STREAMING SATURDAY: Setting stories in the 20th century is cheating

It seems like for the last several months, I’ve been watching one show after another set in the 20th century. Some, like Starz’ Gaslit or Paramount+’s The Offer, need to exist there because they’re based on history. Others, like Netflix’s Stranger Things or HBO Max’s Minx, exist there solely because their creators want them to. I think it’s time to expose this trend for what it is: cheating.

Look, I get it

It is perfectly natural to be insanely curious about a time you don’t remember but other people do. This drive to understand the recent past has been part of our pop culture for a generation. It started with westerns back in the 1940s. Remember at that time there was a group of filmmakers who were too young to remember the late 1800s, but there were still folks out there who were old enough to have been there in some capacity. Nostalgia informs our popular culture by mirroring our present in the comfortable past. From M*A*S*H to Mad Men, and beyond, it’s been proven over and over that stories from the past are a gold mine for storytellers. They’re also an easy way for filmmakers to find an audience. In that sense, everybody wins.

But that doesn’t stop these stories from being a cheat, in one big way. And you’re looking at it right now.

Anyone have a dime? I need to make a phone call

If you set your movie in the 20th century, you can be sure most people don’t have cell phones. They probably don’t even have any sort of internet or even AOL. This opens up rich narrative possibilities that simply aren’t possible today. Two characters can be separated and genuinely not know where the other one is. Information that should be easy to pull can be frustratingly out of reach. In 1985, no one posted their manifestos on Facebook, and if you wanted to know what was going on in the morning you read the newspaper.

A lot of movies and shows that take place today go to exhausting lengths to remove cell phones from the equation. For example, Nine Perfect Strangers took phones at the door as people entered their exclusive retreats. Other shows simply have people wander into areas with no service, drop their phones in mud, or have them break at convenient times. It’s a lazy way to open up narrative possibilities and it’s all over the place.

The one genre that benefits the most from this is the police procedural. Under the Banner of Heaven was based on historical events and so needed to be in the 1980s. But certainly the tension was aided by the lack of phones and even reliable walkie-talkies. On the other hand, the recent Rami Malek vehicle The Little Things is set in the 20th century for no real reason. Taking phones away from the process just lets the cops be more, well, coppy.

The demise of storytelling

I clearly remember that in the early 2000s, there was an op-ed that called cell phones “the demise of storytelling.” (In a surprising twist, I haven’t been able to find that article online.) What would comedy writers do if no one missed anyone at the airport? What suspense could be mined from a serial killer who broadcast their intentions on Instagram first? I’m glad to say that storytelling didn’t die, but for a while it seemed like lazy storytelling did. Those tropes that relied on people missing each other or not being able to get timely information were subpar to begin with.

Making writers work harder has produced some excellent stories. David Fincher’s Se7en was a masterpiece of story. So was The Batman, perhaps to a lesser extent. Both dealt with a deranged serial killer with a plan. However, The Batman’s characters had modern tech and it was used to serve the story. It would have been easy enough for Matt Reeves to simply have The Riddler be social-averse, as so many paranoid maniacs are. But instead, Reeves used the existence of social media to make the story even more believable.

I like looking backwards as much as anyone else…

…but it’s time, I think, that we look forwards instead in our search for stories. Let’s talk about the problems of today, and look at a world where we’ve solved them but still have other problems. I did so enjoy looking back to the 20th century, but perhaps it’s time to finally leave it behind.