The "Good" Ol' Days: Romanticizing an Era That Didn’t Exist

The so-called ‘good old days’ weren't so good for everyone, so why are they constantly romanticized? When people talk about “the good old days,” what they usually mean is the mid-20th century – and perhaps one of the reasons this is looked on so fondly in America is because it feels like that’s when a lot of what we know about contemporary America was born. There was a spirit of post-war optimism that now, at a time of great global anxiety, there feels like a need to harness. But not everyone had the luxury of being optimistic. This was a time of huge inequality. So by romanticizing that era uncritically – both in art and in our real life politics – we’re in danger of endorsing that culture, which becomes even more dangerous – given that right now, so many of the gains that have been made in the past half century feel like they’re being rolled back.

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00:00 Hollywoods Mid-Century Obsession
01:53 Who were the Good Ol' Days even good for?
05:55 Nostalgia for a darker time
09:05 What mid-century was really like for everyone