Populist Nostalgia in Post-2008 British Film and Television

自全球金融危机爆发以来，英国电影和电视的怀旧特征有所加剧。时代片、历史题材和现实电视中的怀旧变化--虽然不是后全球金融危机时期所独有的--已经占据了商业舞台的中心，观众和学者都特别感兴趣。这种现象并非商业媒体独有，非主流和较激进的制作也同样转向怀旧情绪。作为一种情感力量，怀旧鼓励我们回顾过去，寻找对当下不愉快的答案。这种对答案的探索并不局限于英国电影和电视，而是在整个新自由主义世界都能感受到。马克·费希尔（Mark Fisher，2014）称之为“失去的未来”，或者斯韦特兰娜·博伊姆（Svetlana Boym，2017）称之为“非现代”，由此新自由主义的时间惯性--更广义地理解为“历史的终结”（福山，1992）--迫使我们与过去的关系进行协商。然而，尽管这种怀旧一直是并且仍然是学术和知识界普遍关注的话题，并且在理解这一后GFC热潮方面取得了一些进展，但其在英国电影和电视背景下的重要性仍然没有得到充分探讨。本文试图在后现代主义的社会文化和哲学维度的背景下考察英国电影和电视中的怀旧热潮，GFC怀旧强化。它将这种加剧解读为新自由主义危机的结果，因为“资本主义现实主义”的矛盾--资本主义是社会经济治理的唯一逻辑体系的理论基础--通过反复出现的危机的遗留问题而加剧;全球金融危机就是其中之一。它还试图挑战怀旧是从根本上保守的观点，正如激进的怀旧方法所证明的那样，但也通过争论反怀旧如何只会助长新自由主义危机，同时也存在矛盾的立场。因此，本论文提供了三个视角来解读我所说的后全球金融危机时代的怀旧：保守怀旧、反怀旧和激进怀旧。它将从事三个主要的案例研究-重点是唐顿修道院（英国独立电视台，2010-2015年），伟大的英国烘烤小康（2010年至今），和诱饵（导演。马克·詹金，2019）-并展示各自的保守，反怀旧，和他们的怀旧话语的激进品质。这些案例研究还将把这些文本与全球金融危机后英国电影和电视中的其他例子以及全球金融危机前-以及适当情况下新自由主义前-的媒体文本进行比较，这些文本为这种强化提供了基础。本论文的研究哲学是基于后结构主义和反新自由主义的话语，从哲学和文化作家，如马克·费舍尔，斯维特拉娜·博伊姆，雅克·德里达和弗雷德里克·詹姆森，怀旧/情感学者，如阿利斯泰尔·邦内特和萨拉·艾哈迈德，以及媒体学者，如安德鲁·希格森，帕姆·库克和托马斯埃尔塞瑟的线索。

Since the onset of the Global Financial Crisis, there has been an intensification in the nostalgic character of British film and television. Period pieces, historical subject matters, and nostalgic inflections in reality television - whilst not unique to the post-GFC period - have taken centre stage commercially, being of particular interest to audiences and scholars alike. This phenomenon is not unique to commercial media either, as non-mainstream and more radical productions have likewise turned towards nostalgic sentiment. As an affective force, nostalgia encourages us to look backwards in search of answers to the insufficiencies of the present. This search for answers is not exclusive to British film and television but is something felt throughout the neoliberal world. This is exemplified by what Mark Fisher (2014) has called "lost futures" or what Svetlana Boym refers to as "the off-modern" ( 2017), whereby the temporal inertia of neoliberalism - understood more broadly as "the End of History" (Fukuyama, 1992) - forces us to consult with our relationships to the past. Yet whilst this nostalgia has been and remains a ubiquitous topic of academic and intellectual interest, and some strides have taken place towards understanding this post-GFC upswell, its significance in the context of British film and television remains underexplored.As such, this thesis seeks to examine this nostalgic upswell in British film and television in the context of the sociocultural and philosophical dimensions of this post-GFC nostalgic intensification. It reads the intensification as a result of neoliberal crisis, as the contradictions of "capitalist realism" - the rationale that capitalism is the only logical system of socioeconomic governance - are exacerbated through a legacy of recurring crises; of which the GFC is one. It also looks to challenge the idea that nostalgia is fundamentally conservative, as evidenced by radical approaches to nostalgia, but also by arguing how anti-nostalgia only serves to fuel neoliberal crises whilst also existing as a contradictory position. Consequently, this thesis offers three lenses for navigating what I call post-GFC nostalgia: conservative nostalgia, anti-nostalgia, and radical nostalgia. It will engage in three primary case studies - focusing on Downton Abbey (ITV, 2010-2015), The Great British Bake Off (2010-present), and Bait (dir. Mark Jenkin, 2019) - and demonstrate the respective conservative, anti-nostalgic, and radical qualities of their nostalgic utterances. These case studies will also compare the texts both to other examples in post-GFC British film and television and to the pre-GFC - and where appropriate pre-neoliberal - media texts that provide a foundation to this intensification. This thesis' research philosophy is grounded in post-structuralist and anti-neoliberal discourses, taking cues from writers on philosophy and culture such as Mark Fisher, Svetlana Boym, Jacques Derrida, and Fredric Jameson; nostalgia/emotion scholars such as Alistair Bonnett and Sara Ahmed, and media scholars such as Andrew Higson, Pam Cook, and Thomas Elsaesser.