[PEN-L:2054] The PJs

[William S. Lear]

Aside from typing in "toiled" for "toilet", I forgot to mention
something else: I can't think of another show that better demonstrates
that Jim Heartfield is full of hot air about "fine" or "high" art.
Heartfield claims on the Marxism list that "The truncated and
exhausted lives of the working class is the basis for a culture that
is mean, small-minded and sensation-hungry: the television".  Murphy
has shown that the culture of the poor (or "poor culture" as
Heartfield disdainfully labels it), and expressive art built upon it,
indeed has something important to offer.

Just because working-class lives are truncated in one dimension does
not mean those lives are totally stunted.  Black urban life and its
culture is very rich and interesting to some, and the full panorama of
human life is played out there under cover of poverty and racism.
Murphy does us all a favor with this show, which takes off the covers
and shows us an accurate backdrop fronted by humorous characters,
instead of characters who might otherwise be depicted as "truncated
and exhausted" through, typically, drugs and/or crime.

Bill