Abstract
Netflix Nostalgia: Streaming the Past on Demand offers thought-provoking insight into the ubiquity of nostalgic television programs presented by online subscription video entertainment services. The contributors to this volume, edited by Kathryn Pallister, a professor who teaches sociology and film at Red Deer College, in Alberta, Canada, not only dissect the development of nostalgic content on television programs and movies that stream on Netflix, they also present research about why and how nostalgia has been a surprisingly advantageous strategy, and, to a lesser extent, how consumers of nostalgia have benefited. Part of a series entitled “Remakes, Reboots, and Adaptation” that analyses contemporary media and its relation to aesthetics, gender, race, sexuality, and sociology from multidisciplinary approaches, Netflix Nostalgia could not have arrived at a more opportune moment, as large swaths of audiences have shifted to the convenience of video streaming services, such as Netflix, which produce and distribute remakes and adaptations of television series, thereby offering enticing programming to people who are already familiar with the offerings of such genres.
The volume’s chapters by contributors from different disciplines investigate the reasons why nostalgia supports Netflix’s success and delve into ideological dimensions of nostalgia. Readers of this book will see how Netflix developed an ingenious way—or, as Matthias Stephan (chapter 2) put it, a “highly affective and emotional frame”—to engage its contemporary audiences in shows that are reminiscent of the past. Keshia Mcclantoc (chapter 7) claims that Netflix’s marketing and branding actually feeds the audience’s yearning for a dream-like experience. However, using the case-study of Scream: The TV Series (refurbished from the 1990s film franchise, Scream), Philippe Gauthier (chapter 5) holds that over-romanticization of the past has problematized the cultural space, thereby making multiple interpretations of the past necessary.
Sheri Chinen Biesen (chapter 3) argues that reruns and remakes of popular television shows and films viewed on Netflix offer audiences a deeply immersive cinematic televisual experience. As a result, Netflix offers nostalgic, commercial-free, binge-worthy, noir-style shows not obtainable by any other broadcasting network. She adds that several competitors of Netflix are terminating their distribution deals in order to set up their own proprietary streaming services and compete with Netflix’s long-form binge watching programs. Meanwhile, Giulia Taurino (chapter 1) argues that, by recycling and remediation, Netflix has become an archive of historical and cultural memories. John C. Murray (chapter 4) picks up this point, arguing that Netflix has developed a “sophisticated model of distribution and consumption” (p. 60). Taurino adds that by algorithmically indexing old-time favorites through user behavior, Netflix has in fact made nostalgia a genre of visual texts.
Expanding the discussion even more, Joseph M. Sirianni (chapter 12) scrutinizes Stranger Things and identifies certain triggers that make nostalgia work, including the narration of stories and their cinematography, realism settings, music, décor, and characters. Other contributors identify and examine the various forms in which nostalgia can be studied: reflective (Stephan); restorative-melancholic (Gauthier, chapter 5); regressive-progressive (Heather Freeman, chapter 6); digital nostalgia (Mcclantoc); hybrid (Ande Davis, chapter 8); collective (Paola Maganzani, chapter 10); technostalgia (Patricia Campbell and Kathryn Pallister, chapter 13); queer (Freeman, Mcclantoc); and retrofuturistic (Kwasu D. Tempo, chapter 14).
Ande Davis (chapter 8) and Jacinta Yanders (chapter 9) discuss issues of race, gender, and sexuality by questioning the limitation of authentic nostalgic representations. Davis asserts that by using genres like action and blaxploitation in series like The Get Down and Luke Cage, which primarily cast people of color and which popularize kung-fu and hip-hop genres, Netflix is reconceptualizing familiar ideas on racial structures. On the contrary, Yanders argues that Netflix plays a critical role in instigating social change in a developing society by remaking nostalgic series like One Day at a Time, wherein a family with Cuban-America heritage is portrayed as challenging dominant ideologies and cultural specificities.
Netflix Nostalgia not only inspects the business model of Netflix but also delves into the audience’s response to what Yanders calls “reimaginings” (p. 137). For instance, Murray points out that a form of visual cultural transformation is taking shape, wherein: (a) audiences are pulled into a pattern of habituated viewing by a select group of choices, and (b) audiences as active users of Netflix’s intuitive service are influencing and recommending the system.
An overarching theme of the volume is that Netflix has been able to connect terabytes of data sets on media texts with what the audiences think they want (in this case nostalgia as a positive emotion), all to generate personalized recommendations. Therefore, the book brings up important questions, such as: Why have nostalgic series as memories of past decades turned into comfort-watching? Which subscriber reservoir is drawn in by Netflix to those nostalgic shows? Is Netflix only allowing the celebration of dominant ideologies through reboots and reruns of canceled TV shows or is it also allowing inclusivity by promoting underrepresented narratives and ideologies through shows like One Day at a Time?
It must be emphasized that this volume primarily deals with the pleasurable aspects of nostalgia, thus downplaying and even ignoring such shows that may precipitate controversial views of the past. Nonetheless, Netflix Nostalgia is an enjoyable and informative read for those inquisitive about Netflix’s marketing strategies to capitalize on subscribers’ nostalgia, making the volume a valuable contribution to the burgeoning literature on mediated nostalgia and culture.