What were you thinking? Whoever you are, I’m not attacking any of your decisions or thoughts. You and I may not, however, have as good a grasp on those as we believe.
In Stumbling on Happiness, Harvard psychology professor Daniel Gilbert said that our recollections of how we felt in times past is impacted by, among other things, how we feel when we consider that. Perhaps that’s why many of us can look back on stressful, challenging, or otherwise difficult times with warm feelings, provided we feel somewhat warm when recalling them. This is largely how nostalgia works. We can feel good about the good stuff and conveniently forget much of what sucked, at least during those nostalgic moments. Television channels with old shows depend on such feelings. This brings me to Hawaii Five-O, the old series, not the more recent remake.
As a young child I thought the show was great. More recently I saw a few of the old episodes. They were truly bad, from the stories to the acting, especially the acting. Many other old shows seem to have been very weak on multiple fronts too. Of course, I can cut myself some slack for my viewing choices as a child but as a young adult in the mid-1980s my choices weren’t much better. The Karate Kid movies have been playing lately on the AMC network and, despite Noriyuki “Pat” Morita’s performances, they seem waaay cornier than they did to me when I originally enjoyed them
Almost every decade had its masterpieces in music, film, books, and so on. Yet what makes for resurgence in these areas and others, fashion for instance, is best identified by minds far greater than I. Current men’s suit fashions closely approximate those of, say, 1966. Hopefully, 1976 men’s suits aren’t around the corner, especially plaid safari-style jackets.
What you and I were thinking several years ago was influenced by personal choice, peer pressure, advertising, and who knows what else. Furthermore, how we assess what we were feeling and thinking, which are often linked more than we’d like to admit, is apparently affected by what we think and how we feel when we do that assessing. So much for hindsight being 20/20.
None of this is to suggest that some shows shouldn’t appear horrible to us from the first broadcast and send audiences running. Case in point: Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. I’m not sure how Dr. Gilbert would explain that one.