When I think back to recent decades that I was either not a part of or too young to remember, I can’t help but believe that they were experienced not as reality, but history. Like, I know that politically aware people living in the late 1960s knew they were living through a dynamic time in American history and it could be argued that we’re living through a similarly intense time, but in my head they experienced it very differently from the way I experience the present day. I can hardly believe they thought as much as I do about getting to work on time, about lunch, about what’s on TV (not that there were many options back then).
It’s not just the day-to-day that’s missing when I think back in time. I can’t stop myself from thinking that those decades were really experienced in the same way we experience them now through movies. The colors are different–pastel in the 50s, vivid in the 60s, faded in the 70s, and neon in the 80s. I’m pretty sure everything that happened before the 50s was in black and white. Things were just simpler.
Of course that’s all nonsense and I’d do well to remind myself of that frequently. I’ll also remind other people when they go on and on with their “Back in the day . . . ” talk. As far as I can tell, people always broke laws, teenagers always had sex, the younger generation never felt like they were taken seriously, and the older generation always thought the younger generation was too entitled.
But, sometimes it’s nice to indulge in a romanticized version of history. I can imagine that if I was Lizzy Bennett I wouldn’t be bored to death because there was absolutely nothing for me to do. And, if I was in college in the 1960s, I’d choose participating in the student movement over apathy. And if it was the early 1970s, I wouldn’t spend every moment terrified of my brother getting drafted. And if I was a grad student in the 1980s, I’d sit studying in my scrunch socks, my hair in a side ponytail, with no internet to distract me.
There’s just something magical about times passed. About the feeling, about the culture, about the seeming simplicity, and especially about the music. Movies seem to bring it all to life in such a stylized, enchanting way. My favorites include Forrest Gump, The Graduate, and The Big Chill. All pretty obvious, I know, but for good reason.
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Whenever I hear stories from my mom and dad or anyone who’s their age, I always picture what was happening as being in black and white. Like color wasn’t invented until I came around, haha. But it shows how the lenses through which we experience those things, namely film and pictures that are limited by the technology of the times they came from, affect how we view reality.
Also, I’m always amazed how period pieces and films about certain eras can get everything SO right. Like, you can watch something about the 70s and it really looks like the 70s right down to the last detail. Maybe I’m just easily amazed.
I’m a bad romanticizer of the past. I mean, I came to Paris (in part) because of what it was almost 70 years ago, and the lives that people led here when my guy Hemingway lived here. I’ve realized how much I’ve over-romanticized and how that Paris is probably long gone (or most of it, I should say). It’s not a bad thing at all, and there’s nothing wrong w/ Paris (or any other place or moment) now, but it’s just not going to be what it was and sometimes chasing after that “what it was” can be a difficult thing to do. I’ve also done the same thing with Kerouac and my few cross-country drives, as I chase after an era when people really did go “on the road.” But those different pasts bring me some form of happiness, so it can’t be all bad can it?
(OK sorry for the ridiculously long comment. Your posts are just so stimulating and thought-provoking, I can’t help it!)
omg, grad school without internet????!?!??? perish the thought!!
I was just watching part of Meatballs on TV and was thinking about how much more average-looking actors were back in the 80′s (not ALL of them…but most of them, especially the non-leads). These days everyone’s a model.
I honestly don’t know how I would have graduated college without the internet! Looking up information, checking on proper spelling, etc… I guess there are books for that, but it took me long enough to do everything with a lightning fast connection, I can’t even imagine how long it would have taken without!
By the way, you look so cute in your smiling daily picture!
I’m glad I’m not the only one who imagines the past as grainy and low-definition. And I think everyone tends to view it through a kind of nostalgia filter; sure, some things were better back then, but a whole lot of things are better now. The grass is always greener and all that.
I get super nostalgic too. I always used to wish I had lived in the 70s for some reason. I guess things seem more carefree when you watch movies about it.
I have this romanticized view of history too. I tend to forget that even 50 to a hundred years ago women didn’t have hardly any rights compared with today’s standards. Sometimes I find myself wishing I had a time machine so I could travel back 200 years ago and see what everyone was up to. But then I thought about how uncomfortable the clothes would be, the hard manual labor, and all the diseases that hadn’t been cured yet. Then suddenly I have a new appreciation for the time I live in now :P
I find it fascinating to think about decades past and to wonder what it was like to live in that time. Thanks for stopping by my site. Please feel free to visit anytime, I’ll leave the light on for you!
Aside from the weed smoking – which I do not partake in – I think I was born too late and would have been better suited for a young-adult life of the late 1960s. And clearly many of us have that feeling, but it’s more of an idealistic nostalgia and, like I say all the time, the “grass is greener” thing. But movies set in decades past, especially ones I wish I could’ve been present for, certainly make me wonder about how different life would have been then as compared to now.