Retro: It’s Time To Let Go
by Walter Sullivan
illustration by Chris Clodgo
“Been spendin’ most of our lives/living in a past-time paradise,” – Stevie Wonder, 1976
“You’re unbelievable!” – EMF, 1991
Saturday Morning: Cartoons’ Greatest Hits, Totally ’80s CDs, Dukes of Hazzard iron-on transfer T-Shirts, Schoolhouse Rock, Return of the Jedi lunch boxes… Have you seen my childhood? While I haven’t seen nor am I looking for Michael Jackson’s childhood, I can’t seem to avoid mine. Late ’70s and ’80s nostalgia items are inescapable, and it’s gotten many people set adrift on memory bliss. Saturday morning cartoons were more than just commercials for tie-in products….WWF wrestling, we were so naïve… we thought it was real. Things were better then….
Were they really, now? Longing for the “good old days” already strikes me as being somewhat pathetic. I’m not sure that the whole Retro Renaissance is a healthy trend. Sure, some of it is undoubtedly cool and there is some novelty in taking an occasional trip down Memory Lane. After years of having other people’s pasts used to sell us everything from cars to value systems, there is even some justice in “our” RR. This time around, nostalgia involves actual memories and not somebody else’s acid flashback.
But there is a Count Chocula aftertaste to the whole revival trend. Sometimes it seems as if we are resurrecting things that haven’t even had a proper burial. I know it might sound like blasphemy to some, but CHiPs? Starsky and Hutch? Come on, stuff sucked then, and it sucks now. The kitsch fetish is out-of-hand, where anything christened “old school” is embraced as cool, regardless of quality. Yesterday, it was weak, but today, IT’S RETRO!
One needs only to look at MTV and VH1’s ludicrous “Best of the ’90s” countdowns and that Livin’ In The ’90s compilation album to see how out of hand this retro thing has gotten. (Who are those kids in the Livin’ In The ’90s commercial? The clean-cut children of those Freedom Rock guys?) Yes, folks, nostalgia now joins our regularly scheduled program, already in progress – or is that regress? While it is kind of strange how “Ice Ice Baby” and Milli Vanilli sound dated and time-capsule-ready already, what’s even more absurd is the whole “It seems like only yesterday…” mentality brought to the whole Retro Renaissance. If it seems like yesterday, that’s because it was yesterday.
Another thing: Dwelling on the past doesn’t seem to suggest much of a future. I recently read some kid’s high school yearbook quotation that said something inane like all of my tomorrows will not equal one of my yesterdays. This kid is 17! The Retro Renaissance affirms this kid’s potential self-fulfilling prophecy. It says “I don’t wanna grow up, I’m a Toys-R-Us kid” in a cute, hip way. It makes for a generation of prematurely nostalgic Al Bundys. Hence the recycling of anything and everything that merely stirs up a pre-adolescent memory. If they start casting for a ’90s version of The Big Chill (no, Reality Bites doesn’t count), the ideal role for me would be the guy in the casket.
Hey, if part of resolving your quarter-life crisis involves John Hughes or Josie and the Pussycats, don’t let my words stop you. I confess to rocking Puma Clydes (without fat laces, however) and Adidas shell-tops (with laces, however) myself, and if some cardboard and a ghetto blaster were around, I might be tempted to break-dance. Maybe one day I will change my mind and long to see parachute pants at Urban Outfitters, the way I’m sure my parents looked forward to seeing bell-bottoms come back in style. As for now, I’m more concerned about being an inventor of my future than being an archaeologist of my past. As for all you Retro Revisionists, Bruce Springsteen wrote a song about you. It’s called “Glory Days.” Do not take that as a compliment.
