so i've got this annoying co-worker. very annoying. any mention of movies/music/tv/art/radio/smoke signals/the earth's axis is a challenge to her to educate you on the premier example of that genre. i say i thought memento was good, she says citizen cane set the standard for reverse narrative (ok) and orson welles was way ahead of his time (duh) and i really should see the film if i want to anything about anything (i have. and whatever.) i say i find my mom's shellacked crafts kitchy, she says many of the old masters coated their works in a thin varnish to add a luster to their subjects and preserve their pieces (factually incorrect) and have i ever seen a work by rembrandt or vermeer (...my ba's in art history, thanks) because she will have to take me to the metropolitan museum of art and show me one in person (no thanks. and whatever.).
she is a person who operates on the principal that High and Low are definitive categories... and High is the only one that counts. and sure, i exaggerate to make my point here (except for the taking me to the museum part. that's verbatim.) - namely, that i think this is an absurd way of compartmentalizing life/art/media. nevertheless, i'm convinced that if we spend all our time categorizing the good and the bad we miss out on the fact that all things exist on a spectrum. clueless may be emma dressed up (or down, depending on your take) with "as if's" and "whatever's", fine. and it may say plenty about actors/fashion/slang, but what does it say about the culture in which it came about. why then? why in that form? CONTENT vs. CONTEXT, people!
mounting a high horse in defense of culture is a way of aligning yourself with the important. if you can create/label what others should value you are, in essence, saying that people must value you and your definitive opinions as well. this is my problem with my coworker. and with postman. both assert that the old is better because it's old. everything else is derivative and brings us further away from the serious work of art. this is a value statement (subjective!), says very little about the works in question (you claim, popular television programs aren't as good classic literature, but i still have no idea what criteria lead you to make that assessment) and is, quite frankly, so ego-driven it makes me want to poke my own eyes out.
if new is always bad, developing media will never be good. if i never have to change the way i interpret a work, then media literacy is dead. and if that's the case, then our culture, our narratives, will never change.
luckily, mcluhan saves us from this cultural apocalypse. for him, technology works us over - it changes both the form and the content of our media. he says, "there simply is no time for the narrative form, borrowed from earlier print technology. the story line must be abandoned...[television is]...influencing contemporary literature."
finally, change is good! mcluhan, in speaking about television, leaves room for all the technology to come. he recognizes that information and learning are ever changing and that does not necessarily mean that they are not as valid as what has come before. it is a far more democratic approach to media literacy and one that i can completely respect.
all theory of media aside...i'm off to watch the oscars now!
I think the controversy proposed in your post highlights the everlasting debate between experts and amateurs. You want your (non-expert) opinion valued as original and authentic and yet your co-worker insists on invalidating its merit by pulling some "expert" trump card, suggesting that all your thoughts are derivative. You look to our readings for insight and feel similarly assaulted by Postman but validated by McLuhan -- the experts! What I think is truly interesting is the transformation of the audience that McLuhan describes as the result of the electronic evolution, from the public to the mass. Blogging gives you a voice which in a way, affords you the opportunity to be your own expert amateur, and simultaneously allows us all, the mass, to do so. And his use of the word "mass" is particularly interesting in that it suggests a specific quantity of "enough," or "critical mass." Perhaps because it empowers enough of us to become our own experts a la the concept of collective intelligence Jenkins discusses?
ReplyDeleteThe high/low culture split is indeed troubling. And your example of watching the Oscars is, I think, perfect, since this year the winning actors and films forced us to look at some very uncomfortable aspects of human culture, namely prejudice against gays and our Western attitudes toward poverty. I won't comment on my personal feelings about last night's ceremonies and the messages transmitted therein beyond saying I think there were about 1000 literacy lessons waiting to be taught shown on TV last night.
ReplyDeleteYour "High/Low" mention makes me think of New York mag's grid of "Low brow/high brow" which seems to gauge the despicable/brilliance factor of certain pop culture personas/events. I'm not a graph/chart person usually but the hodge-podge, collage quality of this one just grabs my attention every time I open this mag.
ReplyDeleteExercising their op-ed muscle to put in their two cents about the climate of the times in this blatantly un-objective way could be construed as being both petty and liberating.