Netflix Nostalgia

Book excerpt: 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”?