Ryan McNeil
Last week, I had to tune out of social media when the first trailer dropped fro the upcoming JEM movie. The reaction was predictable…”they screwed it up”, “wtf”, “nothing like its origin”, “#notmyjem”, etc.
The fallout got me thinking about two pop culture moments from the last ten years.
The first moment arrived in 2005, when one tentpole in the summer movie season was a DUKES OF HAZARD movie. You see that was my beloved childhood property. That was the show I never missed, the pyjamas I wore, and the poster on my bedroom wall. That car was the toy I wanted under the Christmas tree and I can only imagine how crazy I drove my parents with my continued cries of “Yeee-hawwwww!”.
So there I was in my mid-twenties getting a movie of something I had dearly loved as a child…and seeing right from the jump that what I was getting would be a silly cash-grab aimed at the nostalgia of people like me. Not like the property I adored in my youth was anything highbrow, but I’d wager there were other things that it could have been instead of being a reason for Jessica Simpson to wash a Dodge Charger.
What did I do? I shrugged, didn’t buy a ticket, and moved on.
Four years after that, in the summer of 2009, another one of my childhood properties got the big screen treatment: this time, G.I. JOE. This was the cartoon I never missed, the other pyjamas I wore, the toy I sent my family combing through toy stores for every Christmas.
Once again though, it was clear from the word “go” that I’d be getting a silly cash-grab aimed at the nostalgia of people like me.
What did I do? I shrugged, didn’t buy a ticket, and moved on. Oh, and this time, I wrote something about it…and this week that piece seems quite timely in light of Jem.
So where am I going with this? Am I suggesting that I’m “better” than fans of Jem (or Mad Max, or Jurassic Park, or…) because I didn’t squawk on social media about the bastardization of my beloved childhood memories? No, not at all.
Where I’m going is to wonder if we realize how great we have it that we can cling to these childhood memories and discuss them at-length. Last week, I thought about my parents at my age, and how they were already married for fifteen years and raising two boys. They didn’t have the time, money, or opportunity to grouse about which of their favorite old songs was being ruined by a popular cover. Even if they did, something tells me they’d feel like they had bigger fish to fry. Not that my parents didn’t care about pop culture (they never missed an episode of Dallas), nor were they above acting like kids once in a while (the night I snuck downstairs late and found them playing Nintendo will forever be etched in my brain).
It just seemed like then, as now, they got settled, had kids, and “grew up”…as did every other adult their age.
Now though, it’s a different story. People – parents, even – my folks’ age collect comic books. They go to fan conventions. They play with toys. They watch cartoons. They never miss a beat on their parental responsibilities, and yet their pastimes and attitudes suggest that they are in fact Lost Boys…following The Pan’s lead, dressing up like bandits, never wanting to grow up. On the one hand, I find nothing wrong with youthful exuberance, and think that it’s a luxury that should be soaked up while it lasts. On the other hand, I think there’s a world of difference between youthful exuberance and cloaked immaturity.
These tweets and Facebook comments are our grown-up version of stamping our feet and holding our breath. This failure to allow any adaptation for a new audience is the grown-up version of not wanting to share our toys. Our parents didn’t understand us when we were children because the times changed. Oddly enough, they still don’t understand us now because times didn’t change again.
This isn’t helpful. Holding on to our youthful ideas isn’t making us better people or helping create new ideas for the next generation to cling to. hell, if we hold so tightly to what we loved as children, I’m terrified to think of what our children are learning.
I love being able to buy comic books and wear baseball caps and never worrying about it all prompting a second glance from a passer-by, but maybe it’s time for us to pack up our things and finally leave Neverland…
I have no childhood stake in Jem and the Holograms; I’d never heard of it until a few months ago, and then I watched a couple of eps on Netflix just to see what it was. I still think the trailer for the movie looks generic and stupid and even if I don’t feel personally betrayed or whatever (I don’t have nostalgia for it), I don’t get why they’d make a generic teen band story when the premise of the show is cooler than that. I dunno. Why even call it Jem and the Holograms? It just pisses off people who did care about the show, and has no meaning for people who haven’t heard of it, like the teens they’re marketing it to.
Thanks for the comment and the link Jandy.
Here’s the question though: How does a studio make a film based on a subject that appealed to the youth of one generation, and still make it appeal to the youth of the next. If we asked kids/teenagers to watch the cartoons/shows we grew up on, they wouldn’t go for it. The rhythm would be off, the style incorrect, the references would miss.
So avoiding the obvious answer that the studio shouldn’t adapt old properties (agreed), how do you get those that are young and those that remember being young to intersect?
One of the best recent examples I can think of is the new TMNT series (not the movie, the Nickelodeon show). It’s updated a lot, it’s less goofy than the original show, but it still appeals to a lot of the things that original TMNT fans loved, and it’s also got a bit of a dark edge like the comics do. The animation is a bit rough (turned me off for a while, but I find it kind of charming now), but the writing is top-notch. So the answer? Take the original and its fans seriously, but make the new on its own thing that doesn’t depend on nostalgia/knowledge of the old thing, and most importantly, GOOD WRITING.
What do you do with when rebooting an existing property? You can’t please everyone!
The problem with The Dukes of Hazzard was the TV show wasn’t very good. I loved it as much as you did as a kid, but I have seen old episodes more recently and they have not aged well! Taken on the merits of the old show without rose-tinted nostalgia the movie was about what you would expect. I didn’t like it but I wasn’t annoyed or offended by it.
On the other hand, the Miami Vice movie took a very 80’s show and made a solid, modern interpretation stripping away all the cheese and clichés that make the show look dated now. The film failed to find an audience, critics initially liked it then turned on it when it was less well received by the public. Fans of the show, didn’t like it because it wasn’t the TV show, and haters of the show didn’t go to see it because they thought it would be like the TV show.
I have never heard of Jem, maybe it didn’t make it across the Atlantic? I was also unaware of the social media backlash but have seen it all before for other things. As childish as it is, it is also predictable and unsurprising given the fact we all have an outlet through social media that didn’t exist a few years ago. What was a rant amongst friends in the pub a generation ago can now be global. If you are going to rant do it as big and as loud as you can! As for growing up or moving on; we will always be rooted in what we loved in our formative years. You don’t change your allegiance to a sporting team as you get older. You wouldn’t knock someone in their 60’s or 70’s for listening to the music the music they grew up with like Elvis, The Beatles or the Stones.
Let new people, enjoy or hate new movies as they see fit and let those stuck in the past have their 15 minutes in the social media spotlight.
Newsflash: NONE of the shows/cartoons were any good.
Dukes of Hazard, Jem, G.I. Joe, A-Team, Fame, Miami Vice, 21 Jump Street, Alvin and The Chipmunks, Charlie’s Angels…
We *think* they were because of the tint of nostalgia, but in reality, if we watched them with fresh eyes, we’d see a lot of cracks in these “masterpieces”. Know why people refer to this as The Golden Age of Television? Because the quality of comedy, drama, and animation has jumped by leaps and bounds.
So you’re absolutely right – let new people have and enjoy something they can call their own…maybe they’ll even be inspired to go back and play with the toys we left behind.