> I just saw it with a friend last night: it was his second time. I find it
> amusing that we leftists always find ourselves arguing over whether
> cultural products like this are 'more' subversive or 'more' hegemonic, when
> the answer, as Eve Sedgwick points out, is almost always: "kinda
> subversive, kinda hegemonic."
Ain't it the truth!
> Could you say that the only reason we feel motivated to have these sub/heg
> debates is because we really enjoyed and/or were moved by the movie, but we
> worry that if we enjoy a mass entertainment unreflexively, we become
> complicit with some industrial-technological-entertainment complex? If so,
> arguing the political merits and demerits of a film becomes prophylaxis: a
> way to participate in the enjoyment of the film while protecting ourselves
> against the legitimating effects of that enjoyment.
Could be. But it could also be a way of increasing the enjoyment by increasing the understanding. I think it just depends on the person and the occasion.
I never felt any need to analyze "Here Comes the Rain Again" or "Cruel Summer" or "Dancing in the Street". On the other hand, I really enjoy analyzing "Buffy".
I've skipped this thread so far, since an early post by Rakeesh started to give away the whole movie and I haven't seen it yet. Maybe this weekend...
-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net
"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"