Asteroid City: Fetishizing the Fifties

Wes Anderson turns nuclear terror and 50s paranoia into one of his still-life dioramas. It doesn’t work but manages to evoke a nostalgia for a time that never quite existed.

One hallmark of American pop culture is the way it eternally turns back on itself, returning to past eras in efforts at nostalgia or reinterpretation. When I was a kid, George Lucas’ American Graffiti spurred a rush of attempts to recapture the “innocence” of the 1950s and early 60s, best typified by TV shows such as “Happy Days.”

Much of this was furthe…