VL & camp rerun nostalgia

[Tim Strzechowski]

Sayeth Terrance:

> Rather, we are watching familiar characters do familiar and predictable
> things.
>
> Why?

As a good friend pointed out a couple of weeks ago over Bass Ales, we
(meaning those of us born in the early-mid sixties or thereabouts) are part
of the "Rerun Generation," among the first to come of age at a time when the
TV rerun was a staple of American culture.  Although sitcoms were prevalent
in the '50s, I think the wealth of TV sitcoms in syndication, especially by
the late '60s and early '70s, might have even offered a certain
desensitizing sense of security to a TV viewing public that was emerging
perhaps a bit shell-shocked from the daily turbulence of Vietnam war
coverage/assassinations/riots/and other such turmoil in which the late-'60s
was embroiled (and broadcast on a regular basis).  TV sitcoms in syndication
came at the right time.  People needed the silliness of _Gilligan's Island_
or _The Monkees_, and the security of predicability, at that point.

That's perhaps one reason, at least, tho it's certainly NOT the ONLY reason.
Others?

>
> And why do audiences mimic the speech and so on of rerun characters?
> What is it about hackneyed phrases and overused conventions that become
> so apparent after a program has been viewed multiple times?

I'd qualify this observation to include films as well.  How many of us mimic
the speech or quote the lines from _Casablanca_ or _The Rocky Horrow Picture
Show_ or _Taxi Driver_?  And isn't this something that numerous character in
GR do, as well as participate in conversations or episodes that parody/mimic
cinematic conventions of the '20s, '30s, and '40s?  The "security of
predicability" can arguably be applied to war-torn Europe, I'll bet.


>
> As Andrew Ross explains, a camp effect  is created not
> simply by a change in the mode of production, but rather when the
> products of a much earlier mode of production, which has lost its power
> to dominate cultural meanings, becomes available, in the present, for
> redefinition according to  contemporary codes of taste
>
> Thus we find it entertaining to camp the outdated behaviors, costumes,
> and production styles of earlier times. For channel surfers, camp or
> nostalgia signifiers such as one-liners or "classic" scenes can be as
> entertaining as entire programs.

Yes.  And more than merely entertaining, some of the camp elements become
entire subcultures in and of themselves, e.g. _Star Trek_ (cf. Vulcan hand
salute)

Tim