Post #213446 by mbonga on Wed, Feb 8, 2006 9:36 AM

...anything that reminds them of unencumbered youth, and simplicity of childhood life.

I've long been a reminiscer, even in childhood, and I've found that, at any given point in time, I long for any era that was significantly better than the present (in my experience). Therefore there are also a few good but brief modern eras of my life I miss (e.g., circa early '90s), and I find that when things are really bad, I miss just about any other era. So in my experience it's a relative thing, not necessarily related to youth. When things are going well in the present, I find I tend not to think about the past anywhere near as much.

I wonder if Walt were in his heyday, if he would cling to the '50s, and create that sort of mainstreet?

I read Walt was becoming disillusioned in his later years. He began to dislike the poor manners of the general public, and spent less time socializing with the public than he did before. If you mean if Walt were still alive, I'm pretty sure his opinion would be the same as mine: he would think the '50s were a lot better than the present (he'd be having fits if he could see the roller coaster they put in front of his beloved Disneyland, and how they let his park run down in maintenance, quality, and removed attactions), but that the '50s still could not match the glory of the older days of circa 1900.

If you mean if Walt had grown up in the '50s and had never experienced the early 1900s, I'd be pretty sure the Main Street atmosphere wouldn't have held much appeal for him, anymore than Main Street did to me when I used to rush past it to get to the parts I liked and could relate to. My mother used to love Main Street, no doubt mostly because she grew up in that same era, but I could never relate to Main Street's attraction. That relates to what I wrote in an earlier response: that the things that are important to a person are intangibles that can't be physically shown or easily measured: emotions, love, acceptance, fun, memories, associations, security, pride, optimism, carefreeness, freedom, etc. Walt associated Main Street with those feelings, but many other cultural settings/eras could have served the same purpose, such as the '50s. In that sense, Main Street and therefore a big part of Disneyland is now an anachronism that is irrelevant and outdated!

Maybe it's not just the sentimentality, coupled with a bt of dread for the future...maybe too it's the pervasiveness of media, advertising and products have packaged and tried to sell the past?

Speaking for myself, I find that to be untrue. I've always been interested in futuristic, advanced civilizations, and science fiction, which is one reason I liked Tomorrowland so much. I certainly didn't dread the future, but was looking forward to it. But now, with the disinterest in space travel and government inability to easily fund advanced projects like fusion energy and space/ocean colonization, it doesn't provide a lot to look forward to. The political, economic, and environmental situation worldwide has become so dismal and unstable that I'm surprised society is still afloat. Look at modern Tomorrowland in Disneyland: they no longer have a vision of what the future will look like, literally! When they upgraded Tomorrowland they had to resort to the '50s-'60s nostalgic view of the future rather than promoting something new. Kind of makes one wonder why!

As for media promotion of the past, I personally find that irrelevant and even annoying. I especially hate the numerous films that mindlessly insert the song "Good Lovin'" (by The Rascals) every time they need a retro '60s scene. It's formulaic and weird and very unoriginal.

The most freekish reminicers (In my opinion anyway) do so from from times they didn't even live thru...Reinactors who would give anything to live thru a day at Hastings, Bannockburn, or Gettysburg.

That is pretty weird. A girlfriend once told me after her visit to the Viet Nam memorial wall in DC that younger people would be weeping and carrying on about numerous names on that wall of deceased soldiers that they could not possibly have known personally, or in that quantity. But each era also carries an atmsophere that goes along with it--a specific style of music, food, clothes, expressions, transportation, weapons, attitudes, technology, and geographical setting--so each era's atmosphere will always carry appeal for those whose personal tastes match those of the atmosphere. Just look at the success of Westerns! Reenacters surely relate to other specific eras. Reenacters are a good example I never thought about before.

[ Edited by: mbonga 2006-02-09 00:03 ]

[ Edited by: mbonga 2006-02-09 00:11 ]