Remediating the Eighties: Nostalgia and Retro in British Screen Fiction from 2005 to 2011
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REMEDIATING THE EIGHTIES: NOSTALGIA AND RETRO IN BRITISH SCREEN FICTION FROM 2005 TO 2011 Thesis submitted by Caitlin Shaw In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy De Montfort University, March 2015 2 3 ABSTRACT This doctoral thesis studies a cycle of British film and television fictions produced in the years 2005-2011 and set retrospectively in the 1980s. In its identification and in-depth textual and contextual analysis of what it terms the ‘Eighties Cycle’, it offers a significant contribution to British film and television scholarship. It examines eighties- set productions as members of a sub-genre of British recent-past period dramas begging unique consideration outside of comparisons to British ‘heritage’ dramas, to contemporary social dramas or to actual history. It shows that incentives for depicting the eighties are wide-ranging; consequently, it situates productions within their cultural and industrial contexts, exploring how these dictate which eighties codes are cited and how they are textually used. The Introduction delineates the Eighties Cycle, establishes the project’s academic and historical basis and outlines its approach. Chapter 1 situates the work within the academic fields that inform it, briefly surveying histories and socio-cultural studies before examining and assessing existing scholarship on Eighties Cycle productions alongside critical literature on 1980s, 90s and contemporary British film and television; nostalgia and retro; modern media, history and memory; British and American period screen fiction; and transmedia storytelling. Chapter 2 considers how a selection of productions employing ‘the eighties’ as a visual and audio style invoke and assign meaning to commonly recognised aesthetic codes according to their targeted audiences and/or intended messages. Chapter 3 investigates semi-autobiographical dramas that bear the mark of remembering, from the vantage point of the present, a time of fast expansions and shifts in the global media landscape. Chapter 4 explores how historical fictions locate historical knowledge in the decade’s refraction through modern media and reconstruct, deconstruct or ironise these mediations to meet particular cultural or industrial demands. Chapter 5 identifies two spin-offs that exploit shifts toward transmedia production and distribution by using eighties iconography as the set pieces for an immersive fantasy world, considering how and why their source texts are adapted and what this implies for past representation. Finally, the Conclusion reviews the project’s findings and briefly considers possible factors for the cycle’s deceleration and transformation after 2011. Ultimately, this project sees the Eighties Cycle as a by-product of shifts in Britain toward advanced globalisation and new mediation that have facilitated access to domestic and international mediated recent pasts. These productions operate within a distinct recent-past period screen fiction mode, engaging audiences equipped with comprehensive notions of the eighties as circulated in media. Meaning is produced in how these notions are structured; sometimes they are lauded, sometimes parodied, sometimes criticised or ironised, and sometimes they are simply cited for the sheer pleasure of recall. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................................... 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................... 6 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 8 LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................... 19 MAPPING THE SOCIAL CONTEXT ............................................................................................................. 19 TRENDS IN RECENT BRITISH CINEMA AND TELEVISION .......................................................................... 22 Developments and Discussions in the 1980s ..................................................................................... 22 Debates on 1990s and Contemporary British Cinema ....................................................................... 26 GLOBAL NEW MEDIA, HISTORY AND MEMORY ...................................................................................... 30 THEORIES OF NOSTALGIA, RETRO AND HERITAGE IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURE .................................. 34 NOSTALGIA AND RETRO IN FILM AND TELEVISION ................................................................................. 38 Debates on British Period Genres from the 1980s, 90s and Early 2000s ........................................... 38 Debates on American Period Genres ................................................................................................. 44 The Limits of American Nostalgia Criticism ..................................................................................... 47 TRANSMEDIA THEORY ............................................................................................................................ 50 CONTEMPORARY BRITISH SCREEN FICTIONS SET IN THE LATE SEVENTIES AND EIGHTIES ..................... 51 Pre-Eighties Cycle Productions.......................................................................................................... 51 Eighties Cycle Productions ................................................................................................................ 53 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................................... 60 EMBRACING THE REPELLENT: THE EIGHTIES AS STYLE ................... 61 THROUGH GRIME-TINTED GLASSES: SINCERITY IN THE EIGHTIES MODE ............................................... 65 BACK TO THE EIGHTIES: ASHES TO ASHES ................................................................................................ 70 THE EIGHTIES MODE IN POPULAR BRITISH SCREEN GENRES .................................................................. 80 The Business and Tu£sday ................................................................................................................. 81 Awaydays and The Line of Beauty ..................................................................................................... 86 ‘THE SAME HANDFUL OF IMAGES’: RETRO IN SUBMARINE ...................................................................... 91 CONCLUSION: A “FALSE MEMORY SYNDROME”? ................................................................................... 99 GENRE, GLOBAL MEDIA AND MEMORY: THE EIGHTIES AS ERA .... 101 LOCALISED MEMORIES, GLOBALISED GENRES: STARTER FOR 10 AND CLUBBED ................................... 104 IN SEARCH OF AN UNMEDIATED REAL: IS ANYBODY THERE? ................................................................. 116 EMBRACING GLOBAL MEDIATION: THE RED RIDING TRILOGY AND SON OF RAMBOW ........................... 121 The Red Riding Trilogy.................................................................................................................... 121 5 Son of Rambow ................................................................................................................................ 130 CONCLUSION: NEW RITES-OF-PASSAGE ............................................................................................... 136 IMAGES AND REALITIES: THE EIGHTIES AS HISTORY ...................... 138 THIS IS ENGLAND: THE BURDEN OF MEDIA ON HISTORY ....................................................................... 140 THE 1980S AFTER THIS IS ENGLAND: CONTROL, CASS AND HUNGER ...................................................... 152 History as Style: Control ................................................................................................................. 156 History and Genre: Cass .................................................................................................................. 162 Rejecting nostalgic pleasure: Hunger .............................................................................................. 167 THE LADY’S NOT FOR RETURNING: THREE MARGARET THATCHER BIOPICS ....................................... 171 The Long Walk to Finchley and Margaret ....................................................................................... 175 The Iron Lady .................................................................................................................................. 181 CONCLUSION: DISCORDANT AUDIENCES, DIVERSE HISTORIES............................................................. 189 SELF-ADAPTATION AND UNIVERSE EXPANSION: THE EIGHTIES AS TRANSMEDIAL WORLD ................................................................................................ 191 CONCEIVING ASHES TO ASHES AND THE THIS IS ENGLAND SERIALS ....................................................... 195 BUILDING A RETRO FANTASY WORLD ................................................................................................. 203 ADAPTED MEANINGS: IDEOLOGY, GENDER AND GENRE ...................................................................... 214 CONCLUSION: THE PAST IS A FOREIGN WORLD .................................................................................... 225 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................. 228 APPENDIX: