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Whether it's "Flashback Friday" or "Throwback Thursday," audiences are hungry for nostalgic film and television, and the streaming giant Netflix serves up shows from the past that satisfy this craving, in addition to producing original contemporary content with nostalgic flavor. As a part of the series "Reboots, Remakes and Adaptations" originated by series editors Dr. Carlen Lavigne and Dr. Paul Booth, this edited volume focuses exclusively on the intersection between the Netflix platform and the current nostalgia trend in popular culture.
As both a creator and distributor of media texts, Netflix takes great advantage of a wide variety of audience nostalgic responses, banking on attracting audiences who seek out nostalgic content that takes them back in time, as well as new audiences who discover "old" and reimagined content.
The book aims to interrogate the complex and contradictory notions of nostalgia through the contemporary lens of Netflix, examining angles such as the Netflix business model, the impact of streaming platforms such as Netflix on the consumption of nostalgia, the ideological nature of nostalgic representation in Netflix series, and the various ways that Netflix content incorporates nostalgic content and viewer responses. Many of the contributed chapters analyze current, ongoing Netflix series, providing very timely and original analysis by established and emerging scholars in a variety of disciplines.
What can we learn about our selves, our times, our cultures, in response to an examination of "Netflix and Nostalgia"?
List of contents
1.Crossing Eras: Exploring Nostalgic Reconfigurations in Media Franchises by Giulia Taurino
2.Branding Netflix with Nostalgia: Totemic Nostalgia, Adaptation and the Postmodern Turn by Matthias Stephan
3.Binge Watching the Past: Netflix's Changing Cinematic Nostalgia from Classic Films to Long-Form Original Programs by Sheri Chinen Biesen
4.The Consumer Has Been Added to Your Video Queue by John C. Murray
5.Nostalgia as Problematic Cultural Space: The Example of the Original Netflix Series GLOW (2017) by Philippe Gauthier
6.Shifting Nostalgic Boundaries: Archetypes and Queer Representation in Stranger Things, GLOW, and One Day at a Time by Heather Freeman
7. "Heaven is a Place on Earth": Digital Nostalgia, Queerness, and Collectivity in Black Mirror's "San Junipero" by Keshia Mcclantoc
8. After Jim Kelly: Hybrids of Hip Hop and Kung Fu as Nostalgia by Ande Davis
9. "We can't have two white boys trying to tell a Latina story:" Nostalgia, Identity and Cultural Specificity by Jacinta Yanders
10. Netflix's Cable Girls as Re-invention of a Nostalgic Past by Paola Maganzani
11. "Weaponizing Nostalgia": Netflix, Revivals and Brazilian Fans of Gilmore Girls by Mayka Castellano and Melina Meimaridis
12. Nostalgic Things: Stranger Things and the Pervasiveness of Nostalgic Television by Joseph Sirianni
13. "You Can't Rewrite the Past:" Analog and Digital Communications Technology in 13 Reasons Why by Patricia Campbell and Kathryn Pallister
14. Carrying that Weight: Shinichiro Watanabe's Cowboy Bebop and Nostalgia by Kwasu Tembo
Afterword: Netflix Nostalgia by Ann M. Ciasullo
About the author
Kathryn Pallister teaches communications studies, sociology, and film at Red Deer College.
Summary
Netflix Nostalgia examines Netflix as both a creator and a distributor of nostalgic content, with contributions from scholars from around the world. The chapters examine the role of nostalgia in Netflix’s brand identity, ideological messages about nostalgia in Netflix content, and audience responses to nostalgia on the Netflix platform.
