MARTIN GRIFFIN, WRITER
  • Home
  • Thrillers
  • Contact

September Shorts: Nostalgia Porn

17/9/2019

 
Picture
I recently listened to a panel discussion in which one contributor described Stranger Things as 'nostalgia-porn.'

This phrase bugged me somehow as I drove home from whatever school I was visiting that day. Why nostalgia-porn as opposed to 'nostalgic'? If Stranger Things is nostalgia-porn, is Super 8 nostalgia porn? Is Rim of the World nostalgia-porn? Certianly not every novel, movie or TV show set in or celebrating the recent past would qualify - the suffix '-porn' is pejorative, I'm guessing, and suggests viewers are there more for the pleasure of the nostalgia rather than anything else. At least I think that's what's implied.

Plus, since the setting only speaks to people of a certain age, Stranger Things must qualify as nostagia-porn for me, but not for someone ten years younger. Which surely makes the phrase pretty useless. Anyways, I don't watch Stranger Things for the time it is set, I watch it for the cool characters, deft plotting, elegant script and... monsters.

What if we tried to extend the use of the '-porn' suffix? Is The Walking Dead a zombie-horror soap... or zombie-porn? Is the Match of the Day Highlights show football-porn? Or is it goal-porn, since all the other stuff is taken out? Set-piece porn perhaps? Would more people tune in if we refered to it as corner-porn?

Then there's Sanditon. History-porn, Gerogian-costume-porn, Austen-porn or just - ahem - porn?

You decide.

Comments are closed.

    Archives

    November 2021
    April 2021
    February 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Thrillers
  • Contact