Nostalgia Trap

As we continue our series on 90s L.A. movies, we arrive at the 1995 high school classic Clueless (dir. Amy Heckerling), one of a number of Jane Austen adaptations that dominated 1990s pop culture. Danny Bessner and Courtney Rawlings join us for an exploration of this sunny, satirical vision of affluent teen culture, and we discover that Clueless is a more complicated take on feminism, consumerism, class, and politics than any of us had noticed on first watch. From the mansions of Beverly Hills to the lowland horror that is THE VALLEY, we explore how Clueless offers a vision of Los Angeles and youth culture that continues to resonate in the 21st century. For full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/nostalgiatrap. 

Jared Yates Sexton is a professor and political analyst whose latest book American Rule: How a Nation Conquered the World but Failed its People takes on some of the big foundational myths of American history, viewing them through the lens of an increasingly dark, apocalyptic 21st century. In this conversation, we talk about the toxic stew of capitalism, racism, power, and domination that have shaped the nation from its beginning, and discuss how capital’s power to absorb its resistance makes neoliberal products out of social and political movements, from #MeToo to Black Lives Matter.

Our journey through 90s Los Angeles with Danny Bessner continues with an exploration of the Jon Favreau/Vince Vaughn indie bromance Swingers (1996). We talk about the film’s depiction of pre-gentrification Hollywood, when non-rich people could still afford a social life (or at least a beer and a burger), and analyze the wider historical forces that produced the somewhat bizarre mid-decade pop culture swing revival of which Swingers was a major part. We discuss David’s personal experiences with swing culture in Southern California, the blank culture of straight suburban whiteness, and the uneasy gender politics at play in Swingers and Gen X culture more widely. And we learn of Danny’s heretofore unacknowledged appreciation of Guy Fieri. For full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/nostalgiatrap. 

Why are noir detective stories such fitting containers for exploring the greed, corruption, and violence of Los Angeles? As we continue our series with Danny Bessner on 90s L.A. cinema, Will Menaker of Chapo Trap House joins us for a conversation about Curtis Hanson’s 1997 neo-noir Hollywood masterpiece L.A. Confidential. Since Will and Danny are confessed James Ellroy fanatics, they explain how the famously enigmatic author’s dark, often reactionary vision of Los Angeles translates to the screen. Along the way we reflect on how L.A. Confidential plays with both the image and reality of L.A. history, simultaneously critiquing and participating in the city’s toxic, intoxicating mythology of Hollywood glamour and lurid subterranean nightmares.

Are we as trapped by the future as we are by the past? Continuing our exploration of fascism and resistance in the 20th and 21st centuries, Justin Rogers-Cooper returns to offer his insights on the history of Belarus from World War II to the present. We begin with the 1985 Soviet film Come and See, using director Elem Klimov’s searing take on Belarus’ experience of Nazi occupation to frame our discussion of political culture, violence, and historical memory. We reflect on how Belarus’ recent history, from the unfathomable tragedy of Chernobyl to 2020 uprisings against the authoritarian government of Alexander Lukashenko, shapes our understanding of power, democracy, and solidarity.  

Rick Perlstein is a historian and the author of a series of bestselling, massively entertaining books on the rise of American conservatism in the late 20th century. His 2008 book Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America sharpened his mega-thesis about the historical significance of “the Sixties” in the American political imagination, demonstrating how Nixon and other conservatives drove a wedge through public discourse by manipulating and nurturing the reactionary impulse that boiled underneath the surface of the era. In this conversation, Perlstein discusses his latest book Reaganland: America’s Right Turn 1976-1980, shares stories about the methods behind the construction of his labyrinthine historical narrative, and reflects on the ways that nostalgia functions to distort our vision of the past, present, and future.

The 1993 film Falling Down, starring Michael Douglas and directed by Joel Schumacher, divided audiences and critics with a story of a man’s descent into vigilante violence on a hot Los Angeles day. Viewed from 2020, the film shows us something deep and dark about American social reality in the years immediately following the end of the Cold War. Danny Bessner joins us for a detailed analysis of an important piece of 90s pop culture, connecting the history of Los Angeles as the rising center of American empire to the emotional disintegration of Douglas’ character. 

Jon Wiener is an American historian and co-author, along with Mike Davis, of the extraordinary book Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties. In this conversation, Wiener explains why it’s so vital, particularly in 2020, to recover L.A.’s radical history, and explains the process behind communicating a complicated movement narrative to a broad audience. We also hear bits from Wiener’s incredible career as a writer and journalist, including his involvement with the groundbreaking progressive radio station KPFK, and his unbelievable legal battle with the FBI to declassify their records of surveilling and harassing John Lennon. 

Daegan Miller’s first appearance on Nostalgia Trap, in which he discussed both his painful exit from academia and his stunning book This Radical Land: A Natural History of American Dissent, remains one of our most popular episodes. From the outskirts of a tiny town in rural Massachusetts, Miller returns to update us on his life outside the tortured confines of the university. In this conversation, in addition to the prerequisite nostalgia trip through late 20th century Ani DiFranco-style MTV radicalism, we talk about the everyday reality of being a “writer in the woods,” the hyper-nationalist (read: eco-fascist) environmentalism of the Trump era, mixed emotions about the fading relevance of boomer culture, and the weird feeling of watching “the kids” make memes about Karl Marx.   

What happened to the world of independently-operated head shops, feminist and black-owned bookstores, and health food markets that blossomed in the 1960s and 1970s? Josh Davis, professor of history and author of From Head Shops to Whole Foods: The Rise and Fall of Activist Entrepreneurs, joins us to explain how a movement to change the world was slowly subsumed into the neoliberal hellscape of consumer capitalism.