Alternate History, Nostalgia and Narratives of Time: The Use
and Functions of Time Travel as a Narrative Device
by
Jochem J. Blom
MA Thesis Literary Studies: Specialization English
University of Amsterdam
Student Number: 6162363
Date: 20 July 2015
Table of Contents
Introduction...…3
Chapter One: Time and Narrative...6
Chapter Two: On Nostalgia and (Re)lived Experiences...14
Chapter Three: Alternate History...23
Chapter Four: Fear of the Unknown Future...31
Conclusion...39
Bibliography...43
Introduction
If there is one universal quality to life that mankind shares with all other biological entities, it is the universal truth that one day each and every one of its members shall come to die. However, unlike all other biological entities such as plants or animals lacking intelligence, the consciousness with which humanity is gifted comes with a price, as mankind is – from an early age – aware of its own mortality. The representation of the human concept of time in narrative is not as limited to the same rules as it is in reality. Whilst mankind can only ever experience time in a linear fashion due to the restrictions of its current universe, time in narrative is not bound to these same rules. Through non-‐linear storytelling such as the use of flashbacks or the hypothetical concept of time travel, literary texts can choose to focus on specific periods of time in favour of others. This paper will argue that the literary representation of time often appears to favour focusing on the past instead of on the future. In doing so, the future is often portrayed as an ‘unknown’ and dangerous period of time, whilst the past is often considered utopian. This paper aims to answer questions as: Why does there seem to be a divide between the literary representation of either the past or the future, and can a connection be made between the literary representation of the human concept of time and humanity’s own mortality? The past can be considered ‘safe’, by which is meant a period of time in which mankind has become the most powerful -‐ and influential -‐ species on earth. Events that have transpired during this period of time are ‘set in stone’ and mankind’s position as most powerful entity can therefore be said to remain constant in the past. Furthermore, mankind possesses a rich knowledge of this past through the concept of its history. If narrative is to portray a period of time in which mankind can be certain of its own continuous literary victory, it appears to favour portraying the past as this literary victory can be said to be grounded in reality. This paper aims to examine different representations of the past and the future in narrative. It will do so by taking a closer look at the ways in which the past and the future are portrayed throughout literary texts.
Moreover, this paper aims to take a closer look at the monomyth, which is a set of elements that, Joseph Campbell argues in The Hero With a Thousand Faces, continuously recurs throughout
narrative. These elements describe the so-‐called ‘hero’s journey’, and this paper will argue that its recurrence throughout narrative can be linked to the literary tradition of favouring the portrayal of the past over portraying the future. As literature continuously appears to include the same elements into its narrative, this paper will argue that these elements once again show a literary inclination towards focusing on the past as opposed to the future. Moreover, through the use of nostalgia, which can be described as a longing for a specific past period of time, narratives are able to focus completely on the past by immersing either its protagonists, its readers, or both with an idealized version of the past in which it is presented as an idealized utopia. Furthermore, the hypothetical concept of time travel in narrative then allows for its protagonists to directly interact with and alter the past. Examples of such nostalgic texts can be found in the medium of film, as it can be considered an excellent medium with which, through its visual elements, the idealized recreation of the past can be presented. This paper will argue that nostalgia films such as Back to the Future and Pleasantville focus on this idealized recreation of the past in order to avoid imagining the possible dangers of the future. However, as Fredric Jameson argues, narratives that take place in the future can also be considered nostalgic as long as they recreate elements from the past that can be said to evoke nostalgic longing. This indicates that it is not the representation of the future itself that is avoided throughout literature, but that what is avoided instead is the representation of a future in which the elements that evoke nostalgic longing are no longer present.
Furthermore, this paper will argue that through the genre of alternate history, periods from the past in which humanity was not in control over its own mortality, such as during the events of the Second World War, are continuously rewritten in order to better suit society’s contemporary
perspective. During such narratives, a version of human history is presented in which events played out differently than society’s current history. Stephen Fry’s novel Making History, for example, shows the effects that the prevention of Adolf Hitler’s birth has on the fictional present. Narratives in the genre of alternate history generally focus on events in history that contemporary society believes have negatively affected society as a whole. The creation of hypothetical situations such as the Nazis
winning the Second World War or the prevention of the assassination of important political figures, allows for protagonists to interact with a version of the past in which these events did not occur in order to discover its effects on the present. Here it will be argued that through the juxtaposition of society’s current history with the alternate history that is created by its narrative, a version of the past can be recreated that better suits society’s contemporary point of view.
This paper will also argue that, throughout narrative, the representation of an imagined concept of the unknown future appears to be avoided. Because of this, it will take a closer look at the ways in which the future is represented throughout narrative. As the future is often portrayed as either utopian or dystopian, these concepts will be examined in order to analyse where the distinction between these two representations lies. Furthermore, it aims to examine utopian representations of the future, such as Back to the Future II, as well as dystopian representations of the future, such as The Terminator. This paper will do so in order to determine whether parallels can be drawn between these two portrayals. These different representations of the future arguably also have different ways in which elements from the past are represented. Dystopian narratives often focus primarily on the dangers of the unknown and the removal of all nostalgic elements. Through such narratives what is emphasized is mankind’s fear of having to relinquish its power to its
technological inventions. In contrast, utopian narratives often seem to portray a perfect vision of the future in which elements from the past seem to be incorporated. Because of this, this paper aims to examine whether the representation of the future as dystopian is caused by its focus on the dangers of narratival uncertainty, or whether it is portrayed as dystopian because of the absence of its nostalgic elements. Likewise, it aims to take a closer look at utopian narratives in order to discover whether their status as a utopia is caused by their hopeful portrayal of the future, or by the recurrence of the same nostalgic elements that appear to continuously favour the past throughout narrative.
Chapter One: Time and Narrative
In 1949 Joseph Campbell published The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which is now
considered to be one of the most influential works of literature on the functions and elements that constitute a narrative. In this work of non-‐fiction, Campbell describes the so-‐called 'monomyth', a certain combination of elements in narrative that he considered to be at the core of the world's most influential myths and legends. Even contemporary authors and filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg and George Lucas among others have acknowledged owing at least part of the structure of their most popular works to the form of narrative described in Campbell's work:
In the three decades since I discovered The Hero with a Thousand Faces, it has continued to fascinate and inspire me. Joseph Campbell peers through centuries and shows us that we are all connected by a basic need to hear stories and understand ourselves. As a book, it is wonderful to read; as illumination into the human condition, it is a revelation. (Lucas qtd in Campbell 4)
George Lucas' Star Wars film follows the exact structure of the monomyth as described by Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces: “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man” (30). Campbell argues that these elements are present in works of literature throughout the ages and this chapter will argue that the recurrence of these same elements in these forms of narratives can be linked to the literary theme of the human desire to maintain power over its own mortality and its own fate. By focusing on the recurrence of the same elements throughout different types of narrative, past experiences (and even the past in general) are continuously revisited and reimagined, forestalling imagining a future world in which humanity is either no longer present or is made redundant. This chapter will argue that the invention of time as a narrative device, and the science-‐fictional concept of time travel in particular, can be directly linked to these themes in
narrative as the invention of time travel physically allows the protagonist of a narrative to directly interact with and alter the past instead of considering the future as a viable place of interest.
The introduction of the mechanical clock during the Renaissance as a publically available source of time led to the concept of time becoming an independent (and graspable) concept for society. In The Renaissance Discovery of Time, Ricardo Quinones compares this to the shift from religion to secularism as he states that "[f]or the Middle Ages time could be abundant, because behind the chances and changes of events man could sense a higher directing order. His life still had religious associations with the universe, his beginnings and his ends were in the hands of a
providential and concerned divinity" (7). At first the church was responsible for notifying the members of its communities of the current time through its church bells, which concurrently kept mankind under divine control. However, the introduction of the mechanical clock also introduced the idea of time as a graspable concept that was no longer ruled by divinity but by humanity itself, which subsequently led to the notion that humanity was slowly running out of time. Quinones writes: "For the new men of the Renaissance, time was not plentiful but rare and previous. Since it was
constantly slipping away, man must utilize available means of controlling it, and, in some measure, ward off the termination it promoted” (7). Furthermore, the concept of time effectively shifted mankind's focus from leading a pleasant life to leaving behind a legacy. This led to a more prominent desire to continue living past death by ways of fame through the creation of art, or through one’s progeny. Regarding this, Quinones states that "[i]n his attempts to manage time, Renaissance man strives to achieve by means of process what eternity possesses in stasis" (26), as since the
introduction of time as a concept that is separated from the divine, mankind has attempted to grasp and control it in order to prolong life and reach immortality through eternity.
In narrative, this function of time as a graspable and malleable concept is treated rather differently than is possible in reality, as the ability to shape a narrative and alter or erase its chronology differs greatly from the scientific real world explanation of the so-‐called 'flow' of time. Unfortunately, the ability to constitute a narrative in a manner that is not chronological has thus far
only been a possibility within a fictional realm, as contemporary concepts of time within a real world setting only allow for it to flow chronologically, 'starting' in the past and 'ending' in the present. Regarding the real world possibilities of altering the chronology of time through the concept of time travel, Stephen Hawking argues, in A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, that the only way time travel were to be possible in real life is if humanity were somehow able to travel faster than the speed of light or with the use of a so-‐called wormhole. Hawking describes this as "a thin tube of space-‐time which can connect nearly flat regions far apart", which, he argues "like any other possible form of travel faster than light, would allow one to travel into the past" (179). It is not currently possible for humanity to create such a wormhole due to the limitations of the
contemporary space-‐time. Hawking argues that mankind has witnessed the past and has thus far seen no proof of its universe allowing anyone to travel back from the future due to the laws of physics. Because of this, Hawking states that “any time travel would be confined to the future”, as a future society might be able to break the laws of physics in order to create a wormhole with which humanity could travel through time (182).
Furthermore, the ability to travel to the past would lead to certain contradictions as the ability to change the past could effectively alter the present. Hawking argues that there are
"problems [that] would arise if one were able to go back and change history. Suppose, for example, you went back in time and killed your great great grandfather while he was still a child. There are many versions of this paradox but they are essentially equivalent: one would get contradictions if one were free to change the past" (182). As killing one’s great great grandfather results in the time traveller never being born, this means that the great great grandfather could not have gotten killed in the past, which in turns allows the time traveller to be born. In "The Paradoxes of Time Travel",
David Lewis describes these contradictions by using the example of the character of Tim traveling
back into the past in order to kill his grandfather by stating:
Tim cannot kill Grandfather. Grandfather lived, so to kill him would be to change the past. But the events of a past moment are not sub-‐divisible into temporal parts and
therefore cannot change. Either the events of 1921 timelessly do include Tim's killing of Grandfather, or else they timelessly don't. We may be tempted to speak of the "original" 1921 that lies in Tim's personal past, many years before his birth, in which Grandfather lived; and of the "new" 1921 in which Tim now finds himself waiting in ambush to kill Grandfather. But if we do speak so, we merely confer two names on one thing. (...) It is logically impossible that Tim should change the past by killing Grandfather. (150)
After all, through the act of killing his own grandfather, Tim effectively removes himself from history, which is impossible without causing contradictions that are logically impossible. Seeing as time travel in humanity's contemporary world would only be possible if the curvature of space-‐time allowed for the creation of a stable wormhole, traveling to the past would only be possible for humanity if it did not travel back to its own history but to an alternative branch of history that is separate from its own. Hawking calls this the “alternate histories hypothesis”, as he states that "the idea here is that when time travellers go back to the past, they enter alternative histories which differ from recorded history. Thus they can act freely, without the constraint of consistency with their previous history" (183). Instead of traveling to humanity's current history, a hypothetical time traveller would then travel to a different possible history in which his own decision to travel back in time has been fully incorporated. Lewis explains this by stating:
Suppose that at the possible world of Tim's story the space-‐time manifold branches; the branches are separated not in time, and not in space, but in some other way. Tim travels not only in time but also from one branch to another. In one branch Tim is absent from the events of 1921; Grandfather lives; Tim is born, grows up, and vanishes in his time machine. The other branch diverges from the first when Tim turns up in 1920: there Tim kills Grandfather and Grandfather leaves no descendants and no fortune; the events of the two branches differ more and more from that time on. (152)
One genre of literature in which the limits and aspects of time as a graspable concept are (re-‐)defined and (re-‐)examined is the genre of science fiction. Through the use of so-‐called 'time travel narratives' the very functions and natural laws pertaining the concept of time are questioned and examined in order to allow for the protagonists of such narratives to control time and take over these qualities that were originally deemed divine. In these narratives, time can truly be altered in order for its protagonists to relive past experiences, change undesirable events that transpired in the past or merely escape the limits of time that cause humanity's mortality. Examples of this range from works of literature such as H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine or Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in
King Arthur’s Court to more contemporary examples in popular culture such as Robert Zemeckis’ film Back to the Future or James Cameron’s The Terminator. Such time travel narratives often focus on
the past whilst at the same time forestalling putting emphasis on the future. In fact, the future as shown in time travel narratives can often be divided into either the realm of the Dystopia or Utopia, depending on whether they portray the unknown dangers of technology or are based on the idealized memory of the past that is often glorified in time travel narratives. If time travel narratives then primarily focus on the past and continuously put emphasis on reliving (the same) past
experiences in order to escape the future and mankind's mortality, the connection between the elements of the 'monomyth' as proposed by Joseph Campbell and the functions of time travel as a narrative device that serve the same purpose are emphasized. The concept of time travel allows for the protagonists of a narrative to relive experiences from the past. The portrayal of the past in such narratives is idealized and can arguably be considered ’safe'. The recurring themes that are known and 'safe' regarding the monomyth as a narrative device serve the same purpose as the continuous representation of the past, namely as a literary means for humanity to escape its own mortality through re-‐experiencing the past instead of focusing on the future.
The narratival portrayal of humanity is generally considered to be grounded in reality, as humanity’s fictional counterpart often shares a similar history with the non-‐fictional world. Humanity is often portrayed as having earned its place at the top of the natural food chain through its control
over the planet, its natural resources and its natural wildlife. Furthermore, due to mankind's efforts to continue to exercise this power, it has been able to remain at this position. Arguably, literary texts pertaining the portrayal of the human in relation to its history portray humanity’s literary desire to remain at this position of power, as well as its fear of having to relinquish this power. These
elements, as well as humanity’s wish to avoid imagining a future in which this power is unfortunately no longer in human control, could possibly explain the popularity of the literary themes as presented through Campbell's concept of the monomyth. The common elements of the monomyth in the literary tradition have pointed at a reluctance toward imagining the dangers of the future. Because of this, mankind has decided in its literary tradition to instead focus on these recurring elements found throughout narrative. Humanity’s own mortality, which is made abundant by the mechanical (and biological) clock that is slowly ticking away, is portrayed in literature as perhaps its greatest antagonist. Through time travel narratives, as well as the elements of the monomyth story introduced by Campbell, literature continuously focuses on the past by glorifying humanity’s past successful narratives. Instead of focusing on a possible future in which mankind will no longer be in control of its natural world or its own mortality, humanity’s past is idealized. Understandably, this is why futuristic scenarios in the realm of science fiction often focus on displaying the future as a dystopia, as in such a dystopia an advanced technological invention becomes humanity’s master. This effectively undermines the notion that mankind is in control of the planet (as it has been for a
considerable amount of time), and instead focuses (too) evidently on its own mortality.
Joseph Campbell's notions of the monomyth are not only present in literature and films, but also in other narratives such as videogames. Players of such games are often initially introduced to the world's 'safe' environment which is used to train the protagonist's (and thus its player's) basic skills, after which the player is invited to accept several challenges in order to learn a valuable lesson, defeat its main antagonist, and finally return home. Through this recurrence of the same elements in videogames, players -‐ similarly to other narratives -‐ experience the same elements repeatedly within a different setting. One such example of a series of videogames that extensively deals with the
monomyth is The Legend of Zelda. In this series of videogames, a hero's spirit (the character of Link) as well as the spirit of a princess (the titular Zelda) are continuously reincarnated to battle the same evil force (Ganondorf). This continuous battle between good and evil takes place during different eras but its essence (and the themes that make up its narrative) remains the same. In "'Link'ing Monomyth and Video Games: How The Legend of Zelda Connects Myth to Modern Media", Carli Wrisinger argues that
Due to the consistently elevated nature of the heroic task as set up by The Legend of
Zelda’s narrative, and its continued resonance for players in the real world, using a
mythic lens to analyse The Legend of Zelda is an effective mode of analysis for this series of artifacts. The hero’s journey has been a part of our cultural identity for ages. Exploring how the mythic structure manifests itself in the modern era helps to illustrate that, even with all our progress, the hero and myth still has a continued presence in our culture, although the means by which we come to understand that may be different. (3)
Furthermore, Wrisinger argues that "Cultural myths are used to create connections to emotions that are commonly held throughout humanity and reflect on the human experience" (4), which arguably explains the recurrence of the same elements within narratives, as this shows mankind's propensity toward observing and interacting backwards with the familiar past instead of toward an unknown (and perhaps dangerous) future. However, the difference between a more common 'observable' narrative like a film and a videogame lies in the interactive role of its audience, as Wrisinger argues that instead of only being able to identify with the myth on an emotional level as is the case with the monomyth in films and works of literature, the video game "allows a player to emotionally participate" as "the myth structure only really becomes 'lived' in an interactive medium. The world and its events may be virtual, but the impacts, emotions and reactions are still direct, authentic, and very real" (5). This difference between the emotional connection to the monomyth in narrative and the agency with which these emotions could be experienced through a videogame
arguably offers another insight into the popularity of the time travel narrative. The ability of the protagonist to directly interact with and alter the past allows for its reader to experience the emotions associated with the monomyth on a more immersive level.
This chapter has argued that the introduction of time as a malleable device, as well as the narrative device of time travel, have created both an awareness of mankind's own mortality as well as the desire to escape this reality by focusing on the past instead of on the future. As the
chronological concept of a narrative can be compared to the different chronological stages of life, the concept of a narrative in which time travel is used as a narrative device can be used to restore the sense of control over time within humanity. As through the literary concept of time travel humanity is able to take control of the aspects of life that -‐ in reality -‐ are uncontrollable, mankind's desire to focus on what is known and comfortable is made explicit. Furthermore, the use of time travel as a narrative device allows for its protagonist (and indirectly its reader) to literally travel back in time and experience the same events over and over again. In doing so, the actual experience of 'losing time' that was introduced when the mechanical clock was first invented can be reversed through narrative. Moreover, the elements that constitute Joseph Campbell's concept of the monomyth in which the same themes continuously return throughout various narratives could arguably be seen as a further indication of mankind's desire to relive the same experiences from the past whilst concurrently forestalling imagining a version of the future in which mankind is no longer in control of its own life -‐ and death.
Chapter Two: On Nostalgia and (Re)lived Experiences
This chapter will discuss the concept of nostalgia and the ways in which it is used as a narrative device that explores the human desire to relive the past. This desire to relive past
experiences is used in literature in order to avoid thinking about the unknown future. Whereas the past is known and can be considered to be safe, the future is uncertain and could be deemed
dangerous. Nostalgia is typically described as a feeling of longing for a time gone by, a time that is no longer accessible to the human and, as the Oxford English Dictionary defines it, a "1. sentimental yearning for a period in the past. 2. regretful or wistful memory of an earlier time. 3. severe homesickness" (Oxford English Dictionary). This chapter will discuss the introduction of the term nostalgia as well as the ways in which it is applied to popular culture, and particularly the medium of film. It will do so in order to take a closer look at the concept of nostalgia and the possibilities for the implementation of nostalgia within a universe in which time travel exists. In order to examine the use of the concept of nostalgia in film, this chapter will analyse Robert Zemeckis' 1985 film Back to the
Future as well as Gary Ross' 1998 film Pleasantville. These films have different approaches to the
representation of nostalgia and show alternative ways in which nostalgia can affect plot, character and narrative. This chapter will highlight how nostalgia affects these aspects of film, as well as attempt to answer the following questions: To what extent can the concept of nostalgia be
considered to strengthen man's desire to change the notion of time through time travel, and in what ways does the representation of nostalgia in Back to the Future and Pleasantville create a nostalgic longing for the past and fear of the unknown future? It will be shown that time travel narratives often evoke (both in its protagonists as in its viewers) a nostalgic longing for the past, as the version of the past that is re-‐imagined in such narratives is often glorified compared to mankind's
contemporary point of view of the present. The fact that time travel is a reality in such narratives, allows for the protagonist to directly interact with and alter the past in order to suit his/her own needs.
In "Nostalgia and Its Discontents", Svetlana Boym explains that the word nostalgia “comes from two Greek roots, nostos meaning 'return home' and algia 'longing'". Furthermore, Boym defines it as “a longing for a home that no longer exists or has never existed" and as a "sentiment of loss and displacement" (Boym 7). The word was originally coined as a medical term by the Swiss student Johannes Hofer in 1688, as nostalgia was first considered to be a medical disease suffered by
"various displaced people of the seventeenth century: freedom-‐loving students from the Republic of Berne studying in Basel, domestic help and servants working in France and Germany, and Swiss soldiers fighting abroad" (Boym 8). Contemporary scholars no longer consider nostalgia a disease but instead as a human (and historical) remembrance and glorification of the past as opposed to the present. By remembering the past as a historical utopia, the events that transpired before the present are favoured over the current state of affairs. As Boym states, "in a broader sense, nostalgia is a rebellion against the modern idea of time, the time of history and progress", as nostalgia actively rebels against contemporary notions of the present being favourable over the past and seeks to restore some sense of 'pastness' that was taken from mankind by the introduction of the present (8). However, Boym also emphasizes the dangers of such favouritism towards the past, as "the danger of nostalgia is that it tends to confuse the actual home and the imaginary one. In extreme cases it can create a phantom homeland, for the sake of which one is ready to die or kill. Unreflective nostalgia can breed monsters" (10). In On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the
Collection, Susan Stewart argues for this concept of nostalgia as an imaginary glorification of the past
instead of a focus on an actual account of the events that transpired during the past, as she states that
Nostalgia is a sadness without an object, a sadness which creates a longing that of necessity is inauthentic because it does not take part in lived experience. Rather, it remains behind and before that experience. Nostalgia, like any form of narrative, is always ideological: the past it seeks has never existed except as narrative, and hence, always absent, that past continually threatens to reproduce itself as a felt lack.
Hostile to history and its invisible origins, and yet longing for an impossibly pure context of lived experience at a place of origin, nostalgia wears a distinctly utopian face, a face that turns toward a future-‐past, a past which has only ideological reality. This point of desire which the nostalgic seeks is in fact the absence that is the very generating mechanism of desire. [...] The realization of re-‐union imagined by the nostalgic is a narrative utopia that works only by virtue of its partiality, its lack of fixity and closure: nostalgia is the desire for desire. (23)
However, as the concept of nostalgia is often used in film, its status as merely the 'desire for desire' is questioned as film is an excellent medium to portray the returned image and through film "the image returns not as a representational of the natural real, but as simulacral, as a copy of copies whose original has been lost" ("Recycled Culture in Contemporary Art and Film: The Uses of Nostalgia", Vera Dika 3). As the image can be recreated to a certain extent but remains to be considered as a copy, the image is "highly coded with pastness" (Dika 3). Dika discusses Fredric Jameson's work with regard to what he calls the "Nostalgia film", and Dika states that "for Jameson, however, nostalgia in
postmodern film is not so much a re-‐presentation of a particular historical period as it is a re-‐creation of its historical artifacts" (Jameson qtd in Dika 10). Through nostalgia, a copy of the past is
constituted with which historical artifacts are re-‐created instead of portrayed as they actually were. This arguably explains its idealized nature, as the idealized (and glorified) version of the past that is represented through the visual medium of the nostalgia film does not have to follow the same prescriptive rules of the historical basis of which they are a copy. Furthermore, this allows for the use of nostalgia in so-‐called nostalgia films in order to create such an idealized version of the past.
One such example of a nostalgia film is Robert Zemeckis' film Back to the Future, which was released in 1985. Seeing as Back to the Future is a time travel narrative, it functions differently from 'ordinary' nostalgia films in that it does not merely recreate a version of the past that is accessible to its viewer but instead allows for its protagonist to directly interact with and alter this idealized past. Unlike Stewart's concept of nostalgia as being removed from "lived experience" (23), the time travel
narrative allows for its protagonists to literally transport themselves to the past and reward themselves by fully experiencing the re-‐creation of such an idealized past. The film's protagonist, a 17-‐year old boy named Marty McFly, inadvertently travels back in time from his present (1985) to 1955. During the film, the differences between 1985 and 1955 are continuously emphasized through its setting, the motivations of its characters and the cultural and historical background of its past setting. The world of 1955 is portrayed as a peaceful and conservative society in which both the viewer as well as its protagonist are continuously presented with its seemingly superior status as opposed to Marty's present. Social issues that were prominent during the 1950s in reality, such as racial segregation and the lack of women’s rights, are removed from this idealized version of the past in order to create a peaceful and utopian society. Several aspects of Marty's contemporary world are juxtaposed with their past counterparts in order to show this superior status of the past; even just on an aesthetic level, the past is portrayed as sunny and clean whilst the present is portrayed as
consisting of buildings overrun by nature and a clock-‐tower that no longer functions. Furthermore, whereas Marty's inadvertent time travel at the start of the movie is caused by the undesirable status of the present (in the form of a gang of terrorists who are attempting to retrieve stolen plutonium), the past is portrayed as a peaceful place in which such events would -‐ due to the safe and
conservative nature of its environment – be considered to be impossible. In this manner, Marty's escape into the past could arguably be seen as a direct way in which Marty is able to escape the dangers from the present by finding a safe haven in the past.
Due to the visual re-‐creation of the past through the medium of film, the nostalgic
experience that is evoked is not limited to only being experienced by its protagonist but is arguably intended to being experienced by the film’s viewer as well. One example of the nostalgia film's ability to evoke such emotions of nostalgic longing is through the use of product placement. In the film's audio commentary, the film's director, Robert Zemeckis, and one of its producers, Bob Gale, explain the decisions of the film's producers to include certain items of product placement into the film in order to make the film more realistic. During the creation of the film, the producers specifically chose
to feature famous commercial brands that changed their logo in the time period between 1955 and 1985, such as Pepsi Cola and Texaco. Coca-‐Cola and Shell Oil are said to have made bids to advertise in the film, but were not chosen by the producers as they hadn't changed their logo in a considerable amount of time: “A Coke bottle in the 50s and a Coke bottle in the 80s were the same" (Zemeckis 1:30). Furthermore, Zemeckis and Gale state that "[i]n terms of creating the image of the past, one of the ways you create the past is through brand names. We made a conscious effort to find products that had a different logo in the past. It used to be, in [movies of] the 60s or the 70s, a car would pull into a gas station, and there would be no name on the gas station. That's ridiculous. Somebody owns that gas station" (Zemeckis 1:29). As these brands can arguably be said to be part of the collective social (and capitalist) consciousness, the protagonist as well as the audience are confronted with the nostalgic associations of these former logos in order to create a more realistic portrayal of the past as well as further elucidate the differences between 1955 and 1985. Arguably, this realistic portrayal of the past further emphasizes the nostalgic longing that can be associated with this recreation of the past. As the film portrays 1955 in an extremely positive manner compared to 1985, and it is only Marty's actions in 1955 that seemingly lead to despair (Marty accidentally prevents his parents from meeting and has little time to reverse these effects before he will disappear from existence), Marty is both able to experience a glorified version of the past as well as directly interact with it. Moreover, as Marty is able to interact with the past and is able to alter it, he is arguably able to improve his own life in the present as he is able to help his father with his self-‐esteem before returning to 1985 (Marty's father George is portrayed as rather weak in 1955 until Marty teaches him how to stand up to the film's main antagonist). The fact that Marty is able to improve the present by interacting with the past elucidates the film's portrayal of the past (and the possibilities of interacting with such a past) as superior to the present (“Marty returns to a world in which his father is a successful science fiction writer, his mother is thin and cheerful, his sister is popular, his brother has a good job, and he has unrestricted access to the family car. He has achieved a familiar twentieth-‐century-‐adolescent fantasy to totally remake his family according to his own desires", Murray 34).
Similarly, the 1998 film Pleasantville deals with similar notions of the glorified nostalgic past as opposed to the present. However, whereas Back to the Future presents a version of the past to both its protagonist as well as its viewer that is grounded in reality within its own historical context,
Pleasantville overtly communicates the awareness of the artificial nature of this glorification. The
world of Pleasantville is not presented as a historically accurate portrayal of the past, but instead as the setting of a 1950s black and white situational comedy television series, similar to I Love Lucy or
The Honeymooners. In the film, David, a boy from the contemporary present who is obsessed with
the television series (and fascinated by the conservative period of time in which the series is set) and his sister Jennifer, who is much more grounded in the present, are transported to the fictional world of Pleasantville. Unlike Back to the Future, however, Pleasantville has a seemingly more critical view on the idealisation of the past, as the conservative values that are initially upheld in its suburbs are criticized and eventually overturned by the arrival of David and Jennifer. In "Pleasantville?: The Suburb and Its Representation in American Movies" Douglas Muzzio and Thomas Halper argue that "[t]he film is not so much a satire of the 1950s as a critique of Americans’ hunger for nostalgia" (549). The satirical and conservative way the 1950s suburbs is portrayed is initially difficult for David and Jennifer to relate to, as the restrictions of life in the 1950s compared to life in the 1990s are
emphasized. Furthermore, Muzzio and Halper underline the stark contrast that is made between the glorified past and the seemingly more realistic present, which becomes clear by their description of one of the film’s scenes that is infused with the concept of nostalgia:
In an early scene, one of the twins is watching the Pleasantville shows, where the breadwinning father, after a “swell” day at work, is greeted with a martini by the perfect homemaking mother, whom he affectionately calls “Pumpkin.” Mother’s delicious meatloaf is the focus of their conversation, while their two gee-‐whiz children enter the scene to announce that Bud has won first place in a science fair. Meanwhile, back in the 1990s, the twins’ mother argues over the phone with her ex-‐ husband, who reneges on his pledge to take the kids on the first weekend of the
month. As she exasperatingly resigns herself to forgoing her weekend with her boyfriend, the TV mom exclaims, “What’s a mother to do?”. (549)
As they become a part of Pleasantville's narrative, both David and Jennifer start to see the flaws of the idealized version of the past, and are able to educate the world of Pleasantville in order to make it more fitting with their own presentist views of society. This leads to an aesthetic and behavioural shift as Pleasantville slowly transforms from black and white into colour, which could arguably be seen as a commentary on the conservative (and racist) elements of the real-‐life 1950s. Whereas the film initially favours the idealized and nostalgic aspects of the 1950s, throughout its narrative it becomes clear that the influence David and Jennifer have on the world of Pleasantville mirror the developments that have taken place in humanity's actual contemporary history that have positively influenced society. Therefore, whilst Pleasantville can certainly be deemed a nostalgia film, its shift of focus from an overtly idealized (albeit conservative) recreation of the past to a more realistic and accurate portrayal of the present subtly subverts the genre of the nostalgia film to incorporate the events that have transpired since the 1950s that have heavily influenced the way the 1950s can now be viewed.
Regarding the concept of the nostalgia film, in “Postmodernism and Consumer Society” Fredric Jameson argues that "We must conceive of this category in the broadest way: narrowly, no doubt, it consists merely of films about the past and about specific generational moments of that past" (4). As there are, however, numerous films that fit this category as they merely represent a specific moment in the past, Jameson argues for more specific categories as he states that:
[L]et me first add some anomalies: supposing I suggested that Star Wars is also a nostalgia film. (...) I presume we can agree that this is not a historical film about our own intergalactic past. (…) One of the most important cultural experiences of the generations that grew up during the '30s to the '50s was the Saturday afternoon serial of the Buck Rogers type -‐ alien villains, true American heroes, heroines in distress, the death ray or the doomsday box, and the cliffhanger at the end whose
