Nostalgia TV Endorsements
Ron Howard gets off the director’s chair and joins Andy Griffith and Henry Winkler in reprising their TV characters to endorse Barack Obama. I’d started to write that I doubt Howard’s endorsement will sway any undecided voters, but I’m becoming less convinced that that’s the real purpose or effect of these celebrity videos. Instead, much like the Hayden Panettiere video, they work best when they circulate among Obama supporters to sustain positive buzz about the candidate.
But, no matter what, it is pretty funny to see Howard revisiting his two well-known TV characters and gently parodying some of the conventions of earlier sitcom forms.
Jonathan Gray Said,
October 23, 2008 @ 5:24 pm
I just wrote on the same thing. The nostalgia politics bug me a bit, but it is amusing
Chuck Said,
October 24, 2008 @ 12:39 pm
I’m still puzzling over the politics of nostalgia. As I mentioned in a comment on your site, the nostalgia could be read as somewhat ironic, especially given how constructed it seems. Still, one wonders what it means that we have to turn to Opie, Richie, and Sheriff Taylor to find “real” Americans who support Democrats.