| Author | Message | ||
     Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.159.146.177 |
Being interested in such things as 'Jedward', 'Deal or No Deal' and 'Big Brother' - here is a (thankfully one-off!) report from me of the start of Channel 5's Big Brother 2011 (quoted from the discussion here): I wonder if one should look on the works of Mankind and Despair ... and here I have found myself in a quandary. Either truly horrified. Or 'artistically' horrified at this half real / half unreal slice of life today. Whether, in the context of misguided freedom, it is or it is not 'well worth a closer look'? Is humanity just skin deep? In this context, Marion, Faye looked blank because, as she said, she did not consider us to be animals. But then, of course, we have Becky's Urolagnia to consider, a drip feed that Sartreanly closets us all 'in camera' .... Would you consider DOCTOR WHO to be Mass Culture? - I was rather impressed with yesterdays retrocausal episode where Amy Pond genuinely looked older... Very well done. Or is the term 'mass culture' patronising? (but better than 'low culture'?). And have you any intrests in so called 'Mass Culture' and its ability to 'horrify' horror genre specialists!...? | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.209.217 |
Mass Culture = culture that is produced for commercial/entertainment purposes. Usually by something corporate. It's produced for consumption by the largest possible number of people. 'High' Culture (for want of a better term) = 'art for art's sake', I suppose. The satisfaction of the cultural producer, rather than the cultural consumer, is paramount. With mass culture, the most important thing is the number of people who'll consume the product. With 'high' culture, that is the least important consideration, or at best a secondary or tertiary one. We could also propose another form- 'niche' culture, perhaps? I.e. cultural products which might be produced commercially but aren't necessarily for a mass audience. Some genre work would come into this category. Dr Who possibly straddles the fence between niche and mass. Whether the fence between High and Mass is straddleable is another matter... Shakespeare seemed to manage it OK, of course. Whichever category something goes in, Sturgeon's Law (99% Is Shit) applies. Just as there's work produced by the fevered sweat of the artist's brow that is read by only 10 people when it deserves a far wider audience, there is work that's only read by 10 people because 10 readers are all it deserves. Likewise, there are Mass Culture products which belong to the 1%- but the shiteness is overwhelmingly visible because it's Mass Culture. It's intellectually lazy or dishonest to pretend otherwise, although some folk do. Mass Culture, though, has a tendency to aim for the lowest common denominator, so anything that fails to affirm social norms will have more of an uphill struggle... And that's about as much as I can manage on a Sunday morning without a cup of coffee to hand...  | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
I'm more interested in the work where "Mass Culture" and "High Culture" meet to produce something interesting (ie. Shakespeare). That's my bag, baby. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.159.146.177 |
Shakespeare was mass culture in his lifetime, but is his work now? I think Simon hit on a good point here: "We could also propose another form- 'niche' culture, perhaps? I.e. cultural products which might be produced commercially but aren't necessarily for a mass audience." Is this the sign of the times? Cross-niche entertainment rather than cross-culture? This also relates to the ebooks discussion in some way, but I've not yet put my finger on it! [Persoanlly, I find myself writing in a very niche acquired-stase high-blown 'weirdness' but featuring 'Big Brother' and 'Deal or No Deal' (i.e Weirdtongue & Nemonynmous Night).] But, on the other hand, the HA of HA is mass-niche Horror genre culture... Hmmm] | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.209.217 |
Zed- me too. That mass-culture reflects the fears and obsessions of its society, whether 'manufactured' or 'naturally occurring'. Always frutiful material to the artist. Plus, if different art forms, like genres, are like the blind men with the elephant- each catching on a fragment of 'the truth'- then incorporating a wide range of them into your own work can be equally productive in artistic terms. Des- I think it's quite hard to maintain mass appeal over centuries, because popular appeal is fluid. A lot of Shakespeare's jokes revolve around comic staples of the 16th/17th centuries (e.g. cuckold's horns) which aren't particularly funny now. Their connection to the popular taste has waned; their psychological profundity, their social, political and metaphysical/existential enquiry continue to have relevance. Long term mass appeal is hard if not impossible to attain, but Shakespeare arguably got the best of both worlds; a reasonable degree of worldly success in his lifetime, so he didn't zpend his life doing jobs he hated, plus the approval of posterity. Which of us will get the latter is impossible to predict, of course... That said, his plays have lots of drama and incident, and Macbeth, for example, can translate brilliantly into a form with mass appeal- if people can just get past the language barrier. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.159.146.177 |
Yes, I agree, appeal to Mass Culture (as understood) is impossible through all space and time. I am particularly taken with your Niche Cultures, (a clutch of nesting Niches?) - a new phenomenon of the 21st century - with internet and ebooks warming the eggs? | ||
| Weber (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.150.134.178 |
Niche culture could also mean a bacterial sample grown in a bodily crevice... which gives a whole new meaning to the previous statement | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.159.146.177 |
Jedward Rule: http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/RX1NCHPB7T5F8/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#RX1NCHPB7T5F8 This mentions their Andy Warhol aspect. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.18.135 |
That has 'Jedward's marketing team on a slow day' written all over it. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.159.146.177 |
If so, they must have deliberately left out the spaces after commas. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
That's one of the signs: a marketing document cut and pasted will have those typesetting snafus as a matter of course. Look out for the same text in other forums: you'll see it hundreds of times, unchanged. The commodification of innocence is disturbing – just as it was in Victorian times, when the market value of a child's virginity was £20 while an experienced prostitute could charge only a few shillings. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
As 'naive art', Jedward represents (sic) a more marketable commodity than professional or trained art. That's all. The attempt to read some human significance into its presence on the entertainment market is futile. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.159.146.177 |
Like Gilbert and George? | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.137.80 |
"That's all." That doesn't explain it. Why are they more marketable, not just more so than "high" art, but more so than their direct competitors. A detailed answer to that takes some answering. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
Here's an answer: Because these days people like shit entertainment. They/we(?) love to sit down and forget about the demanding pressures of their/our(?) lives by watching unchallenging garbage performed by people with no talent. It gives them/us(?) a dream that suddenly seems attainable: stardom, fame, money, freedom from the daily grind, simply for being crap at everything. It also makes them feel better about the shit in their own lives: no matter how bad the office is, no matter how much the kids are meaning, at least you/we(?) aren't as stupid and pointless and empty as Jedward. It's Jade Goody Syndrome all over again. This message was brought to you by www.moderncultureiscrap.com | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.156.210.82 |
Gilbert and George are clever and witty. They paint pictures with their own shit. Jedward are their own shit - there's nothing clever about that. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.159.146.177 |
Artists often scrabble around in their own shit. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.159.146.177 |
Their own selves. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 86.159.146.177 |
Tonight's DEAL OR NO DEAL conveyed the most extreme mixed emotions possible - a reality beyond any acting. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.114.195 |
I hate Gilbert and George. Their lives have become their work. So hating their work means I hate them. Better luck next incarnation, chaps. I suppose you could say the same of Jedward. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.23.90 |
Joel; it might be propoganda but I agree with every word of it (does that mean it isn't propoganda anymore?). Also the little discussion afterwards sort of suggests it is genuine. Proto - I bumped into G & G in London one day. They were very frail (one wore a bloodied bandage on his head) and I said hello to them. They seemed very pleased to be being said hello to and one of them raised their walking stick in greeting (honest - not assault!). That one little encounter was enough to make me like them forever. And they always said they were a work of art, and for the record I like them but don't like their art that much. As for Jedward I quite like them a lot, and wish them well. They're odd boys who are probably a little in love with one another (and if you read interviews NEED one another too). They were born different and I kind of envy them, and hope they die together when they do, as the one remaining will be devastated. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.23.90 |
And I think it's a good sign we like innocence so much, it means we realise we have become cynical and that cynicism is a bad thing, it really is. Liking it is quite different to wanting to take or destroy it I think. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.157.23.90 |
I've just realised - G & G have striven to acquire what Jedward have naturally, become one another. I find that closeness quite awe inspiring. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.27.132 |
Tony, I don't want to bring you down when you've just come back here, but if you want to see why I think the commercialisation of innocence as something to be loved by the public is unwholesome, look at the life stories of Judy Garland and Lena Zavaroni. Their innocence and cuteness was heavily marketed, and the impact on them as people was incredibly destructive. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.35.38 |
"(one wore a bloodied bandage on his head)" Jese, now I feel like I've been beating up the Children in Need teddy bear. As ever, these comments can only be applied to a persona, not actual people. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.35.38 |
"Tonight's DEAL OR NO DEAL conveyed the most extreme mixed emotions possible - a reality beyond any acting." That traveller father from My Gypsy Wedding was on a chat show last night. What a raw creature. Beyond good or bad, primitive as fire. He spoke about his son being mangled in a car crash and when he was alone with the body in the hospital he ate some of his son's "bone meat" so the son would always be a part of him. This is like Jurassic Park with homo sapiens. Study this man. He's like an uncontacted tribe. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.122.109.11 |
Oh yes Joel, I hate the marketing of innocence. If that review is marketing then it's not really good. Proto - I'd do what that man did I think. I can understand it. |