Aesthetics of Nostalgia TV

<i>The Aesthetics of Nostalgia TV</i>explores the aesthetic politics of nostalgia for 1950s and 60s America on contemporary television. Specifically it looks at how nostalgic TV production design shapes and is shaped by larger historical discourses on gender and technological change and America's perceived decline as a global power. Alex Bevan argues that the aesthetics of nostalgic TV tell stories of their own about historical decline and progress and the place of the baby boomer television suburb in American national memory. She contests theories on nostalgia that see it as stagnating regressive or a reversion to outdated gender and racial politics and the technophobic longing for a bygone era; and instead argues nostalgia is an important form of historical memory and vehicle for negotiating periods of historical transition. The book addresses how and why the shows construct the boomer era as a placeholder for gender racial technological and declensionist discourses of the present. The book uses <i>Mad Men</i> (AMC 2007-2015) <i>Ugly Betty</i> (ABC 2006-2010) <i>Desperate Housewives</i> (ABC 2004-2012) and film remakes of 1950s and 60s family sitcoms as primary case studies.