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In this third chapter the case of the media prankster will be looked at from the wider perspective of cultural forces implicated in what is rapidly becoming the zeitgeist of the early 21st century, the mainstreaming of the irreverent. While speculation persists as to why this is the cultural condition of the moment -- increased media fragmentation opening up both space and demand for more extreme viewpoints -- what does seem certain is that the conventional ways of thinking about transgression no longer suffice. The majority of subcultural theories, be they of Chicago School or Birmingham School origin, map out an ‘us versus them’ scenario. The literally subordinate subculture is portrayed as disadvantaged and disenfranchised, acting out against a clearly dominant group for whom power and advantage are givens. The mere fact that a rule-breaking media personality can be embraced by the masses suggests that the way has been cleared for a new, more incorporative form of subversion.
To better understand this claim it is helpful to take a broader look at popular culture in the year 2000. Part of the argument I would like to make is that from the early 1990s onward, popular culture has acted as a neutralizing/normalising agent. Elements which were once considered shocking or outrageous no longer seem so, having been funnelled into mainstream discourse by a perpetually present media. The soundbites and information morsels constantly transmitted to us via old and new media seem to make it possible for anything to be palatable for a time span of twenty seconds. As a result, we see the extremes rearing their heads. At one end of the spectrum we find prefabricated boy bands and teen sensations like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. Though their messages and appearance may overflow with subtext they are nonetheless sanctioned as family entertainment. At the other end of the spectrum we find the rawness and vulgarity of, for example, South Park and Farrelly Brothers movies.
A consequence of this stretching of the boundaries of the mainstream is the inclusion in media discourse of that which was previously perceived as countercultural, subcultural, alternative, or fringe, and therefore excluded from traditional media narratives. In this way, popular culture may be seen as much less resistant to difference. Meyrowitz (1985) explains it this way: “By merging discrete communities of discourse, television has made nearly every topic and issue a valid subject of interest and concern for virtually every member of the public. Further, many formerly private and isolated behaviours have been brought out into the…public arena.” To relate this reconfigured arena of popular culture more specifically to the case of the media prankster I will now introduce theories of rock and roll as a distinctive and all-encompassing lifestyle and ‘structure of feeling’.
Rock, rebel, and reconstitute
The intention of this segment is to position the media prankster as one who has effectively harnessed the power commonly associated with rock and punk traditions -- rebellion, opposition, provocation -- and placed them in the arsenal of the prankstering media personality. Just as so much of the extreme and the seminal has come to the fore in popular music, style, and lifestyle, so too is the case with media culture. Although the way in which media culture impacts upon the construction of identity and the production of pleasure has not been adequately studied useful theoretical work from the parallel world of rock and punk culture exists, providing potential insights to an analysis of the media prankster.
Grossberg (1984) wrote of the ‘strategic empowerment’ of rock and roll practice, but the main shortcoming here is rock culture referred to as the disenfranchised ‘other’, as located outside the forces of hegemony. While this may have been the case at the time of publication of Grossberg’s article, it is certainly not the case now. Today rock discourses are big business, infiltrating mainstream taste, fashion, and attitude with unprecedented speed and ease. And once the ‘hipness’ or the ‘otherness’ of rock discourse can be successfully packaged and marketed, all claims of rock and roll as counter-hegemonic lose their legitimacy.
Greil Marcus (1989) adds a new dimension to the idea of rock and punk as sites of empowerment by formulating connections between the one-time subterranean musical movements and the antiestablishment traditions of Dadaism and Situationism.
That the methods used by the Dadaists and the Situationists (some have argued their methods were identical) bear a remarkable resemblance to those used by the pioneers of the punk movement in the latter part of the 1970s, is more than coincidence, contends Marcus. According to him, cultural history would be better considered from the point of view of the rebels, as opposed to that of the victors. Marcus sees a timeline of counter-hegemony stretching from one end of the 20th century to the other, creating the net effect of a ‘secret history’ revealed by the beliefs and actions of those who opposed the dominant power structures. When, in the second decade of the twentieth century, Dadaist Tristan Tzara defined the logic of the revolutionary artistic movement as “…sucking in all the trivia, the rubbish, and the cast-offs of the world and then stamping a new meaning on the assemblage” how much closer could the philosophy be to the bricolage of the punks in the late 1970s, or the intentional violation and subsequent recontextualisation of practices enacted by the contemporary media pranksters? It is therefore productive to think about the spirit of inversion and resistance associated with Dada, Situationism, and rock/punk as a distinctive way of thinking, being, and reacting; in other words as a renovation of Raymond Williams’ 1961 definition of culture as a ‘structure of feeling’.
The possibility that the discourses of popular music are complete enough to symbolize a whole way of life has been suggested primarily by two cultural theorists, Steve Redhead (1990) and H.L. Goodall Jr. (1991). Redhead wrote: “rock and pop discourses have produced…a range of individual positions [styles, poses, identities, narratives, desires] which youth culture can occupy…as a collective subject.” Goodall extends the proposition, designating rock and roll as a “new form of life itself’”, complete with its own lore, customs, and sensibilities. What we have, then, is collective identity construction on the one hand and unique life form on the other, both spawned by the influence of rock and roll as not just style, but as lifestyle. How people come to understand and organize the communication presented by a species such as the media prankster may therefore be attributable to this new life form enjoying influence outside its usual jurisdiction of sound and fashion. Goodall continues by pitting the puckish disorder of the rock and roll world view against the rational order of the scientific world view: “…rock and roll as playing the fool to technology’s genius…[but] this time around… the king is not a nation, but a dominant ideology of technological capitalism and formula-driven research reports that is the currency of the mixed media of the side-by-side modern and postmodern eras.” Extending the metaphor from rock and roll as the fool, to the media prankster as bothrock and roll andthe fool, serves us well in our attempts to theoretically situate the jester of the electronic age.
An article in the prominent British pop/rock music publication the NME, or New Musical Express, addresses this metaphor. Against the background of a blown up frame grab from a television set, the NME cover story of April 29, 2000 proclaims, “Why Ali G is the most rock ‘n’ roll show on TV”. The article inside goes on to mourn the bland portrayal of rock and roll on television. In the mind of writer Stephen Dalton, it turns out rock on television it isn’t very rock and roll at all. An executive at Britain’s Channel 4, broadcast home to The Ali G Show, praises the Ali G character for “...talking about drugs and things that pop stars really wouldn't do now. It seems like pop stars in the Spice Girls sense, who have a media personality, are quite safe. There isn't a Sex Pistols or a Rolling Stones out there to have a laugh about taking drugs or being in a porn film. Although there's lots of good, edgy alternative music, things seem to be either co-opted into the mainstream or they tend to be underground and faceless." It is worth noting that these comments are more relevant to the British pop music scene than its American counterpart, in which rapper Eminem and hip hop-metal hybridists Limp Bizkit top the charts with lyrics about pornography, rape, murder, homophobia, misogyny, drugs, and vandalism, and seem only too happy to broach the taboo topics during interviews. But differences between the popular culture climates of North America and Great Britain aside, the universally acceptable face of the ‘bad boy’ of the moment, and the one most likely to leave a lasting imprint on popular culture is the media prankster.
When considering the location of borders and boundaries in official media practice, it is important to note the ground already gained by characters who could be referred to as borderline media pranksters. Falling into this category would be envelope pushing American media personalities such as David Letterman and Howard Stern, and animated series such as The Simpsons, Beavis and Butthead,and South Park. The irreverent style characteristic of these personalities and programmes flies in the face of everything network broadcasting has come to be known for. With fact, fiction, sincerity, and satire in constant collision with each other in this new broadcast discourse, the “communicative ethos” of broadcasting becomes an endangered species. Furthermore, this new brand of discourse is being stylistically reproduced in advertising and the day-to-day language of fans and viewers.
This trickle-down effect aside, the media prankster seems less intent on discrediting the media as institution than in the degree to which s/he can play with media protocol and manipulate the public’s faith and belief in the media. The substantive question with regard to media culture is no longer the political economy-based ‘is the media too powerful?’ but, rather, to what extent is media authority taken at face value? That is to say, if someone has a camera and a microphone and is asking a set of questions, are they assumed to be part of something called the ‘legitimate’ media, and if so, is the behaviour of the ‘interviewee’ adjusted accordingly? The net result with the media pranksters analysed in this dissertation is that most of the time, disbelief is suspended, even though what we’re being confronted with is clearly not the media encounter as it once existed.
It may also be useful to think about the prankster phenomenon as a result of a media-saturated society of the 1990s, and how (particularly in the 2000 summer of the ever popular reality TV programs, this enduring trust and acceptance of a ubiquitous media presence may be on the brink of change. A recent article on the current ratings-topping ‘reality TV’ shows, which have lately become nothing short of obsessions in North America and Europe, addresses the impact of a pervasive media. Statistics presented in the article include: 10,000+ live cameras continuously transmitting signals from various locales around the world, and another 250,000 personal webcams broadcasting the minutiae of life on a part-time basis. The idea that events that were previously thought to be inappropriate for broadcast are now netting record numbers of viewers, is germane to the discussion of the allure of the media prankster.
The aim of this chapter has been to establish some personal theories with regard to the case of the media prankster, in particular his/her role in what appears to be the larger cultural process of a neutralization of the iconoclastic. What this means to media culture is that what used to be thought of as amateur, irreverent, and inappropriate must now be reconsidered. In the place of old ideas about media integrity, balance, and professionalism come new ideas about the opening up of broadcast discourse and the media environment as a playground, not just workplace. Inarguably, conventional media superstructures continue to wield a great deal of power, but the runaway popularity of the media prankster would suggest that certain voices of opposition, once kept outside media discourse, are no longer relegated to a position of disadvantage. Just as those who were at one located outside the music industry, then given a voice as a result of the upheavals of the punk movement, the media prankster phenomenon mixes up the rules of work and play, rendering the old rules about professionalism and protocol obsolete. Exactly how the prankster does this will be considered in the next chapter on methods and analysis, where we will be observing and analyzing specific media pranksters.
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