Consuming the Cultural Product
http://www.counterpunch.org/jacobs07312009.html
By RON JACOBS
July 31 - August 2, 2009
Britney Spears, American Idol, Desperate Housewives ... The material
that passes for popular culture has never been so vapid. Indeed,
it's almost too easy to ridicule this stuff sold to viewers and
listeners the world around. There is no enlightenment involved in
the merchandise presented to us by car companies, banks, and other
commercial failures whose primary intent is to convince us that our
future involves us spending our money on their products. Indeed,
there is not even a pretense or supposition that there should be any
enlightenment in the equation. So, we spend our time watching and
listening to these entertainment products while we work out how we'll
get that new car shown to us every ten minutes during the commercial break.
Trotsky wrote that "every ruling class creates its own culture, and
consequently, its own art." While one might be hard pressed to
justify most television shows and most pop music as art, they are
what pass for culture. Once, a conversation with a friend who worked
as a college faculty member turned to the question of whether film
and music reflected or created popular trends and thought. In other
words, does the culture we absorb influence us or do we influence
it. Naturally, there is no conclusive answer to this question and we
did not reach one that day. However, there are some clear examples
of each. To begin with, television shows like the quasi-fascist "24"
and its less unnerving predecessors like the 007 series of films
exist to instill a fear not only of the enemies of the state but of
the state itself. Thusly, we are encouraged by these obviously
propagandistic works to ignore or consent to whatever illegal and
immoral actions taken by those who claim to protect us. Furthermore,
we are subconsciously trained to identify the state's enemies as our
own. Reality shows like "Cops" further this consciousness.
To substantiate the other side of the coin let me turn to the most
popular rock band of all time, The Beatles. These young men arguably
began as consumers who picked up musical instruments and replicated
the music of their musical heroes, most of whom were bluesmen from
the United States. They went on to become the most popular rock
group of the 1960s and a cultural phenomenon with out parity. When
the band grew their hair long and talked about LSD, were they
propagandizing a new way of life or were they reflecting a way of
life already in existence? To put it differently, did the Beatles
and other rock bands lead the youth of the western world into the
counterculture or did the counterculture consume the bands into its
community? There is no clear answer to this, of course. The
relationship was symbiotic at best and parasitic at its worst. Just
like the later phenomenon of hip-hop, the streets created the music
and the music in turn mutated, reflected and popularized the
culture. Unfortunately, the aspects which were popularized were
those that challenged the dominant system the least. In rock music
that turned out to be the sex and drugs. In hip hop it turned out to
be the sex, drugs and money. Politics and the sense of community
were removed in favor of an individualistic pursuit of
gratification. In other words, the capitalist ethos prevailed. This
makes sense, of course, given that we live in a capitalist society
and the companies that produce the music are instrumental players in
that society's economy.
Even on the occasion where something truly remarkable that serves a
purpose beyond titillation comes into the cultural marketplace--a
phenomenon seen in cinema and music more than television--the
coverage of the work and its creators is often trivialized if it is
covered at all. This was brought home to me recently as I watched
the coverage of the Golden Globe Awards at a friend's house. Little
was said about the meaning of the films presented but thousands of
words were wasted on the clothing worn by various actors and
actresses as they walked around outside of the event showing off for
the cameras. In the media coverage the following day, more print
space was used describing people's clothing and who they were with
than on the works that were nominated. When it comes to music,
reviewers tend to delve a bit deeper. However, at the end of the
year, it is usually the musical works that made the most money that
are celebrated in the media events viewed by the general
public. This usually means that the works with the least meaning are
those which are publicized most. This in turn propels even more
sales, leaving works of consequence to linger in the CD bins until
they are dropped by the industry.
Books are quite similar. Hundreds, if not thousands of titles, are
rarely acknowledged by the media, while certain authors monopolize
the sales charts and the minds of the reading public. I see this
phenomenon daily as a library worker. Thousands of dollars are spent
buying books that read very similar to the last work by an author,
while other literature is never ordered. Well-read people end up
reading materials that not only endorse the thought processes of the
dominant culture of consumption and alienation, but are convinced
that they are consequently somehow more enlightened than those that
don't read. Once again, we return to the question of which
influences which. For example are second- and third-rate crime
authors like Patricia Cornwell popular because people like her
writing or are these authors popular because the advertising budgets
behind them convince people that they should read them precisely
because they are popular?
I'm listening to Jimi Hendrix's performance of "Machine Gun" from a
concert he performed in Berkeley in May, 1970 while people rioted in
the streets against the US invasion of Cambodia. This song is not
only a prayer for peace and love. It is about the massacre of Blacks
in the streets and Vietnamese in the jungle. It is also a cry for an
end to greed and the wars it causes. It is a condemnation of the
masters of war and a cry of defiance. I don't think it will be
appearing in a commercial any time soon. Do you think Obama has this
song on his iPod? Would it make a difference if he did?
--
Ron Jacobs is author of The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the
Weather Underground, which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs'
essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch's collection on
music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden. His first novel, Short
Order Frame Up, is published by Mainstay Press. He can be reached at:
rjacobs3625@charter.net
.
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