New sincerity (closely related to and sometimes described as synonymous with post-postmodernism) is a trend in music, aesthetics, literary fiction, film criticism, poetry, literary criticism and philosophy that generally describes creative works that expand upon and break away from concepts of postmodernist irony and cynicism.
Like many terms related to postmodernism and metamodernism, “new sincerity” has been used broadly and vaguely to refer to many styles and attitudes. Generally, it has come to refer to efforts at authenticity and good faith, which are often considered non- or anti-postmodernist, that also nonetheless acknowledges and often incorporates characteristics of postmodernism such as irony and deconstruction.
Its usage dates back to the mid-1980s; however, it was popularized in the 1990s by American author David Foster Wallace.Wallace, David Foster. "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction", Review of Contemporary Fiction 13(2), Summer 1993, pp. 151-194.
In music "New sincerity" was used as a collective name for a loose group of alternative rock bands, centered in Austin, Texas, in the years from about 1985 to 1990, who were perceived as reacting to the ironic and cynical outlook of then-prominent music movements like punk rock and new wave. The use of "new sincerity" in connection with these bands began with an off-handed comment by Austin punk rock artist and author Jesse Sublett to his friend, local music writer Margaret Moser. According to author Barry Shank, Sublett said: "All those new sincerity bands, they're crap."Barry Shank, Dissonant Identities: The Rock'N'Roll Scene in Austin, Texas (Wesleyan University Press, 1994) (), p. 148–149 & p.271 n.84. (excerpt available at Google Books). Sublett (at his own website) states that he was misquoted, and actually told Moser, "It's all new sincerity to me ... It's not my cup of tea.""Jesse's Music Bio" at Jesse Sublett's Little Black Book (retrieved September 18, 2009). In any event, Moser began using the term in print, and it ended up becoming the catch phrase for these bands.Peter Blackstock, "'is it worth the admission....'" , No Depression blog post dated January 15, 2008.
Nationally, the most successful "new sincerity" band was the Reivers (originally called "Zeitgeist"), who released four well-received albums between 1985 and 1991. True Believers, led by Alejandro Escovedo and Jon Dee Graham, also received extensive critical praise and local acclaim in Austin, but the band had difficulty capturing its live sound on recordings, among other problems.[ True Believers] at AllMusic. Other important "new sincerity" bands include Doctors Mob,Kent H. Benjamin, "Why Should Anyone Care Now?", Austin Chronicle Weekly Wire August 30, 1999.[ Doctors Mob] at AllMusic. Wild Seeds,[ Wild Seeds] at AllMusic. and Glass Eye.[ Glass Eye] at AllMusic. Another significant "new sincerity" figure was the eccentric, critically acclaimed songwriter Daniel Johnston.
Despite extensive critical attention (including national coverage in Rolling Stone and a 1985 episode of the MTV program The Cutting Edge), none of the "new sincerity" bands met with much commercial success, and the "scene" ended within a few years.Kristin Gorski, Almost Famous: The Austin Texas Soundtrack Circa 1985 , Annabelle Magazine, No. 12 (2006).Michael Corcoran, "The New Sincerity: Austin in the Eighties", reprinted in Michael Corcoran, All Over the Map: True Heroes of Texas Music (University of Texas Press, 2005), , pp. 150–156.
Other music writers have used "new sincerity" to describe later performers Arcade Fire,Huffington Post, "ultra-sincere indie artists from Arcade Fire" Huffington Post, May 16, 2013. Conor Oberst,"Mr. Sincerity tries a new trick" The New York Times, January 16, 2005. Cat Power, Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom,Jason Morris, "The Time Between Time: Messianism & the Promise of a 'New Sincerity, Jacket 35 (2008) Neutral Milk Hotel,Huffington Post, "many significant indie artists", May 16, 2013. Sufjan Stevens, Idlewild,Robert Christgau, "Vibrators", The Village Voice, March 27, 2001. as well as Austin's Okkervil RiverKate X. Messer, "Okkervil River: The New Sincerity", Austin Chronicle, March 3, 2000. Leatherbag,Austin Powell, "Texas Platters: deEP end", Austin Chronicle, March 13, 2009. and Michael Waller.
In film criticism Critic Jim Collins introduced the concept of "new sincerity" to film criticism in his 1993 essay titled "Genericity in the 90s: Eclectic Irony and the New Sincerity". In this essay he contrasts films that treat genre conventions with "eclectic irony" and those that treat them seriously, with "new sincerity". Collins describes,the "new sincerity" of films like Field of Dreams (1989), Dances With Wolves (1990), and Hook (1991), all of which depend not on hybridization, but on an "ethnographic" rewriting of the classic genre film that serves as their inspiration, all attempting, using one strategy or another, to recover a lost "purity", which apparently pre-dated even the golden age of film genre.Jim Collins, "Genericity in the 90s: Eclectic Irony and the New Sincerity" in Jim Collins, Hilary Radner and Ava Preacher Collins, eds., Film Theory Goes to the Movies (New York: Routledge, 1993) (, ), p. 242, 245.
Cinematic and televised examples
Bonnie and Clyde (1967) Field of Dreams (1989) Dances With Wolves (1990) Ghost (1990) Hook (1991) Forrest Gump (1994) The Lion King (1994) Amélie (2001) The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) The Man Who Wasn't There (2001) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) Garden State (2004) The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) The Twilight Saga (2008–2012) Glee (2009–2015)It's Cool to Be Sweet: New Sincerity in Film – Buzzsaw Magazine Frances Ha (2012) Being Flynn (2012) Moonrise Kingdom (2012) The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013) Nathan for You (2013–2017) Sieranevada (2016) Silent Night (2017) Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) R.M.N. (2022) Creed III (2023) Wonka (2023)
In literary fiction and criticism In response to the hegemony of metafictional and self-conscious irony in contemporary fiction, writer David Foster Wallace predicted, in his 1993 essay "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction", a new literary movement which would espouse something like the new sincerity ethos:
The next real literary "rebels" in this country might well emerge as some weird bunch of "anti-rebels," born oglers who dare to back away from ironic watching, who have the childish gall to actually endorse single-entendre values. Who treat old untrendy human troubles and emotions in U.S. life with reverence and conviction. Who eschew self-consciousness and fatigue. These anti-rebels would be outdated, of course, before they even started. Too sincere. Clearly repressed. Backward, quaint, naive, anachronistic. Maybe that'll be the point, why they'll be the next real rebels. Real rebels, as far as I can see, risk things. Risk disapproval. The old postmodern insurgents risked the gasp and squeal: shock, disgust, outrage, censorship, accusations of socialism, anarchism, nihilism. The new rebels might be the ones willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the "How banal." Accusations of sentimentality, melodrama. Credulity. Willingness to be suckered by a world of lurkers and starers who fear gaze and ridicule above imprisonment without law. Who knows.
This was further examined on the blog Fiction Advocate:The theory is this: Infinite Jest is Wallace's attempt to both manifest and dramatize a revolutionary fiction style that he called for in his essay "E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction". The style is one in which a new sincerity will overturn the ironic detachment that hollowed out contemporary fiction towards the end of the 20th century. Wallace was trying to write an antidote to the cynicism that had pervaded and saddened so much of American culture in his lifetime. He was trying to create an entertainment that would get us talking again. In his 2010 essay "David Foster Wallace and the New Sincerity in American Fiction", Adam Kelly argues that Wallace's fiction, and that of his generation, is marked by a revival and theoretical reconception of sincerity, challenging the emphasis on authenticity that dominated twentieth-century literature and conceptions of the self. Additionally, numerous authors have been described as contributors to the new sincerity movement, including Jonathan Franzen, Marilynne Robinson,Gorenstein, Zuzanna. New Sincerity and the Contemporary American Family Novel: Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections and Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, Dissertation, Free University of Berlin, December 2014. Retrieved July 22, 2020. Zadie Smith, Dave Eggers,Jensen, Mikkel. 2014. "A Note on a Title: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" in The Explicator, 72:2, 146–150. Stephen Graham Jones, Michael Chabon, and Victor Pelevin.
In philosophy "New sincerity" has also sometimes been used to refer to a philosophical concept deriving from the basic tenets of performatism.Raoul Eshelman, "Performatism, or the End of Postmodernism" in Anthropoetics 6 (2000/2001). See also his book, Performatism or the End of Postmodernism. Davies Group: Aurora, Colorado 2008. It is also seen as one of the key characteristics of metamodernism.Timotheus Vermeulen & Robin van den Akker, "Notes on metamodernism" in Journal of Aesthetics and Culture 2 (2010) Related literature includes Wendy Steiner's The Trouble with Beauty and Elaine Scarry's On Beauty and Being Just. Related movements may include post-postmodernism, New Puritans, Stuckism, the kitsch movement and remodernism, as well as the Dogme 95 film movement led by Lars von Trier.Alexei Yurchak, "Post-Post-Communist Sincerity: Pioneers, Cosmonauts, and Other Soviet Heroes Born Today", in Thomas Lahusen and Peter H. Solomon, eds., What Is Soviet Now?: Identities, Legacies, Memories (LIT Verlag Berlin-Hamburg-Münster, 2008), , p. 258 & n.4, excerpt available at Google Books.
As a cultural movement "New sincerity" has been espoused since 2002 by radio host Jesse Thorn of PRI's The Sound of Young America (now Bullseye), self-described as "the public radio program about things that are awesome". Thorn characterizes new sincerity as a cultural movement defined by dicta including "maximum fun" and "be more awesome". It celebrates outsized celebration of joy, and rejects irony, and particularly ironic appreciation of cultural products. Thorn has promoted this concept on his program and in interviews.Ben Kharakh, "Jesse Thorn, America's Radio Sweetheart" in Gothamist, posted November 2, 2006."Interview: Jesse Thorn, Part 1" , The Merlin Show, posted June 4, 2007.Dan Brodnitz, "An Interview with The Sound of Young America's Jesse Thorn" , O'Reilly Digital Media, posted September 15, 2008.But see Bill Forman, "Müz: The New Ambiguity", Metro Santa Cruz, March 8–15, 2006 (opining that New Sincerity is "just another ironic hoax").
In a September 2009 interview, Thorn commented that "new sincerity" had begun as "a silly, philosophical movement that me and some friends made up in college" and that "everything that we said was a joke, but at the same time it wasn't all a joke in the sense that we weren't being arch or we weren't being campy. While we were talking about ridiculous, funny things we were sincere about them."Jonathan Valania, "Q&A: With Jesse Thorn, America's Radio Sweetheart", Phawker, September 15, 2009.