2022 is the year of "Woke Hollywood." Movie-makers have bet a fortune on recycling the classics, building a business out of nostalgia, but updating them with modern sensibilities — which are met each time with backlash. In June, Pixar released Lightyear, which inevitably pulled focus away from the protagonist Buzz to his sidekick Alicia, and her girlfriend, who shared Pixar's first ever on-screen same sex kiss. And in September, Amazon introduced the world to an updated Middle Earth, now populated with Black hobbits. 

Adam Serwer, a staff writer at The Atlantic, and the author of “The Cruelty Is the Point,” says that these cynical narratives are just one way we see nostalgia weaponized in American discourse — and that consuming this gauzy view of history has led to dangerous consequences for both conservatives and liberals.

This is a segment from our December 16, 2022, The Good Ol' Days.