From: mattm@apple.com (Matthew Melmon)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Culture (was Re: Ah, Fashion.)
Date: 8 Oct 92 16:47:34 GMT
Article-I.D.: mcmelmon.mattm-081092092207
Followup-To: soc.motss
Organization: Apple Computer, Inc.

Since Dolphie seems to have returned to his ooze, I shall have to
make do with the second string...

In article <1992Oct8.032432.22151@spdcc.com>, dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer)
wrote: 

> I know; so annoying!  A good movie is timeless, though this presumes
> you have an attention span, education and sophistication greater than
> the typical MTVidiot.  I remember seeing Louise Brooks in _Pandora's Box_
> and gasping, gripped at what was happening on screen.  It was a silent
> movie--who cared?

A good movie is not timeless.  A good movie is doomed to be late night 
filler and then forgotten, save by those with a ferocious grip on the
past.  The romantically nostalgic.  Did you really *gasp*, Dye Job?  Were
you really *gripped*?  Such overwhelming images, I'm sure.

The suspension of disbelief does not occur in viewing old movies.  There
are distracting artifacts between the viewer and the viewed which compete
with the movie itself.  The films are in black and white - artifact number
one.  Buildings, cars, streets, styles, etc., are 'antique' - artifact
number two.  The dialog and jargon belong in another time - artifact number
three.  Subtle cultural jokes, dependant upon the time period, are lost -
artifact number four.  Etc, etc.

[Dye Job continues]

> Madonna is interesting only insofaras she appropriates earlier images,
> feeding them to a new generation who (mistakenly) sees them as her own.
> She's also quite shrewd and a master at publicity and manipulating
> the media.  But there's not a whole lot new there.  And her predilection
> to cause "scandal" is simply cynicism.

The number who fail to see Madonna's use of past icons is smaller than
you blubber.  She does, after all, do us poor simple folk a favor by 
mentioning their names.  And the appropriation of past images is nothing
new to Madonna.  All the famous corpses you prattle about with such
pathos did much the same thing.  A matter, perhaps, of degree?  There 
were fewer famous corpses to appropriate from, the further back in
time one lives...  There are, of course, more than a few bimbos, of either 
sex who appropriate from the dead - the vast majority of whom have not
attained Madonna's stature.  So perhaps she has done something more?

It cannot all be written off to publicity and marketing - though nameless
fucks may certainly like to believe as much.  "Well," they think, "If
*I* had a publicity department like Madonna, *I* would be rich and
famous, too.  But of course, *I* don't want to be."  It is written, 
however, that nothing kills a bad product like good advertising.  In
the short run, people buy.  But they don't come back, and they tell
their friends not to come back.  *If* Madonna were all hype, *then* she
would have faded from the scene long ago.

As to being interesting only insofar as such and such, well - it would
be rather difficult to say what *you* are interested in, fortunate as I
am to not have made your aquaintence.  However, Madonna is certainly
interesting to a hell of a lot of people for being what she is, however
she came to be that way.  

Melmothra, ACC
Newsgroups: soc.motss