-The post that I am responding to-
Yes, I'd agree that we are born in an age of pop-culture saturation. But I'd also say that we're in an age of pop-culture awareness too. There's a reason why TVTropes-browsing is a major past-time and why sexism and racism in pop culture is called out more than ever.
Of course, I think that this is due to the internet's increasing prominence in our lives, allowing those people who once would have been called "geeks" and "pop-culture wonks" to unite and share data, coming to a greater understanding of the subject. Hell, thevast increase in prominence of fanfiction compared to the pre-internet age when it was restricted to fanzines could tell ya that!
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Friday, September 27, 2013
On the Cultural Ourobourous...
-The Article I Am Replying To-
I found it interesting how you mentioned that pop-culture isn't always original, but can be good. But I think as of late pop-culture has gotten too unoriginal, what with the lack of new IPs and a great galloping glut of older ones at the expense of new ideas.
Note how every new IP that comes along and is even remotely good gets people praising it as a breath of fresh air, and notice how nerds campaigned to get people to go see Pacific Rim despite the fact that it's a big-budget blockbuster and shouldn't have needed a grassroots get-the-word-out campaign. And notice how it was only saved by it's foreign gross after the majority of Americans proved they'd rather go see yet another Despicable Me sequel or an even shittier sequel to a shitty Adam Sandler wankfest(If you did this, by the way, you are terrible and I am angry at you).
I blame this regurgitation-effect on marketers, who find it the easiest way to get butts in seats. And if any of you students here are majoring/planning on getting a career in marketing, know that I HATE YOU!
You are the reason good; original ideas get nixed and good movies get cut to ribbons so that they can appeal to the moron brigade, you are the reason nothing can get made except for remakes without either the director being a Hollywood big-wheel or the director doing YET ANOTHER of your terrible; terrible rehashes.
You're the reason most Americans don't believe in global warming and why millions of teenage girls feel the need to puke their way to skinny to look like the girl in the magazine (despite the fact that even the girl in the magazine doesn't look like the girl in the magazine thanks to your photoshop shenanigans). Your job, for the most part; is to lie to people and make products worse so you can more easily lie to people.
When the inevitably global apocalypse causedby global warming happens, I HOPE YOU GET EATEN FIRST!
Rant out.
I found it interesting how you mentioned that pop-culture isn't always original, but can be good. But I think as of late pop-culture has gotten too unoriginal, what with the lack of new IPs and a great galloping glut of older ones at the expense of new ideas.
Note how every new IP that comes along and is even remotely good gets people praising it as a breath of fresh air, and notice how nerds campaigned to get people to go see Pacific Rim despite the fact that it's a big-budget blockbuster and shouldn't have needed a grassroots get-the-word-out campaign. And notice how it was only saved by it's foreign gross after the majority of Americans proved they'd rather go see yet another Despicable Me sequel or an even shittier sequel to a shitty Adam Sandler wankfest(If you did this, by the way, you are terrible and I am angry at you).
I blame this regurgitation-effect on marketers, who find it the easiest way to get butts in seats. And if any of you students here are majoring/planning on getting a career in marketing, know that I HATE YOU!
You are the reason good; original ideas get nixed and good movies get cut to ribbons so that they can appeal to the moron brigade, you are the reason nothing can get made except for remakes without either the director being a Hollywood big-wheel or the director doing YET ANOTHER of your terrible; terrible rehashes.
You're the reason most Americans don't believe in global warming and why millions of teenage girls feel the need to puke their way to skinny to look like the girl in the magazine (despite the fact that even the girl in the magazine doesn't look like the girl in the magazine thanks to your photoshop shenanigans). Your job, for the most part; is to lie to people and make products worse so you can more easily lie to people.
When the inevitably global apocalypse causedby global warming happens, I HOPE YOU GET EATEN FIRST!
Rant out.
On Minstrel Shows and Tin Pan Alley
-The article I am responding to-
I do think it's especially interesting the way you focused on the Minstrel Shows, as it shows something very important, namely that popular culture has a way of not only reflecting our biases but setting them in stone in the popular culture, hence why the minstrel-show stereotypes became real-life stereotypes thanks to their omniprescence.
And that's also, unfortunately, how Uncle Tom came to be known as a slur, because of its use in the many minstrel-show knock-offs of the book, which were so terrible that the book's author had to be informed of the plot of one of these "retellings" .
I think that we have a subtler; more insidious form of this today with the thuggish; criminal way minorities are portrayed on shows like Law and Order or CSI. That's why I think the most dangerous racial slur of modern times is not any n-word, w-word or s- word, but rather the phrase "those people". Because whenever people say that a law is supposed to protect us from "those people", the examples they tend to point to suspiciously invoke a crapton of racial stereotypes.
Monday, September 23, 2013
Culture and Critique
It's quite interesting how they mention how the rich co-opt pop culture and make it "high art" and wall it away from the masses, as that also seems to be present in the classifications of "literary" and "genre" fiction.
I mean, gripe about my tastes all you want, but I got more enjoyment out of the works of Steven King, H.P. Lovecraft and Clive Barker than any piece of snobbery forced upon me by my literature teachers. And the two works I did like the most in those classes, Rudolfo Anaya's "Bless Me Ultima" and Sartre's "No Exit" were arguably both low-magic fantasy.
Not that the teachers called them such, as it's apparently a rule in the world of literary snobbery that if they like it/if it has intelectual value, then it isn't "genre". Just look at the receptions of Michael Chabon's works or Margret Atwood's sci-fi.
But, on the positive side, I have noticed that thanks to the internet, people are reclaiming pop-cultural analysis for themselves, using it as a form of popular entertainment via such things as TVTropes, the popularity of internet review shows (especially those on Chez Apocalypse) and a large chunk of posts on Tumblr. These may be criticized for shallowness, but are they really any more shallow than some of the stupid wankery that goes on in academic circles?
I mean, gripe about my tastes all you want, but I got more enjoyment out of the works of Steven King, H.P. Lovecraft and Clive Barker than any piece of snobbery forced upon me by my literature teachers. And the two works I did like the most in those classes, Rudolfo Anaya's "Bless Me Ultima" and Sartre's "No Exit" were arguably both low-magic fantasy.
Not that the teachers called them such, as it's apparently a rule in the world of literary snobbery that if they like it/if it has intelectual value, then it isn't "genre". Just look at the receptions of Michael Chabon's works or Margret Atwood's sci-fi.
But, on the positive side, I have noticed that thanks to the internet, people are reclaiming pop-cultural analysis for themselves, using it as a form of popular entertainment via such things as TVTropes, the popularity of internet review shows (especially those on Chez Apocalypse) and a large chunk of posts on Tumblr. These may be criticized for shallowness, but are they really any more shallow than some of the stupid wankery that goes on in academic circles?
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