September Shorts: Nostalgia Porn

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.