Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Commodity Fanaticism II

At the start of this essay, I suggested that I did not want to offer an argument against Mad Men as much as an account of my journey of trying to reach its aesthetic destination, a route I clearly never found. But when it comes to matters of taste, discussing love or hate – or even its more moderate forms of like and dislike – feels like a provocation to argue, a trigger toward picking a fight. I know when I read a negative account of a show that I love, I often feel personally attacked and want to defend the object of my affection and, by extension, myself. Tastes may be culturally determined and reflective of underlying social structures, but they feel personal and authentically part of our identities. What we like shapes who we are, and criticizing something we love feels like an insult...

...Reading a positive piece of criticism for a text you love feels like a validation of your experiences, and helps you appreciate new nuances and depths. But as I’ve been writing this, I have had a hard time understanding the precise function of a piece of negative critical analysis. I’m not writing to provoke anger toward me or my opinions, even though I’m sure I will, nor am I trying to condemn or dismiss the show’s many supporters, even as I critique that which they love.

4 comments:

  1. I always have trouble discussing these kinds of shows with their fans, beyond the fact that I have never watched one.

    "Serious television" just strikes me a prime example the old contradictio in adiectivo.

    Like I got a bunch of Battlestar Galactica fans all upset when I said the show was "stupid." They tried to demonstrate that it was intelligent. I insisted that science fiction had to be stupid. That the stupidity was an essential part of its aesthetic.

    "Quality" tv seems to defeat the purpose.

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  2. stupidity - yes there has to be a post of unknowing for that genre....

    "Quality" tv seems to defeat the purpose.

    at this point it's come full circle - this nonsense of "quality" tv began as playhouse 90 and roots; now it's just "racy" cable tv with it's toilet jokes, what used to be denounced as cheaply titillating and sensational crap (shoot em up, jiggly, plots about poop...)

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  3. I thought this was funny, on the Mad Men craze that's sweeping the nation:

    http://tinyurl.com/23s638j

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  4. very funny...also a comment reminded me to notice the show is really about the eighties...it appeals to people who were kids in the eighties when the sixties shows suddenly appeared on nickelodeon and those clothes were for sale used; the men's jackets, those dresses...this stuff was never corny to people who were kids in the eightiesd...it was always vintage and stylish. for them, now in their thirties, this is nosalgia but not for that time - for what rthat era signified for the bright lights big city fans. it's a very reagan era show without being quite reaganite - in love with the politically indifferent hipsters of the reagan era. beca=ause itr is a pastiche of television - its about copying the shows of the time not capturing the time, even as costume drama. what is lissing is the politics and the art and culture.its a little like The Goiod German, a strange idea of let's make a rock hudson doris day film but as they were watched in the eighties, with a consciousness that he was gay etc.. but there is no attempt to capture the period of history itself - there's nothgin here that feels like its out of jerry della feminina's autobio or anything. it's filkled up with stuff from peyton place and romcoms and melodramas and watered down billy wilder..

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