There's a book released this summer entitled Retromania by music critic Simon Reynolds. I haven't read the book, but I've read reviews. Apparently, we're going through a bit of a nostalgic walk to pop culture past for new material, which is not a new phenomenon, but with the ease in collecting past influences, we've somehow lost the ability for originality. This post isn't really about that, or music, but it did get me thinking about, what I'm going to call, neo period pieces/shows.
The Mad Mens of the television world. Next season we have Playboy and Pam AM to look forward to. I do watch Mad Men and I watched Boardwalk Empire this week. I love both, and I'm planning to watch Pan AM (not sure about Playboy - it's in the realm of possibility). I also watched Downton Abbey pilot this week too, and excited to start The Hour sometime soon (both are British shows). I've never been a huge fan of period books, film, or shows. I never swooned over Mr. Darcy, or appreciated the outdated gender roles.
One troubling aspect that is often ignored with period pieces is casting and the lack of complex roles for minorities. (Not to say that contemporary shows do a great job, but there are different obstacles in writing for a diverse cast with the intricacies of humanity when the races were more segregated and Hollywood just wants to tell the tale of the good ole' white man. For more on minority representation in movies here's a post.) Or at least, it shows an even more hierarchical representation of race, if there are other races at all.
The excuse that it's just entertainment can only carry you for so long. Entertainment is a way of representing the world , and for the most part, it's the world inhabited by white men (usually good looking, usually heterosexual) with people of color and females as their supporting characters. This world isn't post-racial, it isn't post-gender, and it will never be perfect, but as they say, it can be perfected. Every new movie, every new story is another block in how we see ourselves, and how history will see us. By looking back so often, it excuses the responsibility to incorporating racial diversity into the story in meaningful ways. There's the black maid, or another subservient character. Mad Men is incredibly infuriating in this way because even though it takes place in the middle of the civil rights movement, they have decided to overlook this milestone in American history to tell the story of the misunderstood ennui of white middleclass at the time (both male and female). A prime critique of second-wave feminism is its focus on white women's problems and ignores both working class and minority struggles.
As an Asian American female, I can't say I see many images that look like me. I barely see any female characters in general that behave like me. (I suppose I could watch more foreign language films from Asia, but the Vietnamese entertainment business isn't very productive, and I don't relate to the Japanese or Korean image at all, plus I'm not surrounded by Asians in my real life. Just thoughts.) But thus far I haven't seen any Asian characters in these recent period pieces. It's probably more problematic for many British pieces since they have a longer history to look back on, much of which lacking any racial diversity with limited, or no, immigration.
Reviews: Pop Matters, The Atlantic, Salon
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