I know it. You know it. The aliens hovering probably know it too. They're feeding us the same thing over and over again. So much so that, whereas there were once people who actually enjoyed this wave of sequels, remakes and reboots because it meant their favorite thing was back again (me once upon a time with The X-Files - no words...), it rapidly turned into fatigue. You cannot go on any social media platform without seeing that someone has decided to bring something from the 00s back.
I don't know how many young people have this perception of media being better in the past than it is today. Me being 30, I lived through some of the original media that these sequels or remakes are trying to bring back, while some other stuff from the 90s or earlier I obviously didn't get to experience firsthand, but perhaps grew up watching in one way or another since I've always been a big consumer of nostalgic stuff.
Young adults today... well, if you're in that age group, you'll be able to tell me, but some I've met have no real interest in anything from before 2005 (although scanning through the internet I can see a lot do). In fact, I remember a couple of weeks ago suggesting Dawson's Creek to a younger college friend and she asked what year it was from. When I told her, she laughed and exclaimed, "Damn, you're old" (I was like two years old when it came out lol but watched it at her age actually). This dear young friend preferred getting her shot of dopamine from series like Off Campus or Sterling Point, which is totally valid, since when I was her age I was also into those types of shows. I don't even have to go that far, we actually bonded over her watching The Summer I Turned Pretty (something I mentioned having already seen, so she basically spent her entire watch live-messaging me)... so yeah, opinions on nostalgic media vary, I believe.
What surprises me the most is that every time I go back to a movie or TV show from the 00s, 90s, 80s and even Old Hollywood stuff, I do it because I genuinely believe the quality of this type of media has diminished, and maybe in a classist and very millennial way, I do also think things used to be made better back then. But what I'm discovering through authors like Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno is that people back then had some of the same conceptions we have of our media today. Just like we're criticizing Hollywood for always releasing the same things, they were already pointing out that the industry kept producing the same things over and over again.
In Dialectic of Enlightenment, Horkheimer and Adorno express the following: the culture industry operates through standardization and mass production, presenting consumers with products that may appear different from one another but are ultimately just variations of the same thing. All over again. What is presented to us as new is often only a familiar piece of culture dressed up in a slightly different form.
We don't often see new ideas, only once in a while, and on top of that, let's be honest, we also go looking for the things that will have our favorite tropes, our favorite genres, our favorite rhythms. Mostly because by categorizing what we like, we can make sure we will never be too disappointed with what we consume. Humans "thrive" (or at least we believe we do) within this order and structure imposed on us. This leaves us with the usual exclusion of the new. Once the industry determines our consumption, everything that has not been tested is best discarded, deemed a useless risk. Mostly because, as these authors say, creative production like filmmaking, music and theatre (they also add radio, since this book is from 1944) stops presenting itself as art and becomes blatantly a business, an ideology used to legitimize trashy productions.
Anything that will not make money becomes a risk. So what about those favorite 00s rom-coms? Or iconic films with a solid following such as The Devil Wears Prada, Mamma Mia! or Harry Potter? Even cultish, arthouse movies usually not consumed by blockbuster audiences, like Suspiria or even Possession (being remade as we speak). Those sorts of movies have proven to move people, move consumers. So even if the internet is constantly talking about how tired we all are of remakes and sequels, the outside, very real world lives by other rules, and people will pay to see Meryl Streep step into haute couture red heels once more. Secured bag.
This is not just a remake thing, though. Going to see Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey meant I got to watch movie trailers I otherwise would not have paid much attention to. The End of Oak Street, with Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor, popped up on the big screen before both movies. Right after watching the trailer, I thought, huh, this is interesting. Ridiculous, but interesting. And the passing thought of it being quite original flew through my mind before my brain started recognizing the usual tropes and archetypes of these types of North American movies. If you watch the promo, some of the first things that might pop into your mind are Jurassic Park, the classic suburban family, Spielberg, Signs by M. Night Shyamalan, and other elements that might have gone through my head but perhaps you got them. Basically, a film that's consciously in dialogue with earlier cinematic forms. This surprising new idea gives us the feeling of something new while remaining deeply familiar.
Note: Don't get me wrong, The End of Oak Street looks good lol. An 80s family having encountering dinosaurs falls under categories I usually consume, but it's also not entirely new. The fact that I like it is actually more of an example of how these things work.
Sequels and remakes are not new, obviously. Hollywood has been doing it since the earlier days. Neither is complaining about them, apparently.
Following this idea of consumerism within the culture industry, Horkheimer and Adorno basically argue that the industry sets this whole system up. Even when you believe you're not falling for what snobs might call "blockbuster rubbish," and you claim to consume real cinema, you're still operating within this system, consuming what the industry has made available for you to consume. The industry doesn't simply impose things on an unwilling audience, it creates a circle of manipulation and need. It produces according to what it believes consumers want, and at the same time, by producing it, establishes and reinforces those same needs. We then go for what's familiar to us, so that's what they keep producing it.
It's insane to notice how easily we fall into this circle. I see it in myself in the fact that, most of the time, I'd rather watch something I've already seen than start something new. What I've already seen is familiar. It's comfortable, predictable, and doesn't require much mental effort from me. More than that, I know how it's going to make me feel.
All of this is another thing to keep in mind here. Being or feeling familiar with something produced by the industry reduces the risk for the industry (because they already know there's an audience for it), while also requiring less and less mental activity from us. We already recognize what we're watching, whether it's technically new or old, so there's less left for us to figure out on our own. The more familiar we are with the product, the less our brains are being asked to think.
It's also kind of like the way Netflix creates a lot of its content nowadays. Everything is explained, painfully so, dumbed down for people who have their phones up in front of the other screen playing the show or movie they're supposedly "watching." The audience isn't paying that much attention but can somehow still understand what's going on.
Hollywood might have run out of ideas, but it's important to keep in mind the system behind it all. The genres, choices and stars we're offered exist within a system that has already done much of the categorizing for us. They make us watch the same thing over and over again, and what's worse is that they make us believe it's entirely our choice. So, in this circle we enter alongside the industry, we'll consume genres we already know we go for, we'll watch actors we like, and we'll ask for recommendations based on something we've already consumed and enjoyed.
Horkheimer and Adorno later talk about amusement and how, according to them, we never really escape the system we're subjected to through work. Even when we're taking a break from it, we're continuing it. "To be entertained means to be in agreement."
However, I feel like that's a discussion for another day lol.
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