From: "Finlayson A." <A.Finlayson at swansea.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Zizek Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2002 11:15:15 -0000
Dennis wrote:
On Thu, 28 Feb 2002, Finlayson A. wrote:
> It srikes me now that the US is the LEAST 'globalised' country in the
world.
Nonsense. It's got a Third World electoral system and a Second World economy, but its culture, mass media, and selected service industries are global through and through. Read the mass culture carefully, and you find all sorts of resistance and subversion.
> Even when people from the US
> visit other places they seem not to actually leave it but bring the US
with
> them and seek out aspects of the US in places they go to.
Which people -- the biz elites, or the tourists, travelers, and artists
like T.S. Eliot or writers like Edgar Snow?
- -- Dennis
Dennis - can you explain what the first bit means? Does having a crap electoral system make the US globalised? And what do you mean by reading the mass culture carefully to find subversion? You mean, if I look closer i will see that actually it contains a very aware and sensitive portrayal of non-US culture, values and history? Do you mean that if I really bend over backwards and squint at 'Friends' or 'Frasier' or 'Pearl Harbour' then I will see the subtle representation of working class British life and of conditions on French housing estates ? I can recognise the landscapes of large parts of the US and many cities as they appear in films and television shows and on newspapers. Can the average US moviegoer tell me anything about Nottingham? Or Basle?
And on the second question:
writers from forty odd years ago are odd evidence of the openess of US culture to that of Europe. And I'm not sure one could really call either of them avatars of 'hybridity'.
But please educate in the subtle subversion of US mass culture. I missed have missed the covert advocacy of state welfarism and on Jeopardy last time I visited.
ALan