oh what fresh hell is this

[spatch]

In other news, we're having a funeral for irony because it appears to be well and truly murdered.

EDIT: But maybe that's the point. If Mothersbaugh & Co. have indeed pulled a good one over Disney, then more power to 'em.

Comments

Re: thoughts

[dcart.livejournal.com]

The best way that I can think of to describe my objection to this notion that the mainstream can be successfully subverted is one of form vs. substance. I'll use the punk movement as an example here. If punk rock was just about listening to loud, fast music, doing funny things to your hair and wearing black t-shirts, then the movement did a wonderful job of subverting mainstream culture. If it was about the DIY culture, about opening up the mass music creation process to something other than pretty, over-produced pop/rock bands, about creating alternative systems of mutual support, etc, then it failed to subvert the dominant paradigm at all. In my opinion, the former was largely just window dressing, the "freaking the norms" of which you speak while the latter was the substance of the movement. Mainstream culture does a wonderful job of picking those forms (the window dressing, the stuff that is essentially safe to the powers that be) and making that mainstream while marginalizing the stuff that could actually change how people live and the powers to whom they bow. If making your movement "pop" simply allows the powers that be to turn it into another look that people can buy at the mall rather than changing the debate, then you've failed. It's my contention that in the overwhelming majority of instances, that failure is exactly what you end up with.