http://https://youtu.be/ZAk32wCK18g

One of the latest Marvel miniseries, WandaVision, has a very interesting appeal that made me feel genuinely nostalgic. It made me think back to when I was a child and watched Disney sitcoms all the time. The featured episode was very obviously going for an aesthetic that would appeal to millennials and young people through their childhood memories. It uses comedic timing and sitcom tropes of shows like the office and modern family. These shows could be described as “game changers” in the television industry so it makes a good amount of sense that these shows would represent the 2000’s era.

The reason that this show seems to be concluding on the 90’s and 2000’s era of television may be because the kids who enjoyed television around that time are the largest base of Marvel fans. It would make a lot of sense to use a familiar storytelling aesthetic to deliver a large amount of story development. It is very disarming and comfortable so the juxtaposition between the light-hearted nature of the medium with the heavy implications of what was revealed can create a really innovative viewing experience. This only works if the medium comes across as familiar to the audience. It follows then that these younger audiences are the primary demographic, as opposed to older audiences who might be more comforted by the first 2 episodes that had inspirations from the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s.

The reason that the director of this series, Matt Shakman, may want to push the boundaries of television in this way is that he has a great budget and this allows him to be more ambitious. Shakman has a history of making very big production shows. He directed the 7th season of Game of Thrones and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Therefore, it could be argued that Shakman knows how to manipulate a large budget to his benefit. Disney is definitely backing this project financially as it is one of the first MCU projects to be released in a serialized format. Thus, it would make sense for both the show producers and director to pursue a more ambitious theme like the manipulation of time in order to evoke nostalgia in its largest audience base.