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

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When you’re used to privilege, equality and diversity feels like oppression.

Lived through the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. There were never any good ol' days. Just your childhood and the music you loved. That's all. It was all pretty damn turbulent, right up until today.

"Last Night in Soho" really did a splendid job of deconstructing the notion of "The Good Old Days", and pointing out that every era had their dark side.

As a vintage enthusiast of the 50’s, the saying “vintage aesthetics, not vintage values” comes to mind. We can look back at the mid century with fondness but also recognize that a lot of inequality and misogyny was happing. I think it’s important to realize that there is good and bad to every time period so we can learn from it.

As Billy Joel says: “The good old days weren’t always good and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems.”

I will never forget when I decided to go swimming at my apartment complex and I met an older white woman with her grandkids. She noticed her kids were trying to play with me and she started talking to me. She discussed her childhood and kept talking about how “ good “ it was back in the 1960’s growing up on a farm. I spoke about how bad it was for black people then especially for my grandmother who told me the horrors of growing up in the Jim Crow era and how she had to fight to make it. The old lady literally ignored me and was like anyways well it was good for ME and I had so much fun especially during the summer. She kept going on and on about how those were the “ good ole days “ and she “ wished she could go back “. I was literally shocked. Just because it was good for YOU doesn’t mean that it was better back then.

The fact that the first shot of this video is from “Catch Me If You Can” is so freaking perfect. I’ve been saying for years that when people of a certain generation talk about “the good old days,” I bet they’re picturing a world that looks like the one in CMIYC.

I think a lot of the draw to “the good old days” is that we live in such turbulent times, that people long for an escape to when times seemed simpler. Kind of like how the grass is always greener; we look at the past times and see them as simpler, looking at only good things. We don’t see the ways that things were just as bad, if not worse back then.

I remember someone telling me to copy the aesthetic, not the values. Not to say the aesthetic is divorced from value but the tribute has to be a holistic one.

I LOVED this take, especially as a black woman. This is why black people never play that "fi you could go back in time, what time would you choose" game. Best case scenario, we are treated like crap. Worst case, we don't make it back. This is an extremely important topic that isn't looked at enough. These "good old days" certainly weren't for my mother, or her family here (my father is Nigerian). Not one of us would go back. It's easy to long for those days when you were on top. It boggles my mind that more white women voted for Trump, as those "good old days" limited their freedoms. They still had privileges, though. If well off enough, they stayed home. Black women have been working since we were dragged here. This further highlights the disparities between white women and women of color. It further drives me insane to hear about these white nationalist groups, but I get it. White men used to control 100% of everything. Now, they are down to about 95%. Scary thought. /s 😕As someone else has said, when you've been on top all your life, the slightest bit of equality can feel like you are losing everything. The big fear is that the oppressed will rise up and oppress their oppressors, even though this hasn't happened. When black South Africans gained more rights and power, they didn't turn around and enslave white South Africans. They did fight to get their farms back (which had been stolen in the first place), but at no point did they try to subjugate whites. This is the fear here in the US and it's insane. We don't want white enslavement. We want equality. Regarding nostalgia, I wish this take has mentioned the movie Last Night in Soho. The era idolized was 1960'd London, but the themes and lessons were the same. A young woman worshiped 1960's London, only to find out that that era wasn't great for everyone. In the end, she still loves the era, but no longer looked at it with rose-colored glasses. I believe that is the approach. We don't have to focus on only the negative, but trying to pretend that it didn't exist is a slap in the face to those who endured it and sets us back as a society.

My father was born in 1927. Whenever someone would talk about the good old days, he would say "The good old days were not that good." He was grateful to live in the 2010s versus the 1950s.

My Great Uncle Alex Chapman, who would have been born close to 1900, had a great response when someone referred to the "Good Old Days" - "Hmmph! When there was always someone dying in a back room".

I couldn't agree more, every time period romanticises the era that came before. Right now, the 80's, 90's and 00's are currently receiving the rose tinted glasses treatment, and as barmy as it might sound now, the 2010's and 2020's will get this too.

“Nostalgia - it's delicate but potent.” - Donald Francis Draper

“I don't know how it works across the pond, but I am black. There is literally no place in American history that'll be awesome for me."- NBC's Timeless may have come and gone, but this quote was amazing, and has stuck with me ever since. We all think of time travel as fun and exciting, but I've never seen many writers point out the context would be different depending on who you are. I appreciated The Umbrella Academy Season 2 touching on this as well. If anything, this stuff isn't ignored, but *willfully avoided* as to not grapple with some uncomfortable truths. (And frankly, some progressive works also ignore context- in their case, to romanticize an ideal.) Anyway, this is a good video, with some great shoutouts. The Imitation Game, Judas and the Black Messiah, Good Night and Good Luck, and Selma, all in one place? I'll take it! But it's interesting that movies based on true stories are the only ones showing the nuance. It's the fictional tales set in the mid century that should be more mindful. Playing devil's advocate, in some sense, I think creatives just like writing for a time before the ubiquity of cellphones and internet because it gets characters to actually interact with each other ;) But for something like, say, a Black The Wonder Years, there's definitely an opportunity to look at the era with some scrutiny. Pleasantville definitely landed a whole new way when I watched it for the first time in forever recently. It is eerily prescient for some of the turmoil going on these days.

The evolution of the musical Grease is an interesting look at this glamorization of the past. Originally, it was quite critical of the time period, poking fun at the perfect suburban WASP 50s, and highlighting the real lives of working class children of immigrants dealing with real teenage problems. But as it moved to Broadway, it was sanitized quite a bit, and by the time it reached movie theatres, it is entirely glamourizing the era, with barely a spec of criticism. The mainstream media just could not fathom showing a critical look at the 50s

Long felt the same! The good ol' days were days when men could harass women, treat people of different colors poorly, & judge anyone who didn't fit the "status quo" and get away with it. Now you can't, and you mad?!

You really can't gloss over the dark sides of the past. I mean, I LOVE everything vintage/retro and classic Hollywood movies, but I am also bisexual and a woman and if I were to actually live in the 40s or 50s, I would have to "pass" as straight for my own safety. I love the vintage aesthetic and would love to mimic the clothes, hairstyles, and makeup, but I wouldn't actually idealize those decades with rose tinted glasses because there was also a war that went on, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, etc

I love the sheer number of examples presented in this video, and how they can endorse, satirize, or subvert the concept of “the good old days“ to varying degrees. It’s a complicated topic, but examining a wide breadth of its representation like this is a good way to see the bigger picture.

The book “The Way We Never Were” by Stephanie Coontz also discusses this theme of Americans falling into the nostalgia trap and looking at the past through rose-colored glasses.

There's no such thing as The Good Ol' Days, just good memories of old days.

As us '90s kids get older, many of us are developing pretty boomerish attitudes towards younger generations and are looking back on the '90s with rose-tinted glasses. I remember the sweet, but I also vividly remember the bitter.

I'm curious if people will consider our current times good old days in several decades... kinda terrifying.

I think Mad Men did a good job of properly portraying the era. I mean, Betty was a depressed housewife, Don was a philanderer, and June was a victim of SA by her husband etc anyone thinking the show glamorised the 50s and 60s wasn't watching closely enough.

The only reason we romanticize the past is because things were affordable. You could go to college, own a car, own a house, and support a family on a single salary.

This discussion is why I laughed at people who preached “MAGA”. I asked them “When was America truly great for everyone?” I always get a weird look in response.

Yah, it’s this kind of romanticizing, as well as the general lack of diverse perspectives within older movies/cinema, that has definitely affected my relationship with movies as someone who used to be a lot more interested in them.

Pleasantlville is such an overlooked critique of the nostalgia for the 1950's - which we have from TV shows from that era! Also, Mrs. Maisel's privilege has been called out often by POC characters - after the first season!

To me, the "good ol' days" were those of my childhood in the 70's. I knew only of what I saw every day... going to school, playing with friends, few concerns. There was so much I didn't know (or was vaguely aware of) and I could be happy in my ignorance. I didn't know the realities of life my parents had to endure or what went on in other parts of the world. Sometimes, I almost think it a crime to shield kids from the reality of life. We don't want them to be psychologically damaged but, at the same time, we need them to be realistic, critically thinking and prepared to deal with the world and, more importantly, to courageous enough to make changes in the world when their aging parents have to let go. But many of those parents refuse to let go and to try take the world back to their idealized time when they were young and ignorant. Now that I'm an adult, there are far more concerns and a realization of the processes out of my control that define what I can or cannot do. I still do have happy times, but they are even more treasured when I'm able to temporarily set aside my burdens and concerns and simply be in the moment. I was happy in those good ol' days... but they were good because I was unaware.

I talked to my dad and grandfather about this type of positive restorative nostalgia that everyone their age like to throw around as the perfect time. And both dad and grandfather said it wasn’t. And they gave many reason why it wasn’t. So I have a different view of this than other people. I laugh when men say that women need to stay home as only mothers. Both dad and grandfather always snarked on that sort of thinking hard. It was food for their mockery.

I am child of 80s and 90s and I also tend to romanticize those decades. It's mostly because I was young and innocent and since there was no internet back then, we weren't aware of many many bad things happening and many many really horrible people that we can see openly now or hear their horrifying opinions online. Which back then we didn't know there is. For example, I really didn't know how many men really hate and despise women and that horrified me. I wasn't aware of wars, many sufferings, there were no such cemented beauty standards and we didn't really have the need or ways to show our life to whole world online or to see other people's life. We couldn't compare ourselves to anyone else but people around us. And I had no idea how much diseases and suffering is in the world. It was kind of better not knowing so much. I don't know.

If you want a TV show that is set in the mid centaury era but doesn't glamourize or romanticize that era and deals with hard real issues then I always point people towards Call The Midwife. It has tackled everything from Domestic violence, disability, single parenthood, addiction, SA, poverty, racism and everything inbetween. It is set in a working class part of London and shows the realities of the people living in that era in that era but we can still see all those classic aesthetics of the fashion and the interior design and the hairstyles and the food and products. It has that dissonance of the cosy and familiar and fun 50s and 60s aesthetics but then the dark harsh reality of what was actually going on in the world. They had an entire series arc centred on backstreet abortions due to them being illegal in the UK at the time and they have tacked the subject of homosexuality at at time when it was illegal. It's always such a brilliantly acted and written and directed show and I always recommend it to people. If you want to snap out of how good the "good old days" were then watch Call The Midwife. It is a hard show that isn't glamorous in anyways.

Whenever you hear about the good ol' days, it's always cherry-picked. Always.

Omg YES! This whole essay hit every nail right on the head. I’ve always said that there’s a reason you don’t find many people of color who are nostalgic for the 50s. But I’ve met so many white women who buy into it and are obsessed with the 50s housewife aesthetic and I’m like sis…. You do know that being a housewife in the 50s wasn’t just one long “I love Lucy” episode right?? Lana del Rey’s older work is a good example of this and it always rubbed me the wrong way, although back then I couldn’t put into words why it made me so uncomfortable. Also, the show South Park did a really good depiction in season 20 of the connection between nostalgia and alt-right conservative movements. The “memberberries” that evoke feelings of nostalgia when people eat them start off seeming innocent and fun (“remember ghostbusters? The original star wars trilogy? We should make reboots!”), but then slowly they start making people reminisce about more dangerous aspects of history like segregation, lack of reproductive rights, etc. all of this is happening in the show at the same time as trump’s campaign and his MAGA slogan is gaining popularity.

This is why the vintage community online likes to espouse “vintage clothes, not vintage values”

I’ve always found the 50s very dystopian

I think it is largely due to the way old-timey things and clothes look, in terms of the general approach to design everything was much prettier up until the Internet, ironically, with all those souless minimalist houses and clothes of now. 1950s has a unique look and I guess people miss the uniqness historical periods used to have and it makes them think that if it lookes so pretty it was the better time, but as a lot of folks in vintage community say "Vintage style, not vintage values".

Whenever someone asks me if i could travel in time when would i go i always state " I'm black, gay, and a woman" there is no way in hell I'm checking out anything but the future. 😂 if it's the music/clothes/style people are missing, look it up and order it, make a remix or something. We have the internet

I’m so happy that the Queer angle was mentioned. Society just stopped thinking of us as anti-social elements and now we’re in limbo, it seems.

"Weren't things better when things were worse?"

A lot of the basically just comes down to nostalgia. When you look at all of the 80s pop culture references that have popped up since the 2010s, it's just people regurgitating the era that they grew up with rose-tinted glasses. I'm sure that Zoomers will do the same thing once they begin to take over Pop Culture in the following years

"What 'good old days'?" "When Playboy used the airbrush!" The Stepford Wives (1975)

This also ties into Fandom and nerd culture. Geeks romanticize a time when discourse over diversity and representation in media was borderline silent but only because those trying to advocate for it were silenced. Heated as they can be, they were necessary to shine a light on how inequality still persists big and small. But white folk don’t get into nerd stuff to be challenged. Not like this anyways. It’s worse when they try to discredit things like depictions of female characters by way of the same few examples. Of Sarah Conner. Of Ripley. Of Toph. Not knowing that, good as they are, them being to go-tos are the problem.

There's a book from the 1970s that some people watching this might enjoy -- "The Good Old Days: They Were Terrible" by Otto Bettman. He was the image collector who assembled what is now called the Corbis archive. The book is a collection of captionec images and from the 1870s to the 1930s showing how bad life in that Era could be.

I swear, THE TAKE, y’all be on point with these video essays. I was just have the same discussion with my dad yesterday about this. He’s a boomer.

I discovered this channel (still with the old name, I fail to remember now) with the videos about Mad Men and instantly fell in love with its unique feminine/feminist perspective and thorough analysis. Lovely, to see the era return to it. I'd like to add that I believe, that huge part of the romanticising of "ye good ole days" stems from the fact that it was the time, when the dominant demographic, the Boomers, were young. I see something similar (with a different demographic) in Eastern Germany where those, who were young in the 70s and 80s, now still are nostalgic for the "happy years" of socialism, ignoring all the terrible sides of the system.

Tbh whenever I meet white ppl with a fondness for "yester-year" or who talk about how they were '' born in the wrong era/time'' I immediately see them as social red flags. Back in art college I was surrounded by white hipsters who would either style themselves in 50s inspired clothing or ask me and other POCs "If you could go back in time and live in any era in history when would it be?" It didn't help that they never actually had POC friends at school.

Nostalgia is not always happy for marginalised people and in the context of Queer People (with various intersections), every time period was a struggle.

I always think of Pleasantville when someone mentions nostalgia

I think people should read the "Autobiography of Malcolm X" and "Naked Lunch." Malcolm X talks a lot about his youth during the 1940s. When he arrived in New York, the drug trade, prostitution, gambling, gang violence, and organized crime were already well-established long before he got there. We think of the 40s as everyone in America doing their part to fight WWII. The reality is a lot of crime and unrest plagued large portions of the country. People were fucking, doing drugs, and everything else during that time period. As far as I know, drug use is lower today than it was back then. Which brings us to Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs' collection of short vignettes about his time as a heroin addict in the 1950s. Things were just as dirty and dark as any other era. People forget this is when the Mafia was at its height since they could easily traffic narcotics and didn't worry about RICO or drug laws. This meant heroin (and to some extent, cocaine) was everywhere and easily available. Naked Lunch shows just how ugly things got. Hell, even The Wire is mostly based on the America of the 1960s, even though the show takes place in the 2000s. Omar Little and Avon Barksdale were based on real people (both of whom are in the show) that operated in the 60s.

It's not just limited to the 50's or 60's but also the 80's and even 90's. People like the neon aesthetics, music, etc. but they don't understand the birth of Reagenomics and the then heighten threat of nuclear war. As a POC with autism born in the 1990's (92 to be exact) and a lover of all things 90's, I wouldn't want to go back to even the 90's knowing how difficult life just thirty years ago. It's always good to focus on the future and make life better for the future.

Jay: “I’m gonna meet a bunch of guys I played High School Football with. Man, those were the good old days” Gloria: “Yeah, unless you were a woman, black, Hispanic or gay”

You don't want to go back to the good ol days, you are feeling nostalgic and scared/uncomfortable with the current worlds changes and want to go back to a time that feels familiar and better in your life because you don't like your current struggles and responsibility and the familiarity of your past brings you more comfort than dealing with the current changes.

The point of flattening important stories of the past into winners and losers was such an insightful one. Thanks for this video!

Summer of Soul is one of my favorite documentaries next to Rumble (which is a music doc about Indigenous musicians who helped contribute to American music). They both unveiled hidden pieces of music history that have been forgotten. It is a shame, but not surprising that Woodstock is widely recognized as one of the most iconic festivals in music history yet we didn't know about the Summer of Soul festival until Questlove's documentary. Before watching Rumble, I had no idea that some musicians in rock/metal bands are Indigenous.

People also forget about the cold war and the fear of nuclear war. I think part of the reason why people look back with rose closured glasses is because they remember the innocents of their childhood and early adulthood. They Remember the fun and games with their friends while being oblivious the hardships their parents had to endure. Now they are the parents or grandparents who work hard and look back at those care free days of their youth. Children are also not old enough to understand or care about world politics, but when they get older and start paying attention to the news, they wonder what the world is coming too. I have noticed that people my age look back to the 90s like they were the good old days, but no one said that at the time. Everyone in the 90s was wondering what the world was coming too.

This is the exact argument I present to anyone who says they wish we could go back to the "good old days". The time period they refer to was good only for a select few.

The “Good Ol’ Days” for my parents and theirs was living at the harsh end of segregation. Nothing good about any of that mess. I will say appreciating fashion, music, and movies of a past era is just fine but don’t get it twisted. Every era has its bullshit, including Gen X through the present and it will be like that until whoever or whatever divine presses the reset button.

Fascism starts with a narration of the glorious past, which is ‘The Good Ol’ Days’ but on steroids and peppered with falsehoods.

It goes deeper than that. The "good old days" motif is based on nothing except the universal human cognitive bias to focus on everything going wrong in the present and ignoring everything thats good, while simultaneously remembering everything good about the past fondly and forgetting everything that was bad. Not only was the past worse for women, black people, lgbt people, etc, it wasn't even any better for straight white men. Its why virtually everyone today agrees that the world is a disaster today but life was great at some point in the past. (Even most people on the left believe this, they'll just point to a different time) In reality, by virtually every possible objective measure (war, disease, poverty, racism, sexism, technology, wealth, freedom etc) the world is the best its ever been right now in every way and even "privileged" groups are simply wrong that their lives where better in the 50's.

Ah yes, the good ol' days when I wouldn't have been allowed to have my own bank account.

If I could take the social progress of today and combine it with the 90s pre social media good times vibe I'd be content. Of course the internet is responsible for a lot of social change we enjoy today. But I miss pre social media.

During those times my family were poor farmers and fishermen just some steps from starvation. Women in my family never got to be just a "housewife", they also worked their a$$es off

I would add that the US was also backing and financing military dictatorships all over Latin America to uphold their influence during the 60s, and this is just one aspect how this nostalgia is pretty much a matter of point of view

People who overtly cling to this "era" are doing it in a way that's quite *territorial* from what I've seen :/

How did this quote from "Handmaid's Tale" go? "Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse for some." Personally, I don't think the yearn for the "good old days" is limited to mid-century. It's always directed towards a time somehow "before" ours, that never actually existed, like the "Golden Era" that Ancient Greeks postulated. It's a myth that can be filled with whatever era has a special appeal to you. This trope is brilliantly played with in "Midnight in Paris".

A "spot on" analysis, The Take! Love your thoughtful videos

I just would like to point out that women heavily used "mothers little helpers" at that time, and that's a euphemism not about nannies.

European here, so our history was a little different to what you guys got across the Pond... but I agree fully with the gist of this video. The so-called "good old days" were not such for anyone but white, middle to upper class, healthy, straight white men. Even as recently as the 80s and 90s, I remember how the vast majority of people thought having a gay or disabled child was a source of shame or stigma. How normal it still was, to a great extent, that the man was the main bread-winner and the woman was the home-maker. That non-white people played second fiddle in any role in society and had to be a tiny, token minority in order for society at large to consider their presence acceptable. Among others, trans people or people with mental health issues were often considered figures of fun or freaks. I loved my childhood and youth, the 90s especially were great under so many points of view, but I refuse to be nostalgic about them or retrospectively regard them with rose-tinted glasses.

The most interesting thing about this video is that it’s presented as if it contained a single original observation.

We should start dreaming new dreams.

When my parents were alive, those were the good days 🥺

The "Good Old Days" is whenever you were YOUNG. Whether you are Boomer, Millennial, Gen X or Gen Z, black or white, rich or poor, gay or straight - your YOUTH is your good old days. And what can you say about any era? It' was the BEST OF TIMES AND THE WORST OF TIMES.

The irony of it is a lot of the people who reminisce about the past times are conservative/religious, and the Bible has a verse in Ecclesiastes saying it is foolish to do this.

Part of what I liked about Mad Men was that it did sort of deconstruct the perception of the era it's set in. Don is the archetypal successful business man who has everything he ever needs, but still lives within a vicious system that leaves him a continually miserable, hurtful bastard who can't ever truly connect with anyone because he's obsessed with reaching an impossible ideal for happiness that his own agency invented to sell cigarettes.

Whenever someone might talk about the "Good old days", I want to refer back to an artist they would probably think fondly on or at least respect: Billy Joel. "The good old days weren't always good; tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems." (Though given that song came out a good 30-40 years ago, he might be rethinking the 2nd part).

This is the best video I've seen from y'all in a long time.

I'm 67 yr old white guy and am still shocked by how women were mis- treated ,minorities dumped on,and how the " Good ol' boys" rode roughshod over everything!!It was disturbing then,and today there are new facets of this!! Shocking,yet it is but re- apperaring!!

You guys hit the nail on the head, & I agree with most everything discussed here. Myself, I'm in the middle on this topic, & know that both the left & right are flawed on this subject. I stand on neither side. I also recognize the power of nostalgia, & really, how we need to to stay sane in today's scary world, & dark looking future. Though, my generation is certainly not the ones romanticizing the post world war 2 era, especially being that we weren't alive at the time. We tend to romanticize the 80s & 90s, lol.

The only cool thing about the 1950s was the clothes, music & movies. So glad I live in the here & now

Nostalgia was always dangerous, especially in times of economic depression. The public can not easily associate their hardships with a broken system, they would rather turn to an older more ideal version of society that they likely never experienced first hand only through the sugar-coated lens of the media they consume. It is certainly easier to imanige a world that has been presented to you as perfect or even the worlds demise rather than the demise of capitalism as Mark fisher said

Well it would be fascinating to take a peek into the lives of the people from before, recognizing the good the bad and the ugly helps humanize history.

A wise man once said “time is man greatest ally and greatest enemy, with time come hardship and decay but time can also give us progress and growth”. Time may be tough for some but not for other. If people are living in a tough time, they need to remember that it can get better they just need the will power to get though those time or they can sit alone angry and bitter and try to remember the times they thought that was good but really wasn’t.

"Miss Maisel" feels like an odd inclusion because of when it takes place. In 2023, Jewish people are (mostly) accepted as white. That wasn't true in the 1950s. Whiteness isn't fixed, which actually would be a great topic to tackle: how the depiction of whiteness has changed in media over the decades.

This is a well done video. Thank you for making this.

I'm 2 mins in... The whole point of Mad Men was to subvert this romanticizing, but I'm guessing you'll address this if you mention specific shows

The things i miss from the 90s is the simplicity of life without social media or a lot of technology.

For anyone interested in more videos analysing this subject, The Take also did some for a few Mad Men characters! It digs deeper into the 1960s & 70s, in the context of the show. Mad Men as a tvshow is a masterpiece in writing & acting as well, highly reccomend!

It happens with all eras. I grew up in the 80s and I always say it was the best decade but that's because it was great for me since I had a good childhood. I now understand it wasn't great for everyone.

My first memory of watching the nightly news was around the age of 7, when over 240 American marines were among the fatalities in a terrorist bombing in the nation of Lebanon. I would learn, through the rest of my childhood, that the world outside the safety of my home was not always good.

There was actually a TV series from 1963 called East Side, West Side that subverted the good old days idea. It was about a social worker trying to help disadvantaged people in Harlem.

I've watched two documentaries about the 1950s, one a PBS documentary and another focused on Duluth, Minnesota during the 1950s. Both were fascinating, but they both presented a nostalgic, feel-good, rosy view of the 50s, while omitting glaring social issues such as racism, sexism, homophobia, inequality, ect. The latter documentary briefly covered the Civil Rights Movement, but neither discussed the horrific, and often bloody reality of living through the Jim Crow era as a non-white person. I am all for sharing fond childhood memories and recollections, but I bristle at folks who claim the 1950s were the "good 'ol days" when it wasn't the case for everyone. And woe be to anyone who mentioning this to anyone who dwelling "on the good 'ol days".

This is the first time I'm gonna say this about a "The Take" video, but this video was inaccurate and confused. With the exception of Captain America, which is a disney family film so whatarreyagonnado, every movie showcased here was an indictment of america in the 50's. Just because its not purely in the text doesnt mean its whitewashing issues of the past. If you pay attention Mad Men is brutal in its warnings about the dangers of nostalgia, the whole point of the show is... things weren't how you remember them, even though they may look nice, yes they are trying to have their cake and eat it, but that is a cake crammed with vegetables, it baked into the concept of the show. Just because the show doesn't explicitly say "it was hard for black people in the 50's" here an hr of just that, doesn't mean it isn't constantly telling us that in subtext. Even Don't Worry Darling had more depth than just nostalgia and that sucked. The real criticism here is a lot of those shows/movies don't show that many black people and SEEM to be uncritically nostalgic about that time, mainly to draw people in, when the fact is I've learnt more about american civil rights battles and women's rights and lgbtq acceptence from Mad Men than I have from anything else (I live in the uk) and way more besides, the show gives context to what people were fighting against, while at the same time deconstructing how perception works and puts the people we see in power, and why we have the media and social power structure we have today. You call out Good Night and Good Luck for being critical of that time, but what you really mean is its a recreation... which is boring. An easy way for a passive audience to "be good", and watch an awards film, tut and shake their heads, then forget it when the next "issues" movie comes along. Its good that we have clear and direct movies and documentaries, but those are doing way different things than Mad Men, Pleasentville, Blue Velvet et al, the former tell you the truth, the latter make you feel it, if you let them. As a black person myself I get it, but as this is a video essay and not a subversive tv show it needs to be clearer about its point. And its point is, its good that we are getting more films from marginalised groups... and it is.. its great, but that doesn't reduce what was there before to nostalgia movie/shows and its wrong to label them as such. I've said my piece.

„My Policeman“ doesn’t really fit with the argument here as it’s not set in the United States. The immediate post-war period in Britain and Europe contrasted significantly with the United States as it wasn’t a time of affluence but a period of austerity and reconstruction. „The Good Old Days“ for Britain would be the Edwardian era (1901-1910) when the British Empire was at it’s height, not the immediate post-war period.

Liking mid century aesthetic, liking the fashion, liking the interior design, and longing for the affordability, the non additive foods, and the walkable neighborhoods not ruled by cars, that is in no way the same as wanting to go back in time nor is it wanting politics to reverse to the 1950s. We are currently in late stage capitalism and are suffering the collosal fallout of rot and class inequality worse than 1790s France. TALK ABOUT THAT.

Captain America actually predates Pearl Harbor--by nearly a year, in fact, if you factor in the development time before the comic was released in March of 1941. The message of those early issues was not wartime propaganda, but rather than implicit criticism of American isolationism; the writers and editors of the comics were American Jews and the sons of European immigrants, and they felt that the US should be taking a stronger stance against the Third Reich. Having Cap punch Hitler in the face on the cover was not an effort to cheer on the war effort--because at the time, there was no war effort--it was a statement against neutrality.

As a black woman I don't understand how the men in a certain...sphere...also romanticize this era like there was no blatant racism and segregation...🤔

When you cherry pick good moments from a year, or a decade, of course it will make that time frame look good.

Can we do similar video to the 80s I feel like that's another decade that gets overly romanticized as wel that and 90s