Cultural studies

While I like to think that all of this grad school has a good influence on me, I wonder if it isn't sucking the fun out of me. It has made me hyper-aware and a bit more cynical. Then again, it also gives me a new appreciation for other things. It's tweaking my sense of humor. When two articles jump out in the same day, there is no ignoring.

The first covers a new YouTube phenomenon. A redux of "Take On Me" by A-ha video, where they pretty much redid the video by literally narrating. It's hilarious! Combines two of my favorite things - 80s New Wave and the postmodern!

The other was meant to be funny, but the more I thought about it, the more it bugged me. Dumb criminal story. A couple of guys found guilty of blaring their music were subjected to "creative sentencing." Instead of the usual fine or mundane slap on the wrist, these guys were sentenced to 20 hours of classical music, to combat their taste in rap. On one hand, it's poetic. On the other, (and here is where all that theory starts to kick in), ridiculously elitist. Just Monday, my Cultural Studies class was discussing Marxist responses to mass culture, which pretty much ended up mass culture = pop culture = bad. High art = "authentic" = good, thus privileging stuff generated by singular "genius" such as classical music, Impressionist painting, and other things by dead white guys. Isn't a little elitist, even racist, to privilege classical over rap? And who is to say you can't blare classical? Then again, no one would be called out on for blaring classical.

To combat, I watch crappy Grey's Anatomy.