CL- Jameson

As I made my way through the reading this week I found myself having a difficult time digesting all of the material. While I find it fascinating and riveting, I am looking forward to class and the lecture to help me fully comprehend the ideas and theories of the text.
Like many of my classmates I found the "Nostalgia Mode" section of the reading quite interesting. I found Jameson's discussion of the "incompatibility of the a postmodernist 'nostalgia' art language with genuine historicity" (pg 495) particularly interesting. Jameson says that "it being understood that the nostalgia film was never a matter of some old-fashioned 'representation' of historicial content, but approached the 'past' through stylistic connotation, conveying the 'pastness' by the glossy qualities of the image, and '1930s-ness or "1950s-ness by the attributions of fashion" (pg 495).
As I discussed in my post-class blod entry, postmodernism seems the be inexplicably linked with the "retro" or the idea of a "retro" element. Just as Jameson discusses films not actually historically depicting an era or time, this is found all over. Film, music, television, books, art, architecture, the list goes on and on. Many of my classmates have discussed the idea of "traditional communities" such as Baldwn Park. These communities are not truly replicas of the 1950s. If this were true, they would not have color t.v.s, timed washers and dryers, or SUVs sitting in the driveways. A good friend of mine lives in Baldwin Park, and everytime I visit her I am struck by how empty the streets are. If Baldwin Park were truly a 1950's traditional community there would be children playing in the yards and riding bicycles in the streets. The residents of Baldwin Park are enamored by the "glossy qualities of the image" of a traditional neighborhood. Yet with all it's cozy houses and cute street names, the harsh reality of the year 2006 and the fact that it is not safe for children to play unsupervised in their own front yards due to the fear of kidnapping or molestation keeps the children locked behind the safe doors.