Venus Wars Army snark.

[katranna]

So I'm making myself dinner and kinda casually watching an anime on the AsianTv channel. Every time it breaks for commercial, it seems like, an ad for the US army comes on. I just think it's funny, because the anime being shown is "Venus Wars"--with the dialogue composed of things like, "war is horrible!" "the only people who profit are the

Comments

[rootlesscosmo]

Yet there's a sense in which even an anti-war movie is a war movie. Anthony Spofford's Jarhead describes Marine recruits getting pumped for combat by watching movies like Apocalypse Now--a deeply downbeat movie about a war the US lost--with no sense of ambivalence or doubt. Something about violence, any violence, seems to be exciting and even attractive, especially to young men saturated by a culture in which audiences cheer violent scenes, less I think because they're on one "side" or the other (why did people cheer when the invaders from space, in Independence Day, blew up the White House?) than because they just like seeing shit blow up. This does not bode well for a humane future, of course.

[katranna]

This has nothing to do with anything, but I went to your journal, and if you like people ragging on Sex and the City, I'd like to direct you to this entry of mine. It's more funny due to my overuse of cliche terms than the content, but anyway.

[rootlesscosmo]

I didn't think you were using cliché terms. I do however want to put in a timid word... well, let me back up for a minute. flowerlane, my beloved partner for 35 years now, represents women in family law cases here in California. Some of her clients, partly because they have illusions about what the courts can and can't do, express a strong desire to see their exes punished, for their conduct during the marriage or their unreasonableness in negotiating the terms of divorce, property division, support, custody and visitation etc. And P. has to explain to them that the moment of moral victory is just not on the menu, and the best thing to do in terms of the rights and wrongs (not the money) is (as she puts it) to disengage

[katranna]

Hmm? I'm not sure I understand your point. If you simply meant, "don't like it, don't watch it" then fair enough. I don't generally watch that show anyway, as it's pretty boring in addition to everything else.

But that post was not so much trying to engage the tv networks in dialogue--I know they don't care--as put out another perspective on the show itself, and articulate some of the damaging ideas of the show. Because people do watch it, and television does program viewers if they do not take the time to critically asess what they have seen. (Hurrah Walter Benjamin and "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction"!) And so, for as long as it continues to be watched, and for as long as other media sources continue to trumpet it as in any way revolutionary or empowering, I think it's worthwhile to disseminate the opposing viewpoint. :-)

[rootlesscosmo]

Not exactly "don't like it, don't watch it"--which is usually offered defensively, in my experience. My case is for disengaging on the basis that it's no longer worthwhile to disseminate opposing or critical viewpoints, or to unpack the layers of ideological meaning in a TV show. I don't know what Benjamin might have made of our situation but I think he would have been amenable to the Hegelian notion of a passage from quantity to quality--that the saturation of every moment of life by mechanically or electronically reproduced signs, often in several streams simultaneously, is a qualitatively different phenomenon from the movies and radio broadcasts and recorded music etc. that he knew in the 20's and 30's. Essentially what I'm saying is that the corporate meaning-makers have won, decisively and for the foreseeable future; what I've tried to do, with uneven success, has been to live as it were off the semiotic grid. I don't think this is satisfactory, any more than paying premium prices for organically grown local produce is a workable

[katranna]

Ah, ok. Your point is well taken, except that I should admit that I enjoy these angry diatribes. I guess it is a way in which I allow myself to be a suckered participant in the very culture I aim to disclaim, but I feel that as long as I am subjected to it, I might as well entertain myself. Also, I have to admit that I do find analysis of pop culture worthwhile, mostly from a sociological standpoint. I'm interested in people, and I find that pop culture is useful in determining current attitudes, etc.

[rootlesscosmo]

This makes excellent sense. My option is for reducing the amount I'm subjected to, and I find the sociological payoff ultimately too dear at the price, but there again my age is an important factor. I suppose I could interpret this fact in the opposite sense: "Send me, Cap'n, these lads have their whole lives before them!" as I wade grimly toward the swamp of Riverdance and the Farrelly Brothers, my waterproof deconstruction kit clenched between my not-quite-toothless jaws. But I take it instead as a reminder that with a limited time left, I'd rather spend it with Brahms and E. M. Forster.