds people to how bad the writing really is in the newer stuff, where the creators like to jingle the car keys in front of the viewers to try to distract them from the trash that the content really is. Marvel is a good recent example, where the character stories, universe, and even themes/messages from the movies are getting absolutely destroyed by the recent shows that they put out. Unfortunately, as is the case with Marvel, the degradation of writing and story can be at least partly blamed because of the aforementioned issues: messaging over entertainment. Even with massive budgets, Marvel (and other large companies) cannot put out a decently written product because all their focus is in the wrong place. While you still may get some push-back concerning messaging, a well-written and entertaining story actually eliminates most of said push-back.

Now this isn't to say there wasn't trash in the past... goodness, there was. However, the needs to preach and berate your viewers was pretty rare, and even if you were trying to promote a message the end-result could still have good writing and be entertaining. Unfortunately, media now is the result of a culture that doesn't believe in any fundamental truths, where anything from the past is problematic and should be erased or rewritten in a more 'acceptable' way. We're not at the pure dystopian levels of 1984, but a lot of the societal culture that Orwell described is showing up in our culture right now... and it's affecting a lot of the media people see today.

[Orby]

It really depends on what we're talking about, because I feel the term 'gate keeping' gets misused a LOT.

I think an inherent misconception is that nostalgia is the main cause behind some of the uproar about newer shows/movies, especially those that are reboots or reimaginings of older content. While there may be some nostalgia involved, I guarantee it's an extremely small amount, because there's an insane amount of media that gets remade/updates/etc. across all spectrums (music, TV, movies, books, etc.)... and there's no backlash at all. Even in the cases of extreme departures, you don't always get the backlash. So what's the difference?

I'll try and elaborate with an example. Say you grew up with a show or movie you really loved, and it was really big for its time and it grew a fan following, many years later it gets remade and fans backlash it because the remakers, they decided to take a different route. Its like 'how dare you change what I know about this thing, and what I remembered in my innocence to then change it to be something different that I am not familiar with, why are you not making it the way it was?'.

The attitude of people thinking that this new adaptation or this reworking of a classic they loved is automatically erasing what they knew. There is a sense of our nostalgia belonging or being owned by us. Maybe the word is entitlement and not gatekeeping, but I use gatekeeping mainly because it was never ours to begin with.

A franchise be it movie or TV show can change over time. Remember when they remade Popeye in the 80's and made him have a son, how so many kids shows then got a remake in the late 80's which featured popular franchises as kids and babies.

Here are some examples just off the top of my head...




I don't remembered any of that generation from the 50's/60's coming into the 80's getting mad that the Flinstones were now kids and not the adults they remembered. Back then this was the equivalent to Teen Titans to Teen Titans Go lol.

Fast forward to now where you see 80's or 90's kids get mad at something that changed today because it was different then. Maybe this is partly due to the rise of the internet and social media so its easier to blame our generation now.

Hope that helped i am terrible at explaining things :P

[Moozart]

I'll try and elaborate with an example. Say you grew up with a show or movie you really loved, and it was really big for its time and it grew a fan following, many years later it gets remade and fans backlash it because the remakers, they decided to take a different route. Its like 'how dare you change what I know about this thing, and what I remembered in my innocence to then change it to be something different that I am not familiar with, why are you not making it the way it was?'.

The attitude of people thinking that this new adaptation or this reworking of a classic they loved is automatically erasing what they knew. There is a sense of our nostalgia belonging or being owned by us. Maybe the word is entitlement and not gatekeeping, but I use gatekeeping mainly because it was never ours to begin with.

A franchise be it movie or TV show can change over time. Remember when they remade Popeye in the 80's and made him have a son, how so many kids shows then got a remake in the late 80's which featured popular franchises as kids and babies.

Here are some examples just off the top of my head...




I don't remembered any of that generation from the 50's/60's coming into the 80's getting mad that the Flinstones were now kids and not the adults they remembered. Back then this was the equivalent to Teen Titans to Teen Titans Go lol.

Fast forward to now where you see 80's or 90's kids get mad at something that changed today because it was different then. Maybe this is partly due to the rise of the internet and social media so its easier to blame our generation now.

Hope that helped i am terrible at explaining things :P

I remember my father/grandfather complaining about those shows, you didn't see it or hear about it as often because there was no social media. Most kids had very limited interactions with adults of that age group back then so it was far less likely you would even be around to hear them complain.

[Orby]

I remember my father/grandfather complaining about those shows, you didn't see it or hear about it as often because there was no social media. Most kids had very limited interactions with adults of that age group back then so it was far less likely you would even be around to hear them complain.

My dad used to watch these with me and he never complained, I think he liked Popeye and Son and Muppet Babies. :P

The other two were not on when he was at home so I have no idea about those. My great uncle used to watch them with us after school though cos he used to pick me and my sister up. He would watch anything, if he never liked something he'd just go out to his shed and start working on something lol. :P

[TheLucky1]

I don't have much in common with your generation as i just turn 23 this year but even I see how much stuff of the 80s and 90s get's milked, rebooted or for example how intertextual many new movies (especially disney) are, it really feels like that bigger companys don't take risks/chances to create something new and possibly great as much anymore.

[Zaqwert]

Unfortunately, media now is the result of a culture that doesn't believe in any fundamental truths, where anything from the past is problematic and should be erased or rewritten in a more 'acceptable' way.

It's astounding to me how historically obtuse today's culture is. It's like people have mostly always understood that cultural norms have constantly shifted. What's considered normal and acceptable and celebrated changes and will continue to change. You simply can't take cultural norms and standards of present day and project them backwards and try to "fix" things you don't like. There's such sanctimony involved. Truth, justice, and virtue didn't start with today's generation and it's not going to end with it either. In a few hundred years people will look back at our society and find things they think we were completely wrong about.

If you were born 1000 years ago you're opinions on everything would be very different. Today's society is very me-centric. I think Bill Maher said it best a few weeks ago, essentially this current generation seems very hostile to history since history didn't involve them.

[Rennadrel]

I don't think so. And this really isn't exclusively an issue for guys. I know plenty of women who were fans of the original He-man and She-Ra shows that dislike how the characters were written and how the stories were told. Not to mention the She-Ra reboot animation was not of great quality compared to other good animation these days.

The issue with the new He-man show is that he's used exclusively as a plot device rather than being a focal character. And all of the male characters are cast aside while Teela is written as this insufferable bitch and they literally kill off Adam in the first fucking episode and Orko in the fourth. And the other issue that people have is that this show was blatantly marketed as being a He-man product. Frankly, I wouldn't care if they wanted to make a show where Teela is the focal character, go nuts and do what you want but don't shit on the main character of the franchise and don't market it as being about him, then don't try to lie when you get caught with your pants down like Kevin Smith has done. So now we have this show where basically all the women feel like a She-Ra C list team with some pretty piss poor writing and very unlikeable characters.

People want these old shows to be respected in every facet. And for a lot of people our generation, shouldn't we be able to revel in some nostalgia watching a show with our kids that we both can enjoy? This reboot reeks of another show trying to pushing feminist empowerment rather than just being entertaining with likeable characters. I don't believe for a second that people dislike it because they dislike strong women either. Hell, people loved Teela in the original series because she WAS strong and she was a badass. But she was also written in a way where her qualities didn't feel forced.

[kodemonkee]

I am 38 years old, I grew up on shows like He-Man, Thundercats, TMNT, Duck Tales, Ghostbusters and Count Duckula to name a few. I grew up with movies like Goonies, Ghostbusters, Land Before Time, Back to the Future, and ET, once again to name a few. But here's the thing, among my generation or those just after it, I have seemed to notice a certain behaviour when nostalgia is either milked, exploited or even done in good faith.[/I]

How could you forget the Transformers my favourite show as a kid? I am 39 and yeah Hollywood is 100% milking the nostalgia from people, I mean I watched every Transformers movie in the cinema :-D

Then we have Poltergeist which is my all time favourite movie, look what they did with the remake, it was terrible even though I love Sam Rockwell.

[Bodakane]

I think my generation of growing up in the 80's is just the first generation to be old enough to have nostalgic IPs AND also have the internet. Forums and social media create echo chambers that just reinforce isolation through the prism of whatever people find interesting. Its why there's incels, for example.

[Ihavewaffles]

why it's so bad

[draynay]

It isn't gatekeeping when people clap back at excessive attempts to milk nostalgia. The annoyance is more directed at the creatives than at fellow fans.

[Orby]

How could you forget the Transformers my favourite show as a kid? I am 39 and yeah Hollywood is 100% milking the nostalgia from people, I mean I watched every Transformers movie in the cinema :-D

Then we have Poltergeist which is my all time favourite movie, look what they did with the remake, it was terrible even though I love Sam Rockwell.

lol I'll be honest I never got into Transformers as a kid, either it wasnt shown at a time I was watching, or I just missed it. I remember watching a few episodes growing up but I wasnt an avid watcher. :P

why it's so bad

I liked it personally. I wasnt even aware there was even controversy over it until after I binged watched it... the blessing of not being on social media I guess. So, like most controversies I have no ides what people are complaining about but seeing who the star of the show is I can probably guess lol. which is why the show was called Masters of the Universe and not He-Man Masters of the Universe.

and this is what the thread is about mainly, I do not understand why people are so angry and feel the need to be so toxic about a show they were so attached when they were younger? Why is this the hill people are wanting to die on? And this guy in the video calling it a disaster? Why because he didn't like it? These manchild tubers need to grow up a bit and learn to enjoy things, make some positive videos about what he likes instead to trying to be Quartering guy #3123

this guy makes videos about being angry about the most mundane things... Its so much effort and energy.

It isn't gatekeeping when people clap back at excessive attempts to milk nostalgia. The annoyance is more directed at the creatives than at fellow fans.

I personally just don't clap back. Put your money where your mouth is. I didn't see the Ghostbuster 2016 movie because it looked shit,. was it shit, was it not? I don't know I diodn;t watch and I don't care. But it seems people care too much. I haven't even spoken about it since I decided not to see it because I don't feel the need to gatekeep a franchise that I ever had any control over to begin with. Hell maybe some people enjoy it... good for them, let people enjoy shit and if you don't like it that's fine, just move onto something you do, I see these youtubers get so angry they create like 50 videos dedicated to this He-Man shit and I am like... why? Is all this energy really worth it?

Now if this was a franchise you created and someone butchered it then yea I can understand.

[Rennadrel]

It isn't gatekeeping when people clap back at excessive attempts to milk nostalgia. The annoyance is more directed at the creatives than at fellow fans.

I've just opted over the years to stop giving these products my money. If something is worth consuming that will interest me, I will spend the money to watch it. Like the Animaniacs reboot was really well done. Sure, it doesn't have ALL of the same kinds of humor as the show did back when I was a kid, but it's still really well written and they threw in some modern tongue-in-cheek jokes as well. But a lot of these shows try to work off our nostalgia while forcing stories and narratives that aren't in line with what we remember about the shows or things feel forced.

I think the bigger issue is that studios seem to have this notion that they are obligated to create shows that appeal to women, men be damned. And I know of some women who liked both He-man and She-Ra during a time when a lot of TV shows didn't have female heroes. Yet those female heroes became really popular and I've seen plenty of backlash from women on social media about how they wrote Teela in this series, which is a huge counter to what she was like in the original series. Even the 2002 reboot of He-man is better in literally every aspect aside from the animation quality.

[Flame6]

Probably. They love to throw out "boomer" all the time. For a generation that prides itself on inclusiveness it sure likes to shit on folks just because they were born in a different generation.

[draynay]

Probably. They love to throw out "boomer" all the time. For a generation that prides itself on inclusiveness it sure likes to shit on folks just because they were born in a different generation.

I fail to see how that assertion relates to the thread topic.

[Arrashi]

Nah, its just that many reboots and remakes are soulless pieces of shit which try to milk nostalgia while replacing everything that made originals great with more and more politics.

[Voidwielder]

Gatekeeping is good and I love that despite high profile adaptation, one of my current (to be never finished) book series has tight and small theory crafting community of which most people are oblivious.

[Soon-TM]

My dad who is a big conservative guy grew up with a lot of shows and never once complains if they have changed or been altered.

Your dad must be a quite untypical conservative, most of them don't waste any occassion to QQ every time something changes.

As for "failling to move from our childhood", I don't think my generation (millennials) has an issue with that, not in any larger measure than any other generation, at all rates. Most people imo are attached to their childhood memories, and we live in a time when technology gives us a chance to relive at least a small bit of our childhood so I don't think that this is anything extraordinary. I personally find most shows from the 70s/80s to be cringe as all !@$%, but that's just me.

[Orby]

Your dad must be a quite untypical conservative, most of them don't waste any occassion to QQ every time something changes.

As for "failling to move from our childhood", I don't think my generation (millennials) has an issue with that, not in any larger measure than any other generation, at all rates. Most people imo are attached to their childhood memories, and we live in a time when technology gives us a chance to relive at least a small bit of our childhood so I don't think that this is anything extraordinary. I personally find most shows from the 70s/80s to be cringe as all !@$%, but that's just me.

lol funny you should say that. He supported unionization while also voted for Margret Thatcher... work that out :P

[Nihilist74]

Most of the music and movies I like are from the 80s and 90s. When I compare them to what is coming out nowadays, the older stuff is better. With tv shows, I like a lot of older shows and some of the newer ones. I think about whether I'm being biased or eating too many member berries. I don't think I am.