On Aging, nostalgia & The O.C.
(OR: How Mischa Barton is trying to save public education…in Ontario…!!)
I sneezed this morning while making my coffee and somehow threw my lower back out. Since when can a sneeze have that kind of power? My husband, 8 years older, said (unsurprised) “Ice it. One minute on, one minute off.” Then he went back to reading. That was it. Welcome to a new age, Natalie.
Thinking about aging prompts a sort of nostalgia in me. Memories of a long ago Natalie who helped run yoga classes for the school football team and a weight training camp for grade 9 girls. I don’t think I’m alone. Nostalgic responses to bodily shifts and global changes are everywhere I look online right now. The algorithm must have known I was having a “good ol’ days” moment remembering my teaching youth because all of a sudden CBC journalist
appeared on my “suggested” list. Nostalgically remembering the sound of her voice coming through the radio of my 15-year-old CRV on my daily commute to school, I decided to reach out to her. (She said yes! Watch for her upcoming episode on the Reframeables podcast).I was also struck, though not completely surprised, when my former teacher’s union chose to use nostalgia as an online messaging tactic. Drinking my morning coffee, I almost scrolled past OSSTF’s TikTok post, but was slowed by the appearance of a semi-familiar face:
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I was sure I knew that woman! And sure enough, when I went to the comments the whole gang was talking: Mischa Barton from the early aughts teen drama The O.C. was talking about the impact of Ontario government education cuts! I was of the 90210 generation ten years earlier so perhaps not the intended audience, but the fact remains that a group of teacher union leaders recognized the power of nostalgia to engage those who might otherwise scroll on—consider me impressed.
So is nostalgia good? Bad? Worth taking up ram in the already crowded CPUs of our minds? With so many disasters happening in the world dominating our various screens right now, a longing for “simpler” memories makes some sense. Nostalgic connections to past lives lived perhaps mitigate the fear of unknown futures.
Though I did do a semi-deep dive into Mischa’s story and came across some of the painful stuff from the O.C. years. She has actually spoken openly about the mental health impact of fame manifesting in her living with ongoing PTSD. And having Gill Deacon on the podcast meant learning straight from the source that my nostalgic memories of her radio voice were not the whole story. Gill’s ongoing reality has included living through cancer treatments and long covid.
A grad student once asked if she could stick to personal memories for the data analysis section of her thesis. And I understood the temptation.1 I’ve come to wonder if our present day’s fascination with nostalgia is perhaps some sort of desire to rewrite time. A negation of complete (much messier) stories, choosing only certain pieces of a larger whole to bring forward into a nostalgic light.
And yet, what about allowing nostalgia a new creative power? Making space for the representation of old memories to become new. This year we’ve seen this play out on screen. No longer limited to one costume (the ubiquitous red bathing suit),
has become something utterly new with her film The Last Showgirl. With Nobody Wants This Adam Brody, another O.C. alum, has finally been allowed to grow up, from teen to rabbi. Who is to say Mischa isn’t trying to do the same?Taking the past forward, shaped into something new.
Changed.
We’ve since sorted another way forward for that project…drop a comment if you want to read a future piece on critical arts-based-research methods like photo collage.
Definitely interested in "a future piece on critical arts-based-research methods like photo collage"!