> We're in the age of spectacle's triumph over meaning, as Jameson sez, and
> this is the only way it can go. That relates the new Nascar tracks to M&M
> to PissChrist to Madonna to Benneton ads to XFL to Pulp Fiction to the fact
> people are actually seriously considering McVeigh's request to whatever
> 'reality' fabrication Fox will bring us next to the implosion of society.
>
> A lion eating a Christian is a spectacle for a week or two, but everybody
> knows you're eventually gonna have to have someone (preferably a relative)
> publicly violating the Christian first, after that mebbe someone doing the
> lion first ... and then, eventually, well, afterwards, I guess.
>
First, Rob, I would take the XFL out of the equation. Its ratings are dropping every week, proving that even with an injection of PG-13 sexual tease, bad football is bad football, and most football fans know the difference. The XFL is gonzo, but not in the way that Vince McMahon had hoped.
I actually liked the Benneton ads. Cut through the crap, as they say. And as for McVeigh, I'm all in favor of televising his execution. Indeed, I think lethal injections should be televised live, from various angles, including a close-up of the convict's face at the moment of death. Americans should have their noses rubbed in the corpses; and while for some this may serve to desensitize them to capital punishment, I trust that most would be appalled and might have to rethink their beliefs. See Camus' "Reflections of the Guillotine".
Gordon wrote:
> Anyway, I wonder if anyone actually seeks out the consumers
> of transgressive art, low or high, to find out what it is
> they like about it. Off the top of my head, I'd say it's a
> substitute for freedom in an increasingly repressive
> society, but then lots of increasingly repressive societies
> and increasingly repressed people don't seem to go for it.
>
Most "transgressive" art is consumed by white, suburban teenaged boys, and those in their early 20s. My nephew and his best friend, both 20, listen to all manner of foul stuff, yet each is as straight and conformist as can be. My nephew's friend regularly makes for me compilation tapes and CDs of the music he likes, and thus I've been exposed numerous sounds I'd never get around to hearing. I think there's an element of passive rebellion in listening to this music, for it suggests a wilder world outside of cul-de-sac land. For me in the late 70s it was punk. But then I moved to NY so I could be a bohemian too. These kids have no such ambition.
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