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Scott Pilgrim's Nostalgia

Decent Essays

Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Nostalgia

In the Scott Pilgrim universe time is a central concept. Bryan Lee O’Malley expertly layers the familiar styles of classic videogames, music, and pop culture throughout the series to create nostalgia. The author uses this nostalgia in order to emphasize the importance of the past and show Scott’s inability to grow. As Ryan Lizardi puts it in his essay Scott Pilgrim vs. hegemony: nostalgia, remediation, and heteronormativity, “Scott must deal with his past… his inability to grow up compared with other characters, and…conquer Ramona’s romantic history before they can move on in their relationship,” (Lizardi, ). The intertwining themes of past and immaturity reappear throughout the series through the previously state medium of nostalgia.

Throughout the Scott Pilgrim series classic rock motifs are woven into the text in order to create a feeling of nostalgia. An example of this is pages 17-20 in the first volume of the …show more content…

An example of the use of classic video game motifs is page 152-153 of Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, (O’Malley, #). In the fight scene in this portion of the book, the fighting style mimics Streetfighter, through similar graphics and phrases such as, “K.O,” (O’Malley, #). The series also mirrors classic video games from the eighties and nineties, such as Super Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda. An example of this can be seen on page 128 of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World when Ramona’s ex-boyfriend leaves behind his skateboard similar to how a videogame enemy would, (O’Malley, #). Furthermore, Scott’s numerous combats are not only against Ramona’s ex-boyfriends but against the past itself. These types of references, especially in fight sequences, accentuates the fact that comparable to video games, fights are childish and thus Scott is childish since he is constantly battling

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