Pratchett Fan speaks out against mediocre pop culture.
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Written by terrypratchettbooks.org
Friday, 15 July 2005 |
Ryan Nyburg says:
“I thought you didn’t like popular stuff.”
You would be surprised at how often I hear this. It’s the sort of uninformed assumption people make when they haven’t bothered to really get to know a person. There are a few easy categorizations that people have, and apparently it’s simpler to fit me into one of them than it is to just ask me what my preferences are.
Either people think I’m some kind of pop culture Luddite, bemoaning any music created after 1970 and any film made after 1960, or, even worse, they see me as a artsy hipster, interested only in obscurity and kitsch, believing something only has value if no one else has ever heard of it.
Uggh. I shudder at the image of myself wearing vintage clothing and listening to Italian disco, or whatever wave of obscuro is trendy this minute, while I sit at the Indigo District, taking hits of flavored tobacco off my hookah and criticizing Cameron Crowe for being “too Anglo.”
I’ll be the first to admit I can be a little snobbish about things. But sometimes it’s better to be snobbish than it is to be an idiot. I recently began working at a local video store, and let me tell you, nothing will lower your opinion of average Americans more than finding out their rental preferences. Mediocrity is the norm. It often feels like people don’t even try to move beyond the familiar. The depression really hits around the eighth phone caller asking if we have any copies of “Hitch” in (“Oh you mean that film about people with perfect lives and their piddly relationship problems? Yeah, we’ve got some of those.”)
But this doesn’t mean I don’t like things because they’re popular. I just don’t like things that are boring and stupid. So much of what becomes popular does so by being so inoffensively middle-of-the-road that it appeals to the broadest number of people. Most popular music, popular literature and popular films make me drowsy. I find sitting through the same themes and plots and sounds over and over again to be a rather insufferable act. Popularity is a symptom of mediocrity, not the cause.
If more popular art was exciting and fresh, I might give it more of a chance. But every time I try I find myself vastly disappointed.
I can think of maybe a small handful of television shows I find interesting and most of those will probably be canceled by the end of the year. Every time I check to see what’s on the Billboard chart I almost gag at what people are buying (Coldplay? People actually like this dull, narcissistic crap? Some millionaire, who’s married to a gorgeous actress, sings about how depressing his life is and people think he’s sincere? Aggghh! Brain hemorrhage!)
I don’t want quality art to be separate from popular art, but that’s the way it so often is. Even the best of what’s popular doesn’t really do much for me. Never could get interested in the “Harry Potter” books, and I’m about 50/50 on the films (I’m a die-hard Terry Pratchett fan, so I have trouble taking anything concerning wizards seriously anymore.) The “Lord of the Rings” films were fun to watch but left me feeling emotionally empty.
But I do still try and still hope for something better to catch on with the public at large. But once you have become familiar with the history of an artistic medium you begin to discover how much out there just retreads what has already been done.
Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got to go light up my hookah. We’re having a “Dress As Your Favorite ‘70s TV Sitcom Character” party and I need to put together my Brazilian samba playlist.
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