Abstract
Modern television series set in the past can unwittingly reject modern-day persecution faced by racial minorities by disregarding or exploiting the oppression and racism marginalized populations faced in the past and continue to face. By modifying public memory, television might attempt to ease past and present social and political problems. This thesis proposes hegemonic nostalgia as a theoretical construct by combining concepts from public memory, nostalgia in the media, and hegemony. Hegemonic nostalgia highlights the implicit or explicit usage of racist, sexist, and oppressive narratives that are forgiven and accepted as a result of the series' time setting. Hegemonic nostalgia contributes to the reproduction of dominant ideologies.The series chosen for this analysis was the Amazon original series Hunters. Hunters was chosen because its inclusion of historical events and diverse cast evokes hegemonic nostalgia through the series’ time setting. The lack of attention paid to the real issues that racial minoritized groups face can be seen in the way Hunters depicts diverse characters. For example, the series makes use of the narrative's time period, the 1970s, as a scapegoat to perpetuate racism and bigotry. When historical television shows ignore the various struggles that oppressed people faced in the 1970s, they may mistakenly discount current social issues and constitute a type of hegemonic nostalgia. Being able to identify with a romanticized past through nostalgic narratives is problematic because nostalgia narratives act as rhetorical constructions that support racism through a discursive frame.