Can a Remake Really Ruin Your Childhood?

Photos by Jill Greenberg

I can't think of the number of times that I've seen complaints expressed as "ruined my childhood." Often these complaints are lobbed at remakes and reboots that tread on hallowed nostalgic ground.

Childhood was a time when we were still too young to drive, picked what was cool only on face value, and, for many of us, it was a long time ago. So when recent news about an all-female Ghostbusters team broke, a lot of geeks felt as if their "childhood" was under attack. Using the word "ruined," a past tense word to describe a movie that has not even been made, is jumping the gun on a few levels.

Events can ruin your childhood, like a Halloween costume so terrible you received teasing so harsh that you never trick-or-treated again. But a reboot of Ghostbusters can't change past events or become a past event in your childhood, so what is truly under attack?

What's really being threatened is nostalgia, the loving memory of things from our childhood. So, perhaps the phrase we should be using is "ruining my nostalgia."

In my personal experience, revisiting movies or TV shows I loved as a kid can occasionally become ruined experiences. My wife loved FernGully growing up, and re-watching it a couple years ago exposed a poorly animated movie: nostalgia ruined. But there are movies that are better than you remember. For me, one example is The Rocketeer: nostalgia amplified. So a major way to ruin a nostalgic childhood memory is to revisit something that was never great to begin with or has aged poorly. 

But what about remakes and reboots? Producer/director Michael Bay's name alone brings out the "ruined my childhood" battle cry. But has he really ruined our enjoyment of the classic animated TV shows or toys a few of his films have been based on? I think not - those things are still awesome. At worst, he's just made really terrible movies that pale in comparison to our memories of those characters.

One of my favorite films, The Ten Commandments, got an update/re-adaptation by Ridley Scott called Exodus. Sadly, the new film sucked on so many levels, but it in no way taints my nostalgia for the 1956 film.

One way these poorly made reboots/remakes can ruin a childhood is with the current generation of kids. A decade from now when these films are revisited by these kids as adults, they will see how much they suck or don't hold up. Also, for good or bad, everything that has been rebooted/remade will likely be rebooted/remade again in the next 15 years. 

Ruining your actual childhood would require new knowledge about your real life. For example, the man you call Grandpa is actually the man who killed your real grandfather and held your grandmother captive until she had Stockholm syndrome: childhood ruined!

So let's stop saying someone or something "ruined my childhood," unless it's the revelation of a dark family secret.