;)
Monday
May262014
The Commentariat -- May 27, 2014
Internal links removed.
Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "President Obama is expected to announce on Monday an Environmental Protection Agency regulation to cut carbon pollution from the nation's fleet of 600 coal-fired power plants, in a speech that government analysts in Beijing, Brussels and beyond will scrutinize to determine how serious the president is about fighting global warming. The regulation will be Mr. Obama's most forceful effort to reverse 20 years of relative inaction on climate change by the United States, which has stood as the greatest obstacle to international efforts to slow the rise of heat-trapping gases from burning coal and oil that scientists say cause warming." ...
... Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic provides "a quick guide to what's going on [re: the EPA regs] and why it's so important."
Ed Pilkington of the Guardian: "President Barack Obama is preparing to set out his vision for America's role in the world following the final withdrawal from Afghanistan, in a commencement address to the US military academy at West Point on Wednesday. In a speech that is being seen as the president's rebuttal to critics who have attacked his foreign policy as perilously adrift, Obama is expected to articulate his vision of a 'new stage' in America's relations with the world post-Iraq and Afghanistan."
Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Obama, just back from a surprise visit to the troops in Afghanistan, honored America's fallen warriors in a solemn Memorial Day ceremony on Monday and acknowledged the need to confront the widening scandal at the nation's veterans hospitals":
President Obama takes a walk in Washington:
Another surprise visit:
Dissing Veterans on Memorial Day Weekend. Classy. Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "Senator Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, the ranking Republican on the Veterans Affairs Committee ..., angry that only the American Legion has called for the resignation of the veterans affairs secretary, Eric Shinseki, accused [other veterans] groups of being 'more interested in defending the status quo within V.A., protecting their relationships within the agency, and securing their access to the secretary and his inner circle' than in helping members. The ;Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Disabled American Veterans and the Paralyzed Veterans of America hit back hard."
Ann Hornaday of the Washington Post: Elliot "Rodger’s rampage may be a function of his own profound distress, but it also shows how a sexist movie monoculture can be toxic for women and men alike.... Movies may not reflect reality, but they powerfully condition what we desire, expect and feel we deserve from it. The myths that movies have been selling us become even more palpable at a time when spectators become their own auteurs and stars on YouTube, Instagram and Vine.... When the dominant medium of our age -- both as art form and industrial practice -- is in the hands of one gender, what may start out as harmless escapist fantasies can, through repetition and amplification, become distortions and dangerous lies." ...
... Gee, Seth Rogen & Judd Apatow didn't much care for Hornaday's column. Taking responsibility for the side effects of your own success is hard to do. ...
... Brittney Cooper in Salon: "Our society is fundamentally premised on making sure that straight, middle-class (upper class in Rodger's case) white men have access to power, money, and women. And while we have no problem from President Obama, down to Paul Ryan, down to the preacher in the pulpit talking about pathological Black masculinity, we seem wholly uninterested in talking about pathological white masculinity, which continues to assert itself in the most dangerous and deadly of ways." ...
... Jennifer Medina of the New York Times: "... many women interviewed on [the UCSB] campus and commenting online said they believed that some of the attitudes toward women expressed by the gunman, Elliot O. Rodger, in his perverse manifesto of rage and frustration reflect some views that are echoed in the mainstream culture. This conversation comes as college administrators nationwide are confronting increased attention, including from the White House, over reports of sexual abuse against female students." ...
... Los Angeles Times: "Elliot Rodger, the man behind the deadly attacks in Isla Vista near UC Santa Barbara, was able to legally obtain three guns despite a history of depression and having been under the care of a therapist for some time.... Adam Winkler, a UCLA law professor and expert on gun laws, said that, in general, a diagnosis of mental illness doesn't affect a person's right to own a gun in California unless the matter has been adjudicated by a court or the person has voluntarily checked into a mental facility." ...
... CW: Yesterday a couple of readers recommended Charles Pierce's essay on Memorial Day. I skipped it for two reasons: (1) Wendy's doesn't let me read that filth! (2) I had a feeling Pierce would elide or ignore the sexual exploitation component of the Isla Vista story. He did. Pierce is a little like Thomas Jefferson. When he is good, he is very, very good. But he has a very big blind spot. In Pierce's case, it's women. He doesn't think we count for much.
Why did they start with abortion clinics? Because it begins with the letter 'A'? -- Appeals Court Judge Richard Posner, asking why a Wisconsin law required doctors to have hospital admitting privileges at clinics that provided abortions but not at other outpatient clinics that performed procedures with higher complication rates ...
... "Undue Burden." Emily Bazelon of Slate: "We've reached the Rubicon, and if we cross it, abortion clinics will disappear from parts of the U.S. map. The weirdest thing is that the whole script has been written for an audience of one -- Supreme Court swing voter Justice Anthony Kennedy."
Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "United States Special Operations troops are forming elite counterterrorism units in four countries in North and West Africa that American officials say are pivotal in the widening war against Al Qaeda's affiliates and associates on the continent, even as they acknowledge the difficulties of working with weak allies."
Joan Walsh of Salon: After Obama, the GOP has nowhere to go: "Having ceded to the far right on issues like immigration reform, health care, climate change, tax reform, infrastructure spending and the minimum wage -- often repudiating historically Republican ideas in the process -- they are left with no way to reach out beyond the confines of the 48 percent of the voters -- albeit 60 percent of white voters -- they seem to have consolidated." ...
... CW: Liberals so often underestimate the adaptability of the GOP. It's crazy now, because Republicans know they can win with crazy. Despite the final count (& Electoral College rout), they even came close to winning the White House in 2012. When their Tea Party strategy quits working, most will go back to being "reasonable" on some social issues. That's true even now: in the Northeast you get a Chris Christie & a Kelly Ayotte. ...
... Juan Williams, in the Hill, on the women's vote in 2016. CW: Pretty interesting. I especially enjoyed the war of words between Elizabeth Warren & that snarling, wire-haired terrier Tim Geithner (my apologies to actual dogs).
Conservative (definition): Screw the Poor. Matt Bruenig of Salon the the latest conservative policy "reform": "... the biggest horror show of all is the tax reform proposal, which is nothing more than the usual screw-the-poor pablum.... The net affect of all of this is that, under the proposal, a family making $70,000 per year who had twins would receive more than $7,000 per year in child welfare payments via the tax code. A family making $10,000 or $15,000 per year who had twins might receive a few hundred dollars in child welfare payments, if any at all. They'd also have the pleasure of seeing their current federal income tax rate of 10 percent bump up to 15 percent.
Toby Harnden of Real Clear Politics: Glenn Greenwald "is to reveal names of US citizens targeted by their own government in what he promises will be the 'biggest' revelation from nearly 2m classified files.... Greenwald said the names would be published via The Intercept, a website funded by Pierre Omidyar, the billionaire founder and chairman of eBay."
Driftglass: Apparently NBC has a new plan to improve "Meet the Press": pre-empt it with road races. ...
... CW: BTW, I skipped the last Ben Carson outrage when I saw it yesterday on Crooks & Liars, but Driftglass does reprise it. It goes without saying that being a brilliant surgeon does not make you a decent human being.
Senate Race
Mitch McConnell says dismantling ObamaCare -- which he continues to propose -- is "unconnected" to Kentucky's popular version of ObamaCare -- called Kynect. Joe Sonka of LEO Weekly: "Saying that Kynect is unconnected with the ACA or its repeal is just mind-numbingly false. The ACA and Kynect are one in the same." Via Greg Sargent.
Congressional Race
Tony has been a longtime supporter of the rights of citizens to keep and bear arms and will continue to oppose, and actively fight, any legislation that would take away our 2nd Amendment right to bear arms. As the founder of the Freedom Firearms Coalition and with a lifetime 'A' rating from the NRA, we can count on Tony Strickland to protect our constitutional rights. On June 3rd, vote for Tony Strickland for Congress. This call was paid for by Strickland for Congress. -- Part of a new robocall campaign by Tony Strickland (R), candidate for Congress & former state senator for Santa Barbara & Isla Vista; the calls began the day after the mass killing in the area
Beyond the Beltway
Yes, this is still the Mississippi state flag.Jerry Mitchell of the Jackson, Mississippi Clarion-Ledger: " In an echo of Mississippi's past, a Justice Court judge [in Canton, Mississippi,] is accused of striking a mentally challenged young man and yelling, 'Run, n-----, run.' The family has filed a complaint with police against Madison County Justice Court Judge Bill Weisenberger, who is white, alleging he struck their 20-year-old African-American son, Eric Rivers, on May 8 at the Canton Flea Market." CW: Mississippi's past? The racial animus among the state's white population is pretty much the same, past, present and -- likely -- future.
News Ledes
Washington Post: "Pro-Russian separatists said Tuesday they sustained big losses in a gun battle Monday for control of this city's international airport as sporadic shooting continued around the airport. A top Donetsk separatist leader, Pavel Gubarev, posted on his Facebook page early Tuesday that a rocket-propelled grenade hit a truck that was carrying wounded separatists from the battle at the airport, killing an estimated 35 and injuring 15. His claim could not immediately be confirmed." ...
... Guardian: "An insurgent rebel has claimed at least 30 fighters' bodies have been brought to a hospital following a day of heavy fighting in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine."
Washington Post: "Narendra Modi became India's prime minister Monday, a little more than a week after his party scored a decisive victory at the polls."
Wall Street Journal: "Analysis of the final ping transmission between Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and an Inmarsat PLC satellite found the missing jetliner was likely descending after running out of fuel, according to Australian air-accident investigators." ...
... Guardian: "Satellite data used to narrow down the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, MH370, has been released after demands from relatives of the passengers. The data [pdf], which was drawn up by the British company Inmarsat, was released 80 days after the Boeing vanished with 239 people on board."
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Reader Comments (17)
The VFW letter to Senator Burr is great:
http://www.vfw.org/News-and-Events/Articles/2014-Articles/VFW-Comment-on-Senator-Burr%E2%80%99s-Open-Letter-to-Veterans/
Here's the money paragraph:
"If we’ve been remiss in anything Senator, we’ve been remiss in being too polite with Congress. For years, the VFW has come to Congress with hat in hand and for years, we’ve heard the same old story. You can be assured Senator, that you’ve done a superb job in showing us the error in our ways. You can also be assured that in the future, we will spend a substantial percentage of our time seeking to inform our members and our constituents of the repeated failure to act by our elected officials. We will not stand by and let our members be distracted by rhetoric or finger-pointing and we certainly won’t abide our veterans being used as political footballs. And you can be sure that we will let our membership know the low-regard you hold for their organization."
Senator Burr and his type in Congress know that they can't get at General Shinseki without having that wrecking ball swing back and whack their hypocritical selves. The GOP stalled the (Bernie Saunders) effort to establish VA capacity to reduce wait times, and now all the vet organizations (except maybe the Legion) are going to take the gloves off and shame members for their individual votes. If the vet orgs follow through, it will be interesting to see how all those chickenhawks weather the assault. The timing could not be better, or worse depending on your point of view, with six months to go before vets vote. Maybe something good will come out of this after all.
The congressional mendacity on the subject of vet care is just too much.
Also ... the other day Marie asked folks to share Memorial Day thoughts. Here's one: One day in Viet Nam our crew was shooting the breeze, and the subject came up: what do you want to be when you grow up? (We were all kids.) One of the crewchiefs just said: "old."
So, now most of us are, and should be grateful for that.
And, while we are talking VA medical care, here is a reminder about the "iron triangle" of medicine:
You can have any two of the following, but not all three:
-- high quality
-- rapid access
-- reasonable cost
This applies to many systems, not just medicine. But, in most other systems, technological advances, mass production and productivity gains usually allow rapid cycling among the three (think of the quality/access/cost of your computer) to keep things "ok."
Not so in medical care. Better technology (drugs, equipment, knowledge) creates new demand. The healthier a population the longer it's members live, the more services they require. Fifty years ago Dick Cheney would be dead, now he's a walking cost-center (heart recipient). And so on.
The VA has been offering vets low cost (to the vet) and high quality (for most) but the rapid access remains a problem. To solve that problem will take a lot of $, among other things. Or VA could go full bureaucrat and offer low cost, low quality, and rapid access. Any predictions?
@Patrick; Thanks for that one; "Old"; lucky us.
Ann Hornaday's piece on a possible source for the angst, misogyny, and warped male/female social roles expressed so startlingly in Elliot Rodger's final message to the world before beginning a murderous rampage across a California campus elicited comments both thoughtful and thick, profoundly sad and patently stupid.
These reactions are quite instructive however, especially the stupid ones, not because they come from potential serial killers, but because they originate from a point that Rodger would likely recognize. A locus of intersecting but unrealized and thoroughly unexamined (and therefore wholeheartedly embraced) cultural roles and narratives.
Hornaday makes a point of directing attention to the fantasy storylines of Judd Apatow movies which often depict a nebbishy, socially awkward doofus landing the most desirable women (even the metaphor "landing" reduces the women in the films to something less than human, something to be caught and hung on the wall or consumed).
This critique raised the ire of Seth Rogen who has frequently collaborated with Apatow as said nebbishy loser who gets the girl, as well as fans of their films. The role of the "hot chick" in one of these masterpieces, "Knocked Up", Katherine Heigl, was apparently not a fan of the finished product. She saw the film as '"...a little sexist,' claiming that the film 'paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight.'" Apatow himself responds that his characters "...are sexist at times… but it's really about immature people who are afraid of women and relationships and learn to grow up." Which seems to fit perfectly with the type of fans who are lobbing grenades at Hornaday.
Fans point to the fact that Apatow's films focus on outsider males who find that they are okay after all and not the losers they thought themselves to be. Nothing wrong with this. It's very useful for those who consider themselves outcasts. The difference is that after humorously figuring it all out, they still get what they want, something that will elude even the most insightful of us, nebbishy or not. So it's still a fantasy. The fact that Apatow's fans seem to be unable to differentiate fantasy from realistic depictions of life is troubling. And this isn't to say that fantasy has no place in fiction narratives. Not at all. But it is a recognition that the verisimilitude of film often makes those fantasies too realistic to be seen on their own terms.
Comments to the Gawker piece Marie links are representative of those I've seen on other sites, charging that Hornaday and other women are using this latest tragedy to promote themselves and arranging for book deals and personal enrichment. Others simply state that women are money grubbing whores, (ever hear men described this way?) suggesting that all men suck, yadda, yadda, yadda. You can fill in the rest, responses that Rodger would no doubt second.
As a quick sidebar, I've noticed that hundreds of "fans" have "liked" comments posted demanding that Hornaday respond to Rogen and Apatow's "critiques" and roundly criticizing her for not doing so. Hmmm.....so far as I can tell, Rogen's "critique" is a tweet (Twitter being such an exceptionally appropriate forum for articulate and insightful debate on points of such depth) to say that Hornaday's piece is "insulting and misinformed". Okay. Insulting how? Misinformed how? Rogen doesn't say. Apatow is even more eloquent. To him Hornaday is "self-promoting and idiotic". All they leave out is the "STFU you fucking bitch" part.
These, I don't need to point out, are not critiques. They are eighth grade schoolyard taunts, usually shouted as the taunter is running in the opposite direction. In so many ways, Apatow and Rogen prove the toxicity, misogyny and cluelessness of the culture Hornaday is describing.
This doesn't mean that these people are killers in waiting, but it does mean that they are unconscious victims (subjects, consumers, producers whatever you want to call them) of the multilayered dominant narratives developed, encouraged, and promoted by the vast majority of Hollywood products, both film and television.
This brings us to the next point of contention, the Valley of Black and White where it's either the media's fault or it's not the media's fault.
What people seem to miss is the more nuanced point that it's never "just" the media's fault. The storylines, narratives, and characters we see on TV and in films, are for the most part (there are certainly some exceptions, but they are just that--exceptions) reflective of the culture. They also refine these narrative tropes and mix them back into the culture in ways that make it nearly impossible to extract a single thread which will lead to The Answer. It's all of a piece. So to quote numerous studies saying the video games and movies are not responsible for violent, misogynistic behavior willfully misinterprets the evidence. Just because we can't point to the fact the little Jimmy played "Grand Theft Auto 3" then went out and ran down a hooker and killed five people doesn't mean that GTA3 and Judd Apatow movies, and the Fast and Furious series, and hundreds of other cultural texts don't add to and enhance the general culture's view of women, men, their connections, social standing, signs and significations of cultural success, is being willfully--and dangerously--obtuse.
I don't believe the answer is censorship. I don't exactly know what the answer is, quite frankly, except the general cure of better education and an attempt on the part of creators of some of these texts to, now and then, try to be less taken in by the cultural tropes (realizing that often these are the gold bricks with which many build their castles), and more frequently interested in describing and encouraging a more subtle understanding of the complex world of women and men.
And if you'd like to talk about it, take my advice. Stay away from Twitter. If you're not G.B. Shaw, Friedrich Nietzsche, or Tina Fey, it will only make matters worse.
And one final thought. Would the ire directed toward Hornaday by the Rogens, Apatows, and their fans have been quite so vitriolic (not to say vicious) if the critique were written by a man?
@AK; "I don't exactly know what the answer is, quite frankly, except the general cure of better education..."
Warning! The following is an opinion from an old guy who does not watch movies. Say what you want but to me a parent that buys a confused, unbalanced kid a new BMW so to improve the kid's lousy self-confidence is just as fucked up as the kid is. "Here kid, the answer to your problems is a set of car keys." No movie has more influence than what mom and dad think and if mom and dad find satisfaction and self-worth in material things so will their off-spring.
JJG,
I wasn't ignoring the family part of the equation. That, obviously, is the most important. The elision was came because my comment was centered on the media culture since that was what concerned Hornaday and her respondents.
Without a doubt, parenting at one remove, or in absentia, as in many cases ("here's your BMW, now quit bugging me") is the essential piece of the puzzle. Right up there with taking a clearly disturbed, not to say deranged, kid, to a shooting range, and keeping plenty of weapons around the house. Good idea, Mrs. Lanza.
There are so many layers to this onion (I didn't even touch on the NRA/cowardly politician layer) but bad or nonexistent parenting is a particularly big one. I don't know a lot about this kid's home life, but apparently in this case, at least, the mother knew he was trouble. She saw some of his whacko videos and reached out to his therapist. Cops got involved but apparently didn't know about the videos and concluded, after a visit, that the kid was no more troublesome than Eddie Haskell.
The parents were obviously aware and disturbed enough to get police involved but somewhere things broke down.
I'm not qualified to comment on how these kinds of mental health issues are dealt with or what triggers more robust involvement of authorities, (calling Kate, calling Kate...) but a kid this fucked up with access to guns has got to be serious trouble.
Again.
Blaming Hollywood for our social dystopia is silly, kinda like blaming the Pope for the behavior of the parishioners. As that sage of the footlights Bob Hoskins said, “Hollywood’s all about the fucking money.” When there’s no acceptance of the current stereotypes, there will be no movies portraying the current stereotypes. And JJG’s right about the BMW.
Akhilleus,
Very thoughtful comment. Thanks.
Certainly the role of the media in the dissemination and creation (for it does do both) of culture deserves more attention, for as you say, the institutions we have charged with informing us do far more than that. They are but a part of a complicated cultural, now technology-laced system, which while it passes ideas and facts around, also creates the narrative in which they are embedded, as well as providing the keys to the ways we decode it.
Communication is never as straightforward as we think (and as we would like) it to be. Whatever we say or attempt to say, if it first gets out in the rough shape we intended, is always filtered through the listener's veil of experience, bias and comprehension. Most grant writing is "creative," but few notice how "creative" listening, seeing or reading often is. Only rarely will two or more people confronted with the same "message" see or hear exactly the same thing, let alone conclude the the same thing from what they have seen or heard.
Maybe more and better education about how we communicate with one another and immense complexity of the process is the answer. I hope so. But in the face of the common and understandable urge (imperative?) to simplify, this morning I have more hope than faith.
James,
As I mentioned before, I'm not blaming Hollywood for everything. I am suggesting that the kinds of stereotypes promulgated by pop culture products add to the cultural soup from which millions derive cues for self worth and identification. I don't think that's a radical or naive suggestion.
I'm not in any way ruling out all the other many avenues from which a sense of self worth and understanding and appreciation of others becomes woven into the fabric of anyone's personality, especially that of the family. My comment, as I mentioned to JJG, was tethered to the Hornaday article and the comments she received. That was it. A complete explication of the issues would take far more space (and time) than I have here today. And in any event, in many instances fathers and mothers themselves are subjected to (and products of) the same cultural influences as their kids and often don't recognize how powerful their attractions can be, and thereby transmit and even amplify damaging impulses and characterizations to their own kids.
Of course Hollywood, as any other producer of cultural information, is about the money. But not recognizing its outsized influence, especially for kids, is just as unhelpful as blaming it for everything.
I'm suggesting that it isn't black and white; that there are a multiplicity of issues at play here and recognizing the nature of their intersection and cross fertilization can be useful. Otherwise, we exist, unconsciously, and unable to act positively, in a world created by the dominant ideology of imagery and social structure.
Ken,
Excellent point about the subjectivity of the listener/reader/viewer. I'm sometimes amazed that we can communicate at all. I've suggested before that kids need to be taught (along with everything else) how to be good (adept and thoughtful) consumers of information. Teaching them how creative listening/reading works would be a great first step, for them, to a more reliable, less filtered and obscured way of knowing themselves and the world they inhabit.
In other news, 70, you live, 71, you die. Or do you?
The Supremes have ruled on another case concerned with the ongoing absurdity that is capital punishment in this country. In Lee v Florida (where else?), the state has been delayed in its quest to put an inmate to death (how now? Lethal injection? 'lectric chair? Hanging? Death by reading the collected works of Louie Gohmert?), because no one knows if mental disability has a fixed number.
Prior to this, if a Florida death row resident rang up a 70 or below Floridians saw black smoke. No execution. Inmate intellectually challenged. But if the same guy made a 71 (white smoke), he was considered plenty smart enough to get the axe. Knowing that you can unscramble ATC to make CAT might be the difference between life in prison and lethal injection.
But now the Supreme Court (5-4, natch), trying to be a tad more humane, has decided that it's a bit silly to allow states to determine someone's fitness for execution in such a questionable manner (because allowing someone to get the death penalty even though they were given a drunk lawyer to defend them who slept through the trial isn't questionable at all) and so are attempting to make things a bit more humane and reasonable (I guess).
But, surprise, surprise, the wingnuts on the court can't handle either.
In fact, Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Scalia, all think death by numbers is fine and dandy. Alito, who wrote the dissent, goes so far as to complain that allowing psychiatric professionals to weigh in on psychiatric issues (one of the suggested solutions) is unconstitutional. I assume, for Alito, consulting a cardiologist on whether or not someone's heart is about to explode is not as acceptable as a made up number assigned by a bureaucrat based on an arbitrary test.
The whole thing is absurd. I applaud (I think) the idea that five justices recognize that there are problems with the way capital punishment is applied, but trying to fix this system is a bit like medieval astronomers inventing ever more preposterous technical gimmicks to keep the earth at the center of the universe. The entire premise is flawed.
Why can't we just admit that capital punishment is a terrible and inhumane solution and find something more worthwhile to argue about?
Like why those people just below the line in an IQ test aren't intellectually competent to be put to death but are just A-OK for purchasing and using deadly weapons.
Hey kids, let's make capital punishment more humane. After that we'll work on humane forms of torture.
@Ken & Ak. How do you teach the filtering skills needed in today's society? Seems to me my father had it about right when he drilled into my head that "What's right isn't necessarily popular and what's popular isn't necessarily right." Also a healthy spoonful of, "Stop your whining, you ungrateful little shit, nobody gets everything they want."
AK: And I was saying that pop culture doesn't promulgate the stereotypes, it feeds off them. They are promulgated by our tribes, and used by various tribal chieftans to accumulate power and wealth.
JJG,
The advice passed on by your dad were both types of filters, albeit somewhat on the blunt side. But you seem to have learned to use those filters very nicely judging by the fact that you seem to be a quite reasonable and amiable chap, with roots firmly placed in the soil of reality. So I would say you were able to successfully employ those lessons.
There are so many more sources of noise these days. Kids can use all the help they can get. Some years ago I developed a media course for teaching kids how to weigh and filter what they saw communicated as television news. It was pretty successful, judging by the responses, so there are many kinds of filtering mechanisms that can be passed on.
And your dad's advice is still extremely useful. Especially the "stop whining" part.
James,
Sorry to disagree, but promulgation of stereotypes is a big part of what pop culture is all about.
I certainly don't disagree with your contention that there are certain cultural conductors (tribal chieftains, as you call them) who benefit greatly by the promotion of certain imagery, but the workings of cultural formulations is sometimes just as invisible to those employing them as it is to those consuming them. That, in a nutshell, is the definition of ideology.
There are, without a doubt, those who fashion their cultural products or texts with the aid of a cynical affect, but I would bet that most of those who re-purpose cultural tropes do so with much more than a semblance of an idea that they're on to something authentic, no matter how pre-fabbed or pre-approved those ideas are to begin with. Barbie and Ken are iconic for a reason.
Propagation and at least tacit acceptance of cultural norms is part of what binds us together, for better or worse. It's not in the interest of most producers of pop cultural artifacts to scream "the emperor has no clothes" so they simply promote what they know works. In some ways we, the imbibers of culture, are as much in the business of propagation as pop culture icons.
That's promulgation.
Sorry. Didn't mean to get into an ontogeny/phylogeny discussion. But I'm old enough to remember when comic strips were the cause of the countries woes. Same shit, new generation. And JJG's still right about the BMW. The rest is masturbation.
James,
So anything beyond the simplest, most pithy explanation is masturbation?
Okay.