Retrospective 2021 | The comfort of the classics

Reunion of Friends to the new ABBA album, including the return of James Bond, a documentary on the Beatles and a new series with the clique of Sex and the City, let’s say that the year 2021 has been generous in terms of sure values ​​and comforting classics. Therapeutic, nostalgia? Back to the phenomenon, in four stages.

Silvia galipeau
Press

Play therapy

Coincidence? Adele broke all sales records with her new album this year. ABBA has come back to us after 40 years of silence. And now Genesis comes as a bonus to go through the Bell Center. Not to mention the Rolling Stones, still on tour, the return of yet another James Bond to the big screen, the reunion of Friends on TV, and those of Harry Potter, very soon. Sure, nostalgia is all the rage these days.

And it is not a hazard. “What we experienced is not trivial, comments emeritus sociologist Diane Pacom, now retired in Toronto. It’s really seismic. We no longer have our benchmarks! According to her, there is no doubt: “We seek solace in the cultural products of the past. “Not just any:” cheerful and happy cultural products “,” sure values ​​”, mainly in the” rearview mirror “. For good reason: “we are not going to go into the experimental! », She quips. Indeed, “all this brings us a lightness”, essential in these days, while the pandemic, and its new variants, stretches in length, in uncertainties and in questions.

Pre-pandemic trend

Nevertheless, nostalgia has been selling for a long time already. Long before the pandemic, in fact. In a column recently published in the daily The world, the head of the culture department stressed that music was by far the most concerned by this “eternal art of recycling […] exacerbated since the pandemic ”, also underlining the return of Diana Ross (after 15 years of silence) and Elton John, at the top of the charts in Great Britain. “Nostalgia has been in full swing for a long time,” he wrote, “a basic trend that the pandemic is exacerbating a little more. […], with the need to turn […] towards what we already love and know. ”

“We love our nostalgia”, adds Sandrine Galand, feminist author passionate about popular culture. “But this interest is not unique to COVID-19,” she said. For some time now, there have been covers, reboots. There is a very clear desire to make money with nostalgia. Perhaps even the surge of “nostalgic” productions is more of the postponement of the schedule imposed by the pandemic, in fact. Several albums, she points out, recently launched productions and series were ready long before everything was put on hold: James Bond’s theatrical release was delayed, as was the Beatles documentary. Even ABBA’s album has been postponed a number of times, it should be remembered. Result ? Everything finally tumbled in the last year.

Nostalgia strategy

But there is more. If there is clearly a will to bet on the nostalgic fiber of the public, especially in these uncertain times, there is also a “strategy” specific to a very particular context: “the overabundance of cultural offer”, advance in turn Stéfany Boisvert, professor at the Media School of the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM), specialist in popular culture and cultural studies. “It’s an obvious phenomenon,” she says. There is an unprecedented increase in cultural production. “The challenge, now, being to ensure” visibility “to the offer, and above all” discoverability “, she said. The secret ? To counter the famous “choice fatigue”, exacerbated among other things by the multiplication of platforms (Amazon Prime, Disney + and Netflix in this world), it is a question here of going through all these “comeback”, sequels and other reunions, among others.

Indeed, the friends of Friends did not meet only for our greatest pleasure. Carrie, Charlotte and Miranda are also not back to make us forget the pandemic. “There is also an economic strategy behind all that, continues the television specialist. If a platform offers a universe to which we already have an attachment, we make sure that this production will be popular. Besides, had you noticed it? One of the latest in the industry (HBO Max) was also particularly aggressive in this direction. Think: Friends, And Just Like That, then this masterstroke, with the first reunion announced of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint in front of the cameras for the New Year …

Therapeutic refuge

And do you know what? That works ! “It brings us back to the known, something that we love, that we loved and that we still love! It’s reassuring ! », Confirms Georgia Vrakas, professor in the psychoeducation department at the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières. These days, and all the “unknowns” associated with it, “having access to something that feels good, of course, that comes to comfort us,” she insists. “It’s entertaining, it’s not an escape, but a way of thinking about something else. “Or immerse yourself in the” known “, far from this omnipresent” unknown “.

This is also why she intends to immerse herself personally in her favorite series: Seinfeld. For a very simple (psychological) reason. “I know what’s going to happen, I know I’m going to laugh, there won’t be any surprises, and right now that’s what I need …” A huge need for lightness. Touch.