Paranoia and Nostalgia in American Popular Culture, 1980-2020

In this book, Owen Cantrell examines politics and popular culture in the United States from 1980 to 2020 to argue that twin structures of feeling—nostalgia and paranoia—have structured American political and cultural life during this period. These structures have mirrored the changing political relationship to history, race, and culture in the United States, offering a pathway to address these changes, many of which were brought about by the backlash politics introduced in response to the gains of the civil rights movement(s). Building on Bifo Berardi’s contention that “the future is over,” Cantrell demonstrates how the concept of the future effectively ended in this era, effectively making this pathway eminently more desirable as a cultural response to political dilemmas. As the future lost its place as a locus of value, then, Cantrell posits that American society entered a state of what Mark Fisher calls “a failed mourning,” with paranoid and nostalgic narratives thus offering compensation for a future that no longer felt relevant or even possible. Through a range of compelling analyses of prominent films including Back to the Future, The Matrix, Get Out, and Black Panther, this book effectively demonstrates how paranoia and nostalgia have functioned in American popular culture as it reflected a collective failure to imagine the future.