The sheer intelligence [in One Market Under God] of Mr. Frank’s close reading of the promotional rhetoric of Internet globalization ideology is dazzling, but my favorite two chapters are the ones that expose the interpenetration of the hot new cult of advertising "intellectuals," the "account planners" and the tin-eared drones of "cultural studies" in academia. The ones who claim to be engaged in radical politics but, as Mr. Frank demonstrates, serve as inadvertent cheerleaders for "market populism." Pretending that watching TV and fetishizing the sex lives of Star Trek characters are political acts of "contestation" and "resistance."
"Studying fashion magazines or communities of fans was the real revolutionary stuff," Mr. Frank observes of the "cult-studs" with salutary contempt. "The first step in what would become an irresistible assault on the powers that be … cult-studs enthusiastically declar[ed] their firm intention to go on subverting, to continue ‘fighting the power’ by celebrating the counter hegemonic messages of TV sitcoms."
But "for all its generalized hostility to business and frequent discussions of ‘late capital’ cultural studies failed almost completely to produce close analyses of the daily life of business." Failed to notice as well how "the official narratives of the American business community of the nineties … embraced many of the same concerns of the cult-studs … their tendency to find ‘elitism’ lurking behind any critique of mass culture and their pious esteem for audience agency."
It’s just a brilliant analysis whose sophistication and wit is worthy of Mencken or Dwight Macdonald, and it confirms my feeling that–with very few exceptions–whether they profess to love it or hate it, academics always get pop culture wrong. They no longer live it, if they ever did. But rather–despite their horror of "commodification"–they commodify it to advance their careers.
[end of excerpt]
Carl
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