Hero Story, Variant 7.b

[koganbot]

Here's a (slightly reworded) post of mine from an ongoing dialogue between me and Dave Moore over on Cure for Bedbugs. I was responding via Haloscan to his post of Jan. 9; he replied in his entry for Jan. 11. The discussion is about what basic bad arguments and bad assumptions those who sneer at Ashlee-Lindsay-Paris are making, but I'm also trying to probe into what interesting, deep, powerful, culture-wide, and maybe good Hero Stories the bad arguments and assumptions feed off of. So I'm continuing a conversation from chapters 1 and 7 of my book.

Bear in mind that variant 7.b of the basic Critic Hero Story is "Everyone's being snookered but me," and that this story can be applied to almost anything. Take, for example, my complaint in the first Why Music Sucks back in 1987 that the indie-alternative world lets the symbol stand in for the effect (e.g., symbolizing rebellion rather than actually creating a rebellion): Whether it was the performer, the audience, or some backstage financier who was calling the shots wasn't a big issue for me, since I was assuming that performer and audience were both happy to maintain and support each other in their delusion. But I was saying that Indieland was snookering itself and that I saw this and that most other indie people didn't. So, my point is that though the sneering at Ashlee and Lindsay and Paris is shallow and ugly and stupid and wrong, it still draws on some impulses within the culture that you and I and probably most other people we come across share. That is, Ashlee bashers think Ashlee (or Ashlee Plus Handlers) are selling her audience a bill of goods; but then you and I think that the Ashlee bashers are selling their readers a bill of goods. Of course we're right and the Ashlee bashers are wrong, which makes a difference; but nonetheless, both they and we ride an urge to tell the basic Hero Story. And so I want to partially reverse what counts as cause and effect here, to note that there's a self-feeding circle: What's going on isn't only that the haters make certain assumptions about Britney and Ashlee and the bizzers and the manipulators and the manipulated, and therefore tell this story of Ashlee and her audience being manipulated. Rather, the haters (also) make these assumptions so that they can tell the story. Now, I don't want to go all French here and overstate the case by saying that the story is paramount. (It's not as if everyone must tell the story, or that the story exists for no reason.) But rather I want to keep in mind that what we're calling "assumptions" are usually ad hoc. So when the Idolators sneer at Paris for lacking previous musical experience and at her audience for buying her CD despite her unacceptable résumé, this isn't because (1) they believe in a basic principle that all performers must have previous demonstrable musical experience to be valid or good, or (2) they believe that pop idols in general have little musical experience unless it's been demonstrated otherwise (interesting that they assume that Paris couldn't ever, say, have had piano lessons and couldn't have learned anything at dances and clubs etc.). Rather, they're just coming up with things that momentarily support their sneer and support their stance. (Or that's the way it seems to me, not having access to their minds or discussing with them what they think they're trying to do.)

Comments

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Although, also important to this discussion, a lot of times "everyone" is only suggested, and the 7.bs' targets are very specific. When I think of my favorite Pauline Kael pieces, I think of when she just ruthlessly cuts down some of her more prominent peers -- she wasn't just saying "everyone is beeing fooled but me," she was saying "BOSLEY CROWTHER at the NEW YORK TIMES is a fool, and he's trying to fool you, the reader, you who is also reading me. And here is how and why."

One thing I don't see a whole lot of in current music writing is this sort of exchange between critics. Idolator (for instance) frequently calls out Pitchfork-the-entity for being pretentious (or whatever) but they don't challenge the writers or, more importantly, what it is that the writers really write. They don't really name names (technically they publish the author's name, of course) and the writing is said to be "self-evidently" ridiculous (which it usually isn't...in fact, they've attacked lines that I really liked when I first read them in context).

And speaking of Crowther, Kael refers to the "reverse acumen that makes him invaluable," which I think could (sometimes) be applied to Stephen Thomas Erlewine, whose reviews I read all the time and whose opinions I respect, and with whom I disagree violently almost all of the time (even when our [original] star ratings are the same!).

[koganbot]

Wait, you and I and Eppy and Mordy and Chuck and Greg and Lex and Alex and a couple of Tims and Sterling and Moggy and (over on Rolling Country) Edd and Matt and Roy and Don are continually questioning and elaborating on each other's ideas. It's just that practically no one else is paying attention.

I don't think Kael and Sarris learned a damn thing from each other during their blasts at each other over the auteur theory.

[koganbot]

That said, I've been very frustrated over the last 20 years (in WMS and in ilX) at how few people are willing to sustain an intellectual conversation, or even know how to.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

"Exchange" maybe isn't the right word for what I'm describing in this case...more like SMACKDOWN. I mean words that can draw blood, words that make people really reconsider why it is they think what they think or write what they write (or "wrote what they wrote," to be more specific), even if they ultimately don't do anything about it.

As far as auteur theory is concerned, I'm generally against it. I think that puts me more in Kael's camp, though I haven't read much of Kael on it and haven't read any of Sarris on it. But I have been in film school with a bunch of "auteur" bozos, so maybe I'm prejudiced.

[koganbot]

Naw, you're not against the auteur theory, or you'd be smackin' me down, since I'm "auteurist" all the way. Odd thing - reason I put "auteurist" in quotation marks - is that I'm not particularly interested in the question "Who is the author of the song or film?" (except when I'm trying to figure out whether it's Kara or Ashlee I should fall in love with). I'm willing to credit corporations and zeitgeists, if I feel like it. But "mise en scène" - which basically means "musical or cinematic choices" - is the crucial concept, not "author." Reread chapter 17 and chapter 3 or my book, and realize that where a Cahiers guy like Rivette would have said "artist's vision," I'm talking about "social relations," but that it's still basically the same thing. And of course I like to bring audiences and critics into the game (their social relations/visions).

Trouble with smackdowns is that the smackers tend to go into litigation mode, which means that they look for weaknesses and vulnerabilities. True intellectuals go after an adversary's strength, because that's what interests them.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Well I guess if you can be an auteurist who doesn't (necessarily) give a crap about authorship, I can get behind that. You can also be a filmmaker who doesn't make films.

Actually I'm way more interested in the second point. I deleted a part of my last comment where I basically said that lots of writers, music and otherwise, are content to fiercely and uncompromisingly draw straw (which I followed with "har har"). Including me plenty of the time (sometimes you get red straw). But this might actually be a common flaw of the 7.b critic, who can substitute "everyone but me" for whatever or whoever it is he or she is really getting at.