Date: Sun, 20 Jul 1997 14:36:54 -0500
From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: M-FEM: Popular culture


malgosia askanas wrote:

>OK, but successful manipulation of imagery implies that it is manipulated
>in such a way that it caters to _something_ in the viewer.  It is only
>because the image she created has successfully acted upon the imagination
>of thousands of people that she has made a pile of money and become
>globally famous.  The circularity you're proposing is not without charm
>and truth, but it is nevertheless unsatisfyingly circular.

That something it appeals to is a mix of rebellion and conformity - the
commodification of dissent that the Baffler folks are always talking about -
that suffuses commercial popular culture. Since she is indisputably in
control of her own image machinery, unlike many earlier Pop Tarts, she
appeals to young women raised in a culture where women are a lot more
"independent" than the culture of 20 or 30 years ago. That she draws on the
classic images of sex-kittenhood offers a certain degree of comfort, though
- while she may be stepping out of the mainstream in one sense, she's doing
so carrying a lot of its familiar baggage. If you're of a certain kind of
postmodernist turn, this is seen as a revolutionary act - badass
citationality, subversive re-appropriation. But since she does it all in
the service of money and fame, her rebellion remains strictly a
"rebellion," in the Frankfurt terminology: a kicking up of a fuss that
doesn't challenge the status quo, but can even be seen as reinforcing it in
the long term.

Doug