Nostalgia for the Past: ABC’s The Goldbergs Returns Viewers to 1980s Culture & Television Stylistics

As I’ve said before, it’s hard for a sitcom to win me over.  This was the case for ABC’s The Goldbergs which debuted this fall.  As a product of the 80s, I was excited to see this much-promoted show packed full of 80s fads (rubik’s cubes, big hair, VCRs).  Although I only remember the later years of the decade with any real detail, the decade has always held a special place in my heart.  (I’ve always been a bit slow to let go of eras.  I was still listening to Madonna records, yes records, on my Fisher Price record player well into the alternative rock movement of the 90s).  So in love with 80s memorabilia, I once tried to purchase VHS’s “I Love the 80s” miniseries (only to find out it wasn’t for sale, big marketing error on their part).  So, I tuned into the first episode.

I enjoyed being transported back to the 80s with glimpses of television shows (Luke & Laura’s wedding on General Hospital), films (Ghost Busters), and toys I remembered (He Man), but for some reason the first two episodes of the show didn’t hook me the way that I thought they would.  At the heart of the show is, quite obviously, the Goldberg family and although no one character or relationship bothered me, none drew me in especially either.  So the series sat on my DVR for most of the fall.  But as 2013 drew to a close and my DVR queue dwindled down, I decided to give the show another chance and it was in this second attempt that I grew fond of it and started to appreciate how the show was operating.

What I realized as I watched the middle episodes of the first season was that it felt very different than the other sitcoms on at the present and that had nothing to do with the historical backdrop.  Or, maybe, in a way, it did.  What I finally realized was that it sort of felt like watching a 1980s sitcom in that it wasn’t as fast-paced and cynical as most sitcoms on today; it was instead heartwarming and positive (and even touchy-feely) in a way that reminded me of the great family sitcoms of the 80s:  Full House, Who’s the Boss, Growing Pains, etc.  While it is a staple of the sitcom to rest individual episodes around a familial problem that will be resolved by the episode’s end, this show almost always ends that familial problem with an emotional scene.  And more importantly, added emotion (and nostalgia) comes right before the credits roll. 

The premise behind the fictional series is that Adam Goldberg, the youngest child of three, is narrating his childhood as an adult.  A video enthusiast, he follows his family around incessantly shooting home videos.  The reality behind the series is that it was actually created by the real Adam Goldberg who did, in fact, spend his childhood documenting his family’s lives.  Ever the lazy pop culture scholar, I didn’t know this when I watched the first two episodes and the pre-credit video footage isn’t consistently present so it may not have appeared in the first episodes I watched (or, ever the lazy DVR fast forwarder also, I may have missed it).  But I first became aware of this connection when I saw one of these pre-credit videos on my second go at the show.   For example, after an episode about the father, Murray, a short video ran featuring the video of Goldlberg’s real father; after an episode about the new family, the Kremps, who moved to the block, real footage of Chad Kremp, Adam’s childhood best friend is seen; after an episode about experiences at the local video store, shots of the exterior of a Hollywood Video is seen with the epitaph reading “In Loving Memory of the Video Store, 1980-2013.”  I now eagerly wait for this scene before the credits because it makes for the perfect double dose of nostalgia at the episode’s close:  the sentimental end of the fictional narrative and the sentimental tribute to the family interactions that inspired it. 

The show also reminds me in a way of ABC’s The Wonder Years (1988-1993), the coming of age sitcom that followed Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage) through the late 60s and into the 70s.   While the distance between these two nostalgia shows are a bit different (The Wonder Years was always looking back exactly 20 years and The Goldbergs is now transporting viewers back in time almost 30 years), the effect is pretty similar.  The Goldbergs lacks the subtle political commentary present in The Wonder Years (Kevin’s father works for a defense contractor during this cold war era and his love interest’s brother is killed in Vietnam in the very first episode), but the underlying longing for a simpler time (historically and developmentally) is shared by both.  In a way they are both love stories, not in the traditional sense, but love stories about childhood. 

In making the connection between these two shows, I was drawn to review how the ancestor show, The Wonder Years, ended.  (Thanks Wikipedia for always being a source of ever-so-available information):

The final sounds, voice-over narration, and dialogue of the series is that of the adult Kevin (voice of Daniel Stern), with children heard in the background:  “Growing up happens in a heartbeat. One day you're in diapers, the next day you're gone. But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul. I remember a place, a town, a house, like a lot of houses. A yard like a lot of other yards. On a street like a lot of other streets. And the thing is, after all these years, I still look back... with wonder.”  A little boy (Stern's real life son) can be heard asking his dad to come out and play catch during a break in the final narration. Kevin's narrative responds, "I'll be right there" as the episode closes.

Just re-reading that scene pulled at a heart-string and I realized that shows like this appeal to me because they look back on childhood through the rose-colored glasses that I long to look through when remembering my own childhood through aging photographs, diaries, and keepsakes.  They show the sunny side of childhood, the type I long to give to my little girls, and cast off the shadowy parts (at least by the episode or series close).   What do I get in watching them? A chance to smile slightly, murmur an “awe,” and remember ever so vaguely the wonder that was my own childhood.  

Working Outside the System: Studying the Post-9/11 Figure of the Avenger/Vigilante in Dexter

Always late to the party, I just finished watching the final season of Showtime’s Dexter last night.  Like many fans who watched all eight seasons, I, too, am disappointed in how it ended.  (For those who have not finished the show and do not want a SPOILER, stop reading here). 

For those unfamiliar with the program, the main premise behind it is that the main character, Dexter Morgan, a blood splatter pattern analyst for the fictional Miami Metro Police Department, moonlights as a serial killer bound by a moral code (similar to that of many vigilantes).  He was trained by his deceased father, Harry, a homicide detective, to work through his violent impulses by becoming an avenger of violent crimes – murdering those who the justice system fails to put away.  The major narrative arch of the program tracks Dexter’s progression as a sociopath who has little desire for human connection, or capacity for emotion, to that of a person struggling to rid himself of his demons and seek out a (relatively) normal life for him and his loved ones.   As expected, the final season teased viewers with this very possibility of redemption and a traditional “happily ever after ending.”

Even up until the final episode, this looked possible.  Dexter was just one step away from starting a new life with his girlfriend (and former serial killer), Hannah, and his son, Harrison, in Argentina.  He had captured the bad guy of the season, Oliver Saxon, and for the first time happily turned him over to the officials instead of bringing him to justice himself.  And then everything went wrong.  Saxon shot Deb (Dexter’s sister) and went on the run; Dexter had to send Hannah and Harrison off on their escape without them; after a promised full-recovery, Deb experienced complications from the gunshot and was pronounced brain dead; and Dexter was forced to murder Saxon himself (while he was in custody no less).  The death of Deb sent him over the edge and as he removed her from life support and snuck her body out of the hospital for a seaside burial on his boat, The Slice of Life, viewers quickly understood that this was not just a final, sad familial act before heading off into the sunset with his lover and child.  If viewers had still been hoping for that, the final phone call with his son where he pleaded with him to always remember that he loved him, should have been the clearest indication.  So, Dexter, instead, vowed not to expose Hannah and Harrison to his endless cycle of hurting the ones he loved, and drove his boat off into the tropical storm in an apparent suicide attempt.  What looked to be the final scene of the program was Hannah learning via a web article of Dexter’s death and putting on a good face for Harrison and taking him off to eat ice cream walking hand-in-hand through the picturesque streets of Buenos Aires.  It was a bittersweet happily ever after as it implied that their lives would be happy, even if Dexter was not a part of it.  Then, however, the series gave viewers the real final scene:  a shot of a bearded Dexter who survived the destruction of his boat at sea (perhaps a purposeful faking of his own death), working as a lumberjack off in some isolated area.  The final shot was him staring blankly into the camera, devoid of expression, and lacking the show’s normal voice over.

It was a dark and depressing ending.  And perhaps a fitting one for the show.  Had the series ended with everyone happy (Deb with Quinn, Dexter with Hannah, etc.) it probably would have rang false.  Although the question about whether he could ever move past his urge to kill was answered (it appeared, yes he could), would viewers have really been happy with him escaping prosecution of any kind?   As a scholar, I wouldn’t have liked the happy ending, but as a fan of eight years I’ll admit I wanted it.  Even when it was apparent he was going to “kill himself” I was hoping the ghost of his sister would replace the recently departed ghost of his father and talk him out of it in a string of colorful language.  (I’m a perpetual optimist when it comes to narrative resolutions).  And while I didn’t exactly like the ending we got, I didn’t exactly hate it either.  And, more importantly, I understood it.  The person who struggled the most with Dexter’s actions was always Dexter himself.  And in the end it is almost fitting that it is he who punishes himself, stripping himself of the happiness he had grown to want, through his self-enforced isolation.  Also, the open ending also allows the optimistic viewer like me to envision a future where a not-dead Dexter could potentially reunite with his family.  And perhaps that’s why Showtime didn’t allow the writers to kill him off.

A lot of the Internet buzz about the ending is concerning this dictate from the network to leave him alive.  Apparently some fans would have preferred his death.  Some, it seems, would have preferred the ending that Clyde Phillips, the executive producer for its first four seasons, claims he would have pitched for the series: 

In the very last scene of the series, Dexter wakes up. And everybody is going to think, 'Oh, it was a dream.' And then the camera pulls back and back and back and then we realize, 'No, it's not a dream.' Dexter's opening his eyes and he's on the execution table at the Florida Penitentiary. They're just starting to administer the drugs and he looks out through the window to the observation gallery ... And in the gallery are all the people that Dexter killed—including the Trinity Killer and the Ice Truck Killer (his brother Rudy), LaGuerta who he was responsible [for] killing, Doakes who he's arguably responsible for, Rita, who he's arguably responsible for, Lila. All the big deaths, and also whoever the weekly episodic kills were. They are all there.

But this wasn’t how the show ended and according to fan surveys, over 60% of viewers were unsatisfied with the one they got and the show has earned the title of “lamest finale since Seinfeld.” 

While I could continue to add to this conversation concerning the ending, I am more interested in what the show’s popularity overall means and how it fits into my normal post-9/11 television analysis.  As I’ve discussed in posts before, in the years immediately following the September 11^th terrorist attacks, American television was inundated with programming focused on salvation, rescue, and heroics.  Popular shows featured governmental figures continually saving the nation (24, Alias, The Unit, The West Wing, Commander in Chief) and ordinary civilians working to save themselves and others from perilous situations (Heroes, Lost).  Toward the second half of the 9/11 decade (2001-2011), this focus changed slightly.  The virtuous hero became the unconventional avenger seeking a form of vigilante justice outside (rather than inside) the system.  (Dexter, of course, fits this categorization well.)  This focus can be seen in some of the earlier programming (for instance the last few seasons of 24 depict Jack Bauer more often than not as a rogue agent failing to conform to proper government protocol), but it can more easily be seen in the new programs that were launched.   My argument is that these narratives of vengeance are popular among audiences because they help audiences work through (and displace) emotions lingering a decade after 9/11.

The increase in revenge narrative post-9/11 is most noticeable when studying Hollywood film trends.  Barry Johnson notes that Hollywood has always been the “primary generator of revenge narratives in popular media” and looks to the summer releases of 2009 to show just how prominent this trend is in the post-9/11 moment (para. 3).  Some of the blockbuster films he lists include:  The X-Men Origins:  Wolverine, Star Trek, Terminator Salvation, and Transformers:  Revenge of the Fallen (para. 3).   However, not all “revenge” films are that explicit in their focus. 

In the aftermath of 9/11 many films were a bit more loosely tied to the revenge motif and instead attempted to allegorically explore the post-9/11 world with examples ranging from “the puppet satire Team American:  World Police (2004)” to Steven “Spielberg’s War of the Worlds (2005)” (Purse para. 2).  Even more prevalent was the trend of what David Holloway calls “modish” references to 9/11, Iraq or Afghanistan, or associated locales and themes (75).  Laura Purse refers to a variety of films, such as Cloverfield (2008) and Law Abiding Citizen (2009) which seem to fall somewhere between the allegory/modish continuum (para. 2).  But ultimately, she argues, the most “discernible trend in post-9/11 action cinema is (the aforementioned) developing unease about the viability of notions that are normally at the heart of the action film:  heroism and a ‘just war’” (Purse para. 3).  Purse notes that “heroism as a cultural idea gained renewed currency in the immediate aftermath of 9/11” and stories proliferated “about people who had risked their lives or died trying to rescue others” (para. 3).  In these narratives “acts of human sacrifice and bravery” were “heralded unproblematically as heroic, and… were duly eulogized” (Purse para. 3).  But, as Purse notes,

The discourse of patriotic heroism was problematised by what happened next. The military interventions by the US and its allies after 9/11 were initiated in the face of anti-war demonstrations and debates about their legal mandate. In the years that followed growing collateral damage statistics and revelations about prisoner mistreatment at Guantànamo Bay and Abu Ghraib and about the rendition of terror suspects put pressure on any notion of a ‘just war’ and called into question the heroism of implicated military personnel, while the reduction of civil liberties flowing from the 2001 Patriot Act and the rising US and Allied troop casualties further muddied public opinion. (para. 3)

Purse references films that reflect this shift in public opinion.  For example, in “Shooter (2007), Vantage Point (2008), the Bourne films (2002, 2004, 2007) and Salt (2010), amongst others, the ‘just war’ of maintaining national security turns out to be a dirty and corrupt business, with the hero forced to attack the very government forces he thought he was fighting with (Purse para. 4). And, correspondingly, “uncertainty about the true nature of the central protagonist’s supposed heroism returns as a pronounced trope in” action films of this period (Purse para. 4).

Also prevelant during this time period was what film critic Peter Bradshaw terms “the  liberal fence-sitter” – “agonised, conscience-stricken films about war on terror,” set in “multinational locations,” aiming to “express a slowly awakening sense that everyone has been duped by the Bush presidency, but still unwilling to risk being (outwardly) disloyal in any way” (para. 15).  He lists Robert Redford’s Lions for Lambs (2007), Gavin Hood’s Rendition (2007), Michael Winterbottom’s A Might Heart (2007), and Stephen Gaghan’s Syriana (2005) as key examples of this trend (Bradshaw para. 15). 

Although one would expect action films and political dramas to be the genres that wrestle with the ethics of governmental policy and post-9/11 concerns, some other surprising genres rose in popularity during this time period and tackled some of the same goals.  In the midst of a major turn toward the dystopic or post-apocalytpic, the zombie narrative rejuvenated itself and many scholars have read its popularity through a post-9/11 lens.  For example, Veronica Cooper studied the alignment of the “zombie renaissance” and the “system-justifying nationalistic rhetoric” of post-9/11 (Paper 63).  She argues that zombie narratives “illuminate the motives of ‘us vs. them’ rhetoric and hypermasculine revenge narratives in the post-9/11 decade” (Cooper Paper 63).

Narratives of revenge and vengeance are, of course, not new.  However, their increased prominence in this particular moment seems worthy of note.  Although one might expect to see an increased number of revenge narratives in any post-war/post-tragedy period, such correlations are not immediately evident which leaves one to wonder:  why is this particular time period, and this cultural climate, so primed to indulge in these tales?

The avenger has long had a place in fictional storylines and often embarks on plots for revenge through a variety of means.  One of the most commonly chosen paths is to “devise a Machiavellian plan, maneuvering things (and occasionally people) in place until the time of final vengeance is at hand” (“Revenge” para. 3).  This type of vengeance is seen (with slight modification) in the example of the television program Dexter.  Although Dexter is driven as much by his need to kill as his sense of justice, the motif of vigilante justice definitely is present in the program since he often feels that the existing legal mechanisms for criminal punishment or civilian protection are insufficient or systematically flawed.  By nature, vigilantes typically see the government as ineffective in enforcing the law, which makes Dexter all the more interesting since he works for a police department.  The show consistently highlights the failures of the justice system (criminals who escape conviction; bureaucracy that interferes with civilian safety; and corruption from within).  Although no specific storyline points directly to acts of terrorism or 9/11, the notion that there is a need to prevent a large public from a dangerous looming threat (often in the form of a serial killer rather than a suicide bomber), this program indicates that “the system” (in this case the police force rather than the government) is ill-equipped to carry out this goal.

Vigilantes also tend to justify their actions as fulfilling the wishes of the larger community, which can be seen in the various daydream sequences Dexter has where he envisions cheering crowds supporting his brutal methods of dealing with criminals. 

In the early seasons of the program, each episode focused on the revenge/rescue of one individual person:  Dexter murdering a variety of rapists, pedophiles, and killers – one episode at a time.  Therefore, each week viewers are able to get their “vengeance” fix through the consumption of individual storylines.  Originally, my claim was that there is something cathartic about the revenge narrative surfacing in Dexter and other contemporary television programs.  Although such shows may problematically allegorize the revenge fantasies of a nation post-attack, their shift away from government-centered rescue narratives to individual-based vigilante justice storylines reflects a critique of this very revenge fantasy and (perhaps) the government that helped to foster it.  If one buys into the idea that television consumption can act as a type of affect theory – helping to ward off or decrease negative affect – then these programs may working against some of the fear-based rhetoric still surfacing a decade after 9/11.  Then again, the reciprocity involved in cultural consumption and production trends might indicate that these narratives could just as likely help sustain this culture of fear.  Regardless of how these programs are read, what is evident is that these revenge tales are not sites of mere guilty pleasure for viewing audiences – or they are not simply this alone – they are also sites where the cultural anxieties of the post-9/11 moment are worked through and critiqued in important ways.

If this is the reason for why so many viewers embraced Dexter, how does the outrage against the series finale play into this?  If in the years after the 9/11 attack we have been a nation hungry for revenge fantasies and vigilantes, how does the show’s ending affect us?  While fans probably weren’t expecting a happy ending for Dexter (although I bet some were still hoping for it), having the show end with his punishment (self-inflicted as it may have been) does seem to send the message that vigilante justice is not to be embraced.  (This type of ending is in line with how Fox chose to end 24, sending its rouge agent, Jack Bauer, on the run at the series’ close).   Could it be that some of the dislike for this ending is not just about its narrative closure (or lack thereof), but about how this type of ending sits with viewers affectually?  If Dexter somehow became the embodiement of a nation’s emotional state – of viewer’s hyperbolic desire for justice, revenge, and safety – then does Dexter’s punishment imply that we, too, are morally corrupt for having the desires he personifies?  Of course, I’m likely reading too much into this.  After all, fans love to hate the ending of popular shows (e.g. Lost).  But, if my never-ending theory that television trends reflect national affective states, I’ll be curious to see if the avenger motif is on the way out and what, if anything, that implies about the emotional states of Americans as we continue away from the  national attack that kicked off this era of fear and anger.