Andy Dehnart, Wesley Morris, and Alex Pappademas
A Patronizing Pat on the Head for Punk
By Alex Pappademas
Posted Tuesday, April 24, 2001, at 11:14 AM ETGuys,
Peter Carlson, the Washington Post's "Magazine Reader," writes about Spin's "25 Years of Punk" issue in this morning's Post.
I apologize in advance for the meta-incestuousness of posting a letter about a newspaper article about a magazine, particularly when it's a magazine I've been known to write for on occasion. But I didn't actually write anything for this issue--as anyone who knew me when I was younger will tell you, maybe a little too eagerly, I was never a punk--so there's no self-defense or self-promotion involved.
Really, my beef isn't with Carlson's take on Spin's punk retrospective--he seems to like it, and so did I--but with his tone, which is so jaw-droppingly old-fogeyish I almost want to believe he's a brilliant satirist, pitch-perfectly nailing the self-amused dismissiveness of sclerotic daily newspaper critics. His lede mentions "the subtle, sublime pleasures of punk rock music," but then he adds that "those pleasures don't include listening to the music." Yuk, yuk! "Listening to punk," he continues, "is pure torture. Punk instrumentals sound like a beer can being eaten by a garbage disposal and punk vocals sound like the anguished cry of a guy trying to retrieve his beer can from a garbage disposal."
How 1957 can you get? I was waiting for Pete to condemn the Ramones for encouraging juvenile delinquency or perhaps gum-chewing on school property. Overall, Carlson seems to like the issue--he calls it "delightful" and seems to have enjoyed all the funny quotes. There's a band that called itself Bikini Kill--those crazy kids! But most of his praise feels like a patronizing pat on the head for the genre itself. At one point, describing the essay that opens the package, he writes that while "discoursing on punk, [Eric] Weisbard goes into full-bore, pedal-to-the-metal intellectual rock critic mode." The anti-pop-music bias in that line makes me want to go, like, sniff some glue and destroy passersby. Can you imagine anybody writing a similar sentence about, say, art criticism? "Discoursing on Jan Vermeer, Peter Scheldjal goes into full-bore, pedal-to-the-metal intellectual art critic mode."
Why is it that rock writing is the only area of arts criticism in which any attempt at intelligence or intellectuality is seen as suspect? (And to flip it around, why do so many otherwise clued-in magazines and newspapers continue to let people write about popular music on such a superficial, perversely underengaged level? I'm looking at you, Nick Hornby.)
OK, I'm ranting and grinding axes, I'll stop.
AP
A Patronizing Pat on the Head for Punk
By Alex Pappademas
Posted Tuesday, April 24, 2001, at 11:14 AM ETAndy Dehnart publishes Reality Blurred, works as a Web producer and free-lance writer, and is pursuing a master of fine arts in nonfiction writing. Wesley Morris is a film critic at the San Francisco Chronicle
. Alex Pappademas is an editor at Blender
, a new music magazine. Reader Comments From The Fray:
[Notes from the Fray Editor: President Bush on drilling, MTV and the youth market: same situation? Talk to WillV here. Thread your way through all the posts saying yes they do have the ads in Chicago (we know now, OK?) and find some posted lists: Zeitguy's Rools of Cool, Paul Caniff's answers to questions, and Gypsy's theory on disco. Jared White suggests Eggertian rather than Eggersesque. Check out the checkmarks for discussions on criticism and music. For more good stuff on film reviews read in full the fascinating posts from Steve Sailer and Aluminum Man (below). Done all that? Congratulations, you are now a complete popular culture Instant Expert. (Or a Breakfast Table Fray expert--same thing.)]
At the risk of sounding churlish--or rather, gleefully trying to sound churlish--the comment of your "Breakfast Table" writer about the Bush administration--"Essentially, they're politically motivated cowards" [Monday's entry]--demonstrates an acute lack of insight into, well, one of the great features of civilization. Politically motivated bravery is usually a suspect virtue--it led Napoleon into Russia, Hoover into a principled stand against "hand-outs," and Tom DeLay into being Tom DeLay. The real problem is that the Bushies face no bullying from the other side of the aisle: nobody who is willing to demagogue them, dog them, and dice them into the neutered conservatism which was Jr.'s daddy's trademark. In the weird mores of Washington, the dogger/dicer really doesn't have to have a national constituency--just a nasty taste for institutional infighting. If only Wellstone had Gingrich's taste for lowmindedness.
--Roger
(To reply, click here.)
Having recently become the film critic for United Press International, I've been thinking a lot about these issues. The biggest problem with movie reviews in general is that reviewers are so homogenous--almost always male, white, upper middle class, with a grad degree in humanities or liberal arts, urban, high IQ, intellectual but not hugely logical or well-informed about things beyond the cultural realm like business or science or sociology, and extremely opinionated--that the tastes of huge demographic groups get ignored. I fall in most of those categories, too, but coming at a rather late age to this trade, I just don't as often experience anymore the testosterone surge that makes me want to shove my opinion down the throats of people who aren't like me.
For example, women. Over the years I've noticed that women generally don't like the same movies I like. That used to offend me greatly. I figured I could cure women of their bad taste in movies by exposing them to the really good stuff (i.e., what I liked) and explaining to them--over and over again--why it's better than the crap they liked. Slowly, though, I grew to respect women and their tastes more. I also learned that lots of other people aren't as smart as me and that making them watch what I liked to watch wasn't going to make them enjoy it more. Now, I take steps to help put myself in other peoples' shoes...
--Steve Sailer
(To reply, or to read this post in full, click here.)
Most Tom Green fans (and I'm not one of them) will have already decided to see Freddy Got Fingered a long time ago, and nothing that reviews have said (or will say) makes any difference. The same is true of the upcoming Lord of the Rings trilogy or the last installments of the increasingly awful Star Wars series. In fact, contrary to what the Breakfast Tablers are suggesting, I think most people have their minds made up about whether or not to see any given movie long before reviews hits the stands.
What informed, thoughtful, articulate critics can do is make us see, hear and understand things in movies that we otherwise might miss. They can challenge us by forcing us to examine elements that we might otherwise pass over, and make us look at a movie from a perspective perhaps unlike our own.
--Aluminum Man
(To reply, click here.)
(4/25)
What did you think of this article?
Join The Fray: Our Reader Discussion Forum
SPONSORED CONTENT
PRINT
DISCUSS
E-MAIL
RSS
RECOMMEND...
Facebook
MySpace
Mixx
Digg
Reddit
del.icio.us
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Sphere
StumbleUpon
After Fort Hood, There's No Excuse for the Ban on Women in Combat
What Does "Stable Condition" Mean? Absolutely Nothing.
Jim Carrey's Admirably Restrained Scrooge
The Great New Single That's a Little Bit Whitney Houston and a Little Bit Rusted Root
Joe Biden Explains His Gaffe-Evasion Strategy
The Box: A Creepy, Confusing Thriller From the Guy Who Brought You Donnie Darko
Reader Comments From The Fray:
[Notes from the Fray Editor: President Bush on drilling, MTV and the youth market: same situation? Talk to WillV here. Thread your way through all the posts saying yes they do have the ads in Chicago (we know now, OK?) and find some posted lists: Zeitguy's Rools of Cool, Paul Caniff's answers to questions, and Gypsy's theory on disco. Jared White suggests Eggertian rather than Eggersesque. Check out the checkmarks for discussions on criticism and music. For more good stuff on film reviews read in full the fascinating posts from Steve Sailer and Aluminum Man (below). Done all that? Congratulations, you are now a complete popular culture Instant Expert. (Or a Breakfast Table Fray expert--same thing.)]
At the risk of sounding churlish--or rather, gleefully trying to sound churlish--the comment of your "Breakfast Table" writer about the Bush administration--"Essentially, they're politically motivated cowards" [Monday's entry]--demonstrates an acute lack of insight into, well, one of the great features of civilization. Politically motivated bravery is usually a suspect virtue--it led Napoleon into Russia, Hoover into a principled stand against "hand-outs," and Tom DeLay into being Tom DeLay. The real problem is that the Bushies face no bullying from the other side of the aisle: nobody who is willing to demagogue them, dog them, and dice them into the neutered conservatism which was Jr.'s daddy's trademark. In the weird mores of Washington, the dogger/dicer really doesn't have to have a national constituency--just a nasty taste for institutional infighting. If only Wellstone had Gingrich's taste for lowmindedness.
--Roger
(To reply, click here.)
Having recently become the film critic for United Press International, I've been thinking a lot about these issues. The biggest problem with movie reviews in general is that reviewers are so homogenous--almost always male, white, upper middle class, with a grad degree in humanities or liberal arts, urban, high IQ, intellectual but not hugely logical or well-informed about things beyond the cultural realm like business or science or sociology, and extremely opinionated--that the tastes of huge demographic groups get ignored. I fall in most of those categories, too, but coming at a rather late age to this trade, I just don't as often experience anymore the testosterone surge that makes me want to shove my opinion down the throats of people who aren't like me.
For example, women. Over the years I've noticed that women generally don't like the same movies I like. That used to offend me greatly. I figured I could cure women of their bad taste in movies by exposing them to the really good stuff (i.e., what I liked) and explaining to them--over and over again--why it's better than the crap they liked. Slowly, though, I grew to respect women and their tastes more. I also learned that lots of other people aren't as smart as me and that making them watch what I liked to watch wasn't going to make them enjoy it more. Now, I take steps to help put myself in other peoples' shoes...
--Steve Sailer
(To reply, or to read this post in full, click here.)
Most Tom Green fans (and I'm not one of them) will have already decided to see Freddy Got Fingered a long time ago, and nothing that reviews have said (or will say) makes any difference. The same is true of the upcoming Lord of the Rings trilogy or the last installments of the increasingly awful Star Wars series. In fact, contrary to what the Breakfast Tablers are suggesting, I think most people have their minds made up about whether or not to see any given movie long before reviews hits the stands.
What informed, thoughtful, articulate critics can do is make us see, hear and understand things in movies that we otherwise might miss. They can challenge us by forcing us to examine elements that we might otherwise pass over, and make us look at a movie from a perspective perhaps unlike our own.
--Aluminum Man
(To reply, click here.)
(4/25)