Cultural stagnation of the U.S.
DragonKing
Member Posts: 1,979
in Off-Topic
Has the U.S. teach a cultural stagnation? I ask this question looking at what are media has been doing for the past 5 years...reboots, remakes, and reinagining that don't seem to stop, or constant continuations of things that we should've let be put rest. The fast and the furious has 12 movies, how many times do we need to see a Spiderman, Batman, or superman movie? Let alone another origin story? Simpsons are on season heck idk last I remember was season 20 and still going. We bav been listening to the same Christmas songs since the 194s-50s, and now the newest money making trend is video game remakes and reinagining, enhanced editions of older more successful games.
Now of course none of this is new, long running series, remaking something has always been a thing and has its own merits when done properly and can even revive lost franchises.
But, Disney has shown us it's also can be used as a quick, cheaper , cash grabbing alternative to remake something they've already done and already done better than to take the risk of creating something entirely new.
So has culture in the states stagnated so much that we care more about piggy backing off of constant past success than we are actually taking risk to create and expand new culture?
Now of course none of this is new, long running series, remaking something has always been a thing and has its own merits when done properly and can even revive lost franchises.
But, Disney has shown us it's also can be used as a quick, cheaper , cash grabbing alternative to remake something they've already done and already done better than to take the risk of creating something entirely new.
So has culture in the states stagnated so much that we care more about piggy backing off of constant past success than we are actually taking risk to create and expand new culture?
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I remember my mother's reaction to "Happy Days" during the 1970's. The 1950's were her childhood and teens, and she related to everything in it. She thought it was hilarious, and 8-10 year old me found it mildly amusing at best. Then there was "Grease", and "Sha-Na-Na", and a bunch of other '50's nostalgia in that decade.
In the 1990's, we had "That 70's Show", and a bunch of other "culture" based on 70's nostalgia.
I really liked "Mad About You", and just recently I've been watching the 2019 remake. It only got one season and didn't catch on at all, but I really like it. For one thing, Paul and Jamie are close to the same age as I am, and I can relate to the life issues they're having in the new show. But also, the 1990's were my young adulthood, and anything from the 1990's or invoking the 1990's triggers a lot of positive nostalgic feelings for me.
Sometimes philosophy asks "Is there truly ever anything new?" Whole books of philosophy have been written (and rewritten) with thousands of words that come down to saying "No, not really."
Ecclesiastes proclaimed "There is nothing new under the sun." It's an entire book of the bible talking about life being empty and meaningless. The writer doesn't even really seem to have that much faith in God. He comes down to "Meh, might as well worship Him, there's nothing better to do. Life is so hollow." Xan would have loved him.
Eastern philosophy and religion has had as one of its axioms throughout recorded history that all of existence and life is an endless series of cycles - cycles within cycles - birth>life>death>rebirth, rise and fall of civilizations, stars form and stars die, species rise and species go extinct, universes flare into existence then burn out into emptiness. On and on forever.
Singer Peggy Lee asks "Is that all there is? If that's all there is, then let's keep dancing. Let's break out the booze, and have a ball." You should give the song a listen. It does a good job capturing the feeling of malaise and jadedness that often comes at our quarter-life and mid-life crises.
So, bottom line, no, I don't really think the current trend of remakes is anything new. Because there's nothing new. "This has happened before, and will happen again."
Is the recent increase in remakes and recycled content a signal that our civilization is in decline? The waning phase of a once great culture? Maybe, maybe not. The only certain thing is that we will eventually fall to history, our knowledge will slowly be forgotten, and something else will be born and repeat the cycle.
The groundbreakers of the past like King Kong, Jurassic Park, etc. (Can you tell what kind of movies I like?) tend to be generational. There's been a shift or two in movie making for my generation, but generally in areas I don't care about.
I'm not from the USA, though I did live in Seattle for a few years, so I can't say if there's a cultural stagnation or not in that country. And, I don't have much to say about the issue of stagnation and originality in general. It's something that I've thought about in the past, and still do sometimes, but I don't have a good answer. It's a tough theoretical problem.
Another shift is with work ethic. Our parents and grandparents enjoyed a strong post war economy and job market. Full time, insurance, retirement, were pretty standard. Compare that to the Bush jr. recession that hit right when mid-older millenials were getting out of highschool and college. Insurance isn't guaranteed, retirement is rare and might even be gone in a generation or 2. Millenials are more likely to walk out on abusive jobs than boomers, etc.
There's also how religion has been impacted. Its been in a general decline for awhile as people are disillusioned with it. As recently as the last 3 years, Christianity in particular has had a major shift. With the appearance of a very large deconstruction culture as Christians either try to remove the predjudices and dogma endemic in churches, or just walk away from it altogether.
So I guess when talking about culture, what is meant specifically by stagnant? Which part of culture are we looking at. OP focused on pop culture, but there's any number of areas we can look at and see change.
Question for the OP, is culture outside of entertainment media off topic? If it is, what media can be discussed here? In addition to film and games, there's also the traditional arts, or writing, or theatre, etc.
It just seems our will to let things die, or remain in it's time period is gone and half the time is argue it's not even warranted... Sadly I have to go here but Disney (I swear that has to be my most used word recently) large perpetrator of this... Just look at some of the things they have done, maleficent live action telling... A maleficent 2 which I don't plan to watch, Aladdin live action... Freaking lion king... The villian from 101 spotted puppies (lol), which from what I saw didn't even make her evil and even took out the whole freaking reason she was even in the original animated movie. Not to mention what they have coming down the line... Live action Peter pan & Wendy? They going to take out the part where the mermaids tried to drown Wendy? A live action Pinocchio... Well seeing how they did the live action dumbo, I'm expecting this to be about a wooden doll that doesn't walk or talk and the story to follow some random family that owns the toy. Live action Lilo & Stich... Just why? Lion king 2, live action snow white, live action Hercules, live action Aladdin 2...
Moving away from Disney... A live action Avatar by Netflix which spoiler alert... Of you read the leaks that a and half the internet read... And the directors comments... You think the rage for the she remake was Netflix did was something? Oh boy.... Speaking nickelodeon products, I didn't even know they did a reboot of Rugrats until a few months back when I found it looking for something to watch...hated it. Call me someone looking at it with rose colored glasses but hated it...
Power puff girl got like 2 remakes one being a live action that needs to never be mentioned...
And I hear they want to do a family matters and a good times reboot.
And don't get me even started on video games because I mean... The irony isn't lost on me on the fact of where I'm currently even making this post.
Now maybe the problem is my perception, it's like with history (using American history
for this example because I'm American, sue me), a lot of people in the states don't realizes our revolution didn't just happen over a matter or span of days/weeks because when we are taught it we are given events and dates. We aren't taught the in-between of the months or years so many don't comprehend it lasted 20 years and when just view the cliff/spark notes version of it when we read about it.
Same thing could be happening here, maybe I'm just seeing the SparkNotes version and I missed a generational cultural shift and now I'm the old man complaining about the music of today.
On another note, I don't see how remakes from before the 2000s are fudamentally different from today. There's always been remakes and reboots. Nostalgia has always been profitable.
If you take a look at Shakespeares portfolio, some of his plays has plots he borrowed. For instanse Hamlet and Macbeth - perhaps some of the finest plays ever made - both has stories he borrowed/ripped from other sources.
Thomas Mann made a Faust version, with obvoius reference to Wolfgang Goethes epic story of Faust - who borrowed from Marlowe, who again borrowed from 12. Century german folklore.
The above are all outstanding works in their own right. Borrowed - but still outstanding.
I can live with the recycling. It sometimes works. Should we let the Batman arc end with Batman 4 (the one with Arnold), or is Nolans take not the better? It sometimes give a better result.
But I do share Dragonkings concern to some extent: that the copying/rebooting becames the default solution AND that the quality declines at the same time.
Right. I mean, how many people that aren't old school film buffs know that John Carpenter's The Thing is a remake of an old black and white film?
I knew that!
(lowers head in shame when he realizes how old he is)
The appetite for nostalgia among those who grew up in the 90s is VERY strong (hell, just look at the Diablo 2 remaster and the upcoming KOTOR remake). But it can also be a detriment. It's undeniable The Sopranos is one of the great television series of all-time. But it's recent prequel movie is the most disappointed I've been in a piece of pop culture entertainment since the 4th Indiana Jones film. Half of it is being held up by Easter eggs and inside jokes, and the actual story is so thin you wonder why you just spent two hours watching it. And, like so often happens in these cases (the Warcraft movie being another great example), it's absolutely incomprehensible if you aren't already not just a fan, but an OBSESSIVE fan.
It is more like a bad second sequel in that regard...
But yes, Romans were fanfic Greeks.