> >Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> >
> >> The only perfect bodies under late capitalism are
> >> those of teenagers, male or female. (Does this in part explain the
> >> popularity of Buffy?)
> >
> Paul then wrote:
>
> >Nope. WB has oodles of teen shows. All but "Buffy" suck bigtime.
>
> You're absolutely right that all the WB teen shows except Buffy suck the
> pud, BUT I wouldn't dismiss Yoshie's question so hastily. The popularity of
> teen shows in *general* has got a LOT to do with the eroticization of teen
> bodies by adults. "Buffy" gets to be on the WB not because it's brilliant
> -- which of course it is -- but because it is a teen show, and it's popular
> also not ONLY because it's brilliant but for a lot of the same reasons other
> teen shows are popular. the abominable teen shows (Dawson's Creek, Felicity)
> are also *popular*; adults like to project all sorts of fantasies onto
> teenagers, sexual and otherwise.
Sorry, but, as luck would have, 60 Minutes JUST THIS WEEK presented a much more straightforward materialist analysis: young viewers are MUCH more impressionable and much LESS set in their consumerist ways. Therefore they are courted out of all proportion to their spending power.
> Paul also wrote:
>
> >
> >Yet another pseudo-hip-left reductionist attack on "Buffy" bites the
> >dust.
>
> get a grip!!! pointing to one of the *many* psycho-sexual-marketplace
> underpinnings of a TV show's popularity is not an "attack" on it. how
> fabulous the show is or isn't is always only a small part of that picture,
> as you know. and this particular show BOTH exploits and subverts that erotic
> dynamic.
Sorry, Liza, but there's not ONE iota of proof to back up Yosie's assumption.
I am way past tired of all this theory-heavy postings that are oh-so-resolutely contemptuous of anything within a country mile of an empirical observation.
So kindly reread the pompous foolishness I quoted:
"The only perfect bodies under late capitalism are those of teenagers, male or female."
Oh? Gee, I guess someone forgot to tell Baywatch, Xena, Melrose Place, etc., etc., etc.
-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net
"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"