Rules Of The Game #31: Rockism And Antirockism Rise From The Dead

[koganbot]

Here's my latest, in which I reveal myself to be a rockist, unless that's not what I'm revealing. I also don't come to a conclusion about what rockism is. Stay tuned for the exciting sequel.

The Rules Of The Game #31: Rockism And Antirockism Rise From The Dead

EDIT: Here are links to all but three of my other Rules Of The Game columns (LVW's search results for "Rules of the Game"). Links for the other three (which for some reason didn't get "Rules Of The Game" in their titles), are here: #4, #5, and #8.

UPDATE: I've got all the links here now:

http://koganbot.livejournal.com/179531.html

Comments

[koganbot]

Also, if someone were to call Ashlee Simpson (whose name has no y in it) "inauthentic," that person probably wouldn't know what he meant by it other than that he thinks her music is all done by machine or she's a corporate puppet or she's too preppy or she had plastic surgery; by not specifying what comparison he's making, he's giving himself a way of not thinking through his own ideas and not exploring his own social attitudes and prejudices.

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

And maybe I have this problem because I hate Benjamin, or don't get Benjamin, or go blank behind the eyes at the thought of Benjamin, but: Why are we talking about Benjamin? Because he happened to use the word "authenticity," which is a word you are also using? What he was talking about when he talked about authenticity is not at all related to what you are talking about when you talk about authenticity.

The, like, single thing that I always remember from Benjamin is the thing about how a stage actor can connect with, and adjust to, the audience -- there is an interaction there that is not present for a film audience. Interaction is authentic, lack of interaction is inauthentic, right? But when someone says, "Ashlee Simpson is not authentic," they are accusing her of adjusting to an audience.

[koganbot]

Well, I didn't bring up Benjamin. But I suppose there's an echo in both Benjamin and the Ashlee hater of the 17th-century Germans who were decrying how modern life and commerce were making life unengaged and inauthentic, adjusting to audiences of course being caused by commercialism, and she's a bimbo corporate puppet anyway, and it's her sister's fault that Dallas lost because she distracted Tony from the real business at hand, blah blah blah.

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

I know. But your comment looked like the most logical entry point, so I replied to you rather than the Benjaminer(s).

(And I am being intentionally dense, in a way, because there's a pretty direct connection between Benjamin and the people who say, "Ashlee is inauthentic because she doesn't write songs on her own." Because their complaint is that Ashlee's the film actor, viewed through the lens of songwriters and marketing, not interacting with us at all. Or that the songs are the film actors, viewed through the lens of Ashlee, or something. The point is that there is an intermediate step between art and audience, and that is inauthentic by Benjamin's standards, so whatever, it is connected. [Even if it is bullshit because there is always an intermediate step between art and audience!] But FUCK HE IS BORING and rehashing this doesn't get us any closer to your point, so why do people do it?)

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

Haha, should have called them Benjaminions.

Somebody's probably already thought of that.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

I am so not a Benjaminion. Frankly I'd like to get that essay and any invocation of it outlawed from any discussion of media theory. Along with a lot of other things. (Ben-ya-MEEN-ion sounds like something they'd say on Ren and Stimpy.)

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

I refuse to pronounce it properly, that's how anti-Benjamin I am.