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Culture's dumber than before-- but there's more than ever!
By
Mitzel
Why do so many people ask the same question again and again? I was thinking of my dear stepmother, now 82, who has been diagnosed with
Alzheimer's disease. Last time I saw her, she would literally ask the same
question repeatedly. No answer would satisfy her. It was very sad. And yet it occurred to me that hers is only an exaggerated condition of that which characterizes so many of what would be called ordinary healthy people.
Example: have you ever had some stranger stop you on a street, ask directions, and you give the instructions, they ask again, and you repeat your answer, and then the stranger just buzzes off in a
completely other direction? Have you ever heard a news report on the radio or the TV and know exactly where it is going, and even some of the phrases that will be used? It's like listening to pop music, hearing a new song and
already knowing the tune and the lyric. Film critic Pauline Kael said she had to give it all up; she had just seen it all before-- it kept coming round and round again. As they say in Hollywood, and likely other industries that
follow trends: We want it the same, only different.
One odd effect of having so many media outlets now available to the wired consumer is that there has been a narrowing down of the content available amidst this plethora. Where are the repertory movie
houses which screened classic French films? Back in the mid-60s, when I was a student, you had no trouble finding a house showing
Children Of Paradise, Boudu Saved From
Drowning or The Earrings Of Madame
de.... Now it's just megaplex madness, with all the big-ticket items. The day you can find something with Vanessa Redgrave in it is a day to schedule a trip to the cinema! Yes, we have the video library, but try to find the
aforementioned French titles at Blockbuster-- the block being on the shoulders of the buster.
Dumbing down? Yes. That's a given after the RayGun Years and the pop-cult fashion among the college teachers, who should know better. Wanna read Marge Garber? And in gay life too, more books
and magazines stream out, nothing to compete with the mainstream culture, surely, but many with a like attitude. All asking the same questions and giving the same answers, more or less.
Am I the only one who finds this terribly tiresome? Is our community not sated with mag spreads of underpants/swimwear models? Underpants and swimwear have their role in gay life and our culture at
large, but give me a break! I do not want to denigrate the role underwear models played in the lives of so many gay men in the past. For many older queans, those Sear's and Monkey Ward catalogs were their pornography,
only confirming for me what I've always regarded as the role of advertising: pornography manqué! But there are other parts of the cortex to be stimulated. And I think, despite the number of outlets, depth and intelligence could use some attention.
Which is why I am glad Reed Woodhouse's new book,
Unlimited Embrace, has just been published, a critical look at the gay literary canon from 1945 to 1995, and I am pleased to recommend it. Reed
includes one non-fiction writer in his survey: Boyd McDonald. It makes me miss Boyd (or is that Miss Boyd?) all the more. He not only cut through all the crap, but by the time he was finished, he had you someplace new,
not babbling the same questions, not hearing that same old tune.
Culture is an iffy thing. In a mass society, it, like government and other functions, can be administered from above, not good for folks like us. Far too many people, as my daily life is witness to, actually
believe and/or act on what they are told! And it has only gotten worse since 1981. It is reported that the Disney takeover of Times Square in New York has driven out the hookers and the hustlers. Is this a fair trade? And looking at
the Disney Corp., who is the biggest hustler of them all? I will offer this for your next meditation. The answer, if not blowing in the wind, may not be blowing anywhere... or anyone!
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