How do you suppose they divy up the royalties?
The reterritorialisation of music May 9, 2008
Well at some stage my childhood love of Looney Tunes had to emerge, and come up for discussion so here we are…
The Rabbit of Seville
“[Music] takes leave of the earth, as much in order to drop us into a black hole as to open us up to a cosmo” (Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 348 )
D & G’s argument is music has the capacity to rupture all the codes, which trap us, thus opening our prehension beyond the code. However, it is also one of the most heavily signified, categorized and bounded mediums. I don’t think there is a possibility for free music, and I’m going to use an anecdote below to discuss why.
the fabulous episode above, is a parody of The Barber of Selville, a 19th century opera by Gioachino Rossini. Now I’m sure someone has already written on parody in Looney Tunes, so I won’t concern myself with that today. My question is what happens if our only encounter with this music is through the form of parody. The first time I heard the Rossini’s score was during this episode. Thus whenever I hear the those few notes being plucked, the image of Bugs bunny massaging Elmer Fudd’s head is immediately invoked. I would suggest the only truly free music, would be what we compose ourselves, and encounter as individuals.
We rarely ever encounter anything before it has been mediated, or transposed/appropriated by someone else. Is there a possibility anymore for Deleuze’s idea of cosmos reaching music?
Also how did Bugs Bunny escape the censors! Cross-dressing, murder, and beastiality! It’s pretty insane.
Anyway at the very least enjoy the clip.
Viral marketing April 21, 2008
Why?
Stumbled across this youtube video recently. It’s a tour promotion for bluejuice and the paper scissors, Sydney bands, who are touring together in the next few months. This clip is part of a video blog they have opened up to promote their work. What intrigues me, is the multiple takes style, which is quite common these days. It can be seen in bloopers on DVD extras, or sometimes at the end of a movie if you stick around until the end of the credits (and indeed, why do they want us to stay until the end of the credits anyway?)
But what purpose does this style serve? What mode of address is at work? Like Madonna’s Truth or Dare Documentary it is opening up into a realist/doco aesthetics, which creates a stronger bond between the audience and the screen-image.
Selling Out
Why do we have this concept of ’selling out’ in the music industry? The assumption is the artists creative integrity is compromised by the major labels. Unfortunately, for the artist, if they remain on smaller labels they have limited possibilities for promotion and audience expansion. It’s a paradox, where remaining on the smaller label can mean a smaller audience, while moving to a larger label can alienate the original support base. Furthermore, selling out is only applicable to bands that operated on the periphery of the capitalist machine (I say peripheral, as I would argue that nothing can exist outside the machine).
Who stands to benefit from the ’selling out’ concept? For example, former Melbourne band motor ace allowed there single Death defy to be used as the theme song for ‘The secret life of us’, which angered many of their fans. Fortunately, for the band Five star laundry, the album featuring death defy, performed quite well in the charts. Similarly, when they released their second album Shoot this, they cross-promoted with ‘The secret life of us’, and the song ‘carry on’ was featured in multiple advertisements, including an advert for The Australian. However, they album performed fairly poorly. For a multitude of reasons, the band split while touring japan (I think). Yet they reformed to create their third album Animal. Now this is a personal opinion, but this album is phenomenal. It’s similar to Eskimo Joe’s Black Fingernail’s, Red Wine, but the lyrics are far tighter, and the production is extraordinary. Unfortunately, the promotional televisual medium, was not open to them, as the Secret life of us had been cancelled. The album bombed.
Andrew Murfett, Ace’s High, The Age. 22/06/2005:
”the band was suddenly an easy whipping boy for the indie-rock community. The critical bashing the band received is a galvanising subject.”
It’s also worth noting Robertson’s response regarding ’selling out’, as a byproduct of surviving the Australian music industry.
Maybe it also points to exchange value rupturing in the fetishist process. This is a tenuous suggestion, however selling out is almost the inverted fetish. The exchange value is decreased by the codification of the ’selling out’ process, the band/artist is no longer legitimate as part of the subculture. However, they are not accessible to mainstream listener’s either (this can be due to accessibility, both aurally and financially!)
File Sharing
Indeed, I would suggest the ’selling out’ concept and its gradual acceptance in society as an unavoidable part of the music industry is evidence of the consumer attitude towards music. We saw this during the proliferation of music file-sharing sites in the early 2000s. People could download an entire back catalogue, with relative easy and consume it just as quickly. The file sharing apparatus enables users to use music as a communicative tool between one another. It seemed to remove all other actors in the music industry from the listening experience. They existed in name only.
Video Art Pre-MTV April 15, 2008
Was just having a look around youtube can came a couple of clips by Nam June Paik, an early video art.
Firstly take a look at Global Groove a video clip with John Godfrey.
“How soonTV-chair will be available in most museums? How soon artists will have their ownTV channels? How soon wall-to-wallTV for video art will be installed in most homes?
Paik envisioned a different television, a “global groove” of artists’ expressions seen as part of an “electronic superhighway” that would be open and free to everyone.The multiple forms of video that Paik developed can be interpreted as an expression of an open medium able to flourish and grow through the imagination and participation of communities and individuals from around the world.” John Hanhardt, An essay on Nam June Paik, [Online].
Most of Paik’s work on the creation of a virtual space for artists occurred in the seventies and eighties. In 2008, what sort of answers would we give to Paik’s suggestion of a ‘global groove’. MTV creates a music video machine, which fetishises the sound and image. However it is not a free space. Aside from issues of finances and programming, censorship controls exist, which inhibit creative freedom. Madonna’s Justify my Love and Erotica were both pulled from rotation, as they were considered inappropriate for the time schedule. Furthermore, videos can be placed on late night programming schedules to ensure they are only viewed by ‘adult audiences’. Prominent examples include Smack My Bitch Up by The Prodigy. Indeed, in the 90s video music shows including rage, Channel V and MTV (the latter being music video channels) were the only access points to a video culture. (Although I maybe mistaken)
Moving on 10 years and we see youtube and the Internet becoming the open and free networks, which artists can use to broadcast their thought and present their work. The common assumption is that lack of commercial forces prevent youtube and the Internet being constrained. However google bought youtube in 2006, and have removed many videos, which are considered offensive or inappropriate.
The New York Times article has some great examples of Censorship.
As a result, we could argue artistry and corporations must remain separate if freedom and integrity of artists is to be maintained. However, this ignores an integral issue I believe. If corporations and governments are the key structures in our society, then we will always be constrained. An individuals ability to participate in these machines is greatly limited by their socio-economic standing and the resources at their disposal. If these around the foundations of our society, I don’t believe Paik’s vision can become a reality, or virtual reality as he foresaw it. We see small ruptures but as Guattari suggests much of this can be seen as continue cycle break down and intervention:
“Human action remains adjacent to their [he is speaking specifically about robots, however I think it is still useful in this context] gestation, waiting for the breakdown, which will require its intervention: this residue of a direct act.” (Guattari, 1995, 36)
Indeed, there seems to be so much potential in these micro machines to overcome the limitations of capitalism. However, ultimately they seem to be quick breakdowns, which give us a moments breath before we continue moving.
I don’t really have a particular solution here, or anything. It’s really just a long ramble. But for coming so far I though i’d leave you with two clips.
One is Unnecessary Censorship:
And Nam June Paik’s Electronic Moon no. 2:
Disneyland and Spectatorship in the 1950s April 8, 2008
The distribution of Cinerama and Cinemascope were technological reactions to the dwindling audience numbers in the 1950s, and the rise of television. They created new viewing methods, which were both beneficial to spectator participation, as well as costly to the studios. The result was a novelty, which had ended by the sixties. However, the disney corporation sought to increase box office receipts by developing a cross-promotional theme park, which would link into other aspects of its media empire. They enabled the spectator to immerse themselves in an experience of the filmic medium, by taking it out of the cinema and creating a material reality. However, like Cinerama and CinemaScope, the Disney experience was driven by ideological demands. This essay shall discuss the changing relationship between viewer, television and film, with a close reading of John Belton’s work on 1950s screen innovation, in regard to the development of Disneyland. Firstly, the circumstances giving rise to the different filmic phenomenological addresses shall be discussed. Secondly, the effect of the disneyland experience on the viewer, and how this mode of address went beyond the boundaries set up by widescreen cinema of the fifties. Thirdly, though the experience is not visually constrained, there are exclusionary mechanism at work, which set up a particular ideology and audience to be addressed. Finally, Frontierland and Tomorrowland shall be used as examples of how the media conglomerate operated, as well as their effects upon the spectator. Both were used to reaffirm the identity of Americans, and address Cold War tensions. Therefore, this essay shall argue the these factors worked to create a Disney viewing experience, which was drawn together by ideological concerns.
Innovations in cinema were driven by declining audience numbers at the end of the second world war.
“it [cinemascope] satisfied a historically specific need for a motion picture format that could effectively compete with the variety of recreational activities available to the new, postwar consumer market” (Belton, 1988, 38)
Disney reacted differently to declining audience numbers, by using television, film and the theme park to create a mass viewing experience. Spectators had the ability to watch a television program centered on the developments at Tomorrowland, physically engage with the developments at Disneyland, and the attend a film featuring the characters they had encountered at the theme park.
“Motion pictures attempted to maximise their participatory potential by adopting two dramatically different model of recreational participation-the amusement park and the legitimate theatre- around which they then constructed new definitions of spectatorship” (Belton, 1992, 188)
“ a performative and kinetic space that make the electronic of filmic product and its promotion literally material”. (Davis, 1996, 411)
While audience may presume, this enables them to gain a greater level of participation in the onscreen spectacle, they are invaraibly placed in a subjective position.
Belton discusses the spectatorship theory developed by Baudry (1996, 183-184). He suggests the emphasis in contemporary theory is the ability of an audience member to imbue an image with a particular meaning, due to the “(mis)recognition” of the screen as reality. Spectatorial theory address the static physical position of the viewer in the movie theatre. However, once they are moved into the open air of the theme park are they able to break the framing and organised vision Belton discusses?
It could be suggested that theme-parks are a real like experience, which frees the viewer from the static prison of the cinema. While the theme park goes beyond the film in creating a liberated viewing position, they are still a subject. Marling argues, “the tension between perfection and reality..was the primary sources of the visitor’s delight” (1996, 93). While, this maybe true, it is reflective of the “suture” discussed by Belton (1996, 187), a fundamental concern of spectatorship. During the viewing experience of widescreen the audience was supposed to be so absorbed in the image that they considered it reality. However, technological difficulties created jarring moments, which pointed to the artifice of the production. Similarly, Disneyland attempted a similar kind of suture through the creation of rides, and “life size characters”. The sensorial experience is not limited to sound and sight, but expands into smell and touch (and probably to some degree taste.
While the theme park can engage all the sense, it is still a managed reality. The viewer cannot discover anything new in Disneyland, which has not been created by the Disney corporation.arling suggests, “The once-passive viewer now became an actor, a real-lie participant “face up in the rain” as a rackety little boat plowed under Schweitzer fall. It was better than the movies” (1996, 93). Though, this is true it ignores the elements of structure and control, which are fundamental to the maintenance of the theme park. While the the fantasy is not limited by a cinematic frame, the theme park’s operation is controlled and regulated within stringent boundaries, both spatial and temporal. Parades take place every half hour on the main street. Operating times are maintained, thus the spectator cannot access the Disney reality whenever they please. While the audience is fully immersed in the Disney reality, they are still in a structured subject position. M Disneyland’s Main Street uses “forced perspective” to create a sense of safety amongst the audience; buildings were scaled to at most seventh-eights of their regular size (Marling, 1996, 114). Though Disneyland appeals to many aspects of reality, it does not liberate the viewer into a sense of the real experience.
While Disneyland created reality, it focused upon a nostalgic time in the form of Frontierland, free from the tensions and fear of the Cold War.
Indeed, the particular focus upon frontier land acted to reaffirm the American Identity as a pioneer and innovator.
Davy Crockett:
Tomorrowland created a futuristic view, which helped to reaffirm the victory of America in the Cold War
Man in Space:
“President Eisenhower called from the White House to offer his thanks and congratulations in person” (Marling, 1996, 123
While Disneyland was used to liberate the viewer from the fixed cinematic position, it created a particular audience for its product.
“Navigating the interstate to the theme park required, of course, a car, a factor that again cut out the amusement park’s younger and poorer audience. The theme park became an ‘away’ place, separated from the everyday life of the city by distance as as by imagistic control.” (Davis, 1996, 404)
random mumblings April 8, 2008
I was driving home, and listening to an interview with air, a french electronic duo, about the recording process. So to set the context, they’ve just been asked about commercial success, and they reply that they don’t set out to make songs they make music. They find the verse, chorus structure of contemporary music, an anti-thesis quite often of what they set out to do. They record music. Rather they record the energy, that comes from music.
(this interview will probably be up on triple j sometime soon so if you’re interested, have a look at their website)
However, about 5 minutes later, they make a reference to one song taking so long because the verse wouldn’t work. Aside from this little contradiction, how do we feel about music recording as a recording of energy. I’m sure in some circumstances this isn’t applicable, however the rise in live-recordings and DVDs, suggest a quest to capture the energy and flow of music. The irony of course is that they are produced and consumed as commodities; they become compartmentalized forms so they are more easily accessible. In many ways this is an important process for an artist, as they wouldn’t be able to communicate with the population if this recording process didn’t exist. However some of the issues seem to be a result of fetishised commodities. The best example i’d say is a band t-shirt. The use value and labour value of a band t-shirt, let’s say a Ramones one, is exactly the same as any other t-shirt you can find at target. However, when we buy and wear the Ramones t-shirt we buy into an anti-authoritarian idea and punk attitude. It is an instant badge of membership, and an attempt to buy into a particular lifestyle.
I engage in exactly the same practice, except with a football scarf 
. However, by engaging in these rituals and signifiers are we inevitably draining the energy, and our enjoyment out of these commodities.
I don’t know, but i think it’s somewhat listening to your favourite song too many times. We’ve all done it, and i know i always attempt to repeat that first listening. That amazing intensity and energy that i suppose it like Guattari’s machinic junkie. However, every time i re-experience it, the affect is muted. Not to say i don’t enjoy the song anymore but it create the same sensation.
Could we also seek to explain the decline in radio, in these terms? Instant accessibility coupled with the anger felt by many people at a consistent set of 10 songs on high rotation equals people opting for ipods or CDs.
MTV and modes of address. April 5, 2008
Well the greatest machine of all, in my mind is MTV. Because it the production and consumption is blatantly obvious, but for some reason, we continue to indulge ourselves in both the bland or offensive videos, as well as great moments of visual art.
MTV and its female address by Lisa Lewis
This article offers an interesting insight into MTV’s textual address, and how its was undermined in the 1980s by Lauper, Madonna, Benetar and other female artist. Lewis suggests the singers used access signs, which are those which appropriate traditional male signifiers, such as street culture, bars and pubs. Furthermore, they use discovery signs, signifiers of female activity, to legitimate and privilege femme behaviors. It’s an interesting suggestion, and I agree that to subvert traditional partriarchal signifiers we must drawn attention to the privileges and rituals engaged in their production. However doesn’t this imply continue the binary opposition of female and male.
I think the idea of discovery signs, which seeks to bring female activities out of “negative” terms is more encouraging(Lewis, 1990). As it attempts to present dance, and dressing up in more positive and liberating terms. Conversely, it could be argued that these are simply indulging the male gaze, as I’m sure Laura Mulvey would suggest. The female body is simply being objectified for the male gaze and enjoyment. To discern whether these activities are positive or negative in the production of female subjectivity, we would need to analyse why females feel the need to engage in these activities. Ultimately, they work to categorise an individual as female. Perhaps terms such as positive and negative aren’t appropriate in these discussions.
But surely, we need to operate with a moral or ethical regime or standard. Not simply for the containment of human behavior, but to ensure we are all accountable for our behavior.
Oh well, this has turned into a post, which asks more questions, that provides answers. Though, that maybe for the best.
Anyway, I will leave you with one of my favourite “girl power” videos of the 1990s.
I enjoy this video as it the cinematic frame ruptures, and the original two shots from boys bathroom to girls bathroom, becomes one larger shot, where each group flows from one room to the other. I particularly enjoy that, they all end up in the girls toilet, cause really, it’s a lot nicer (and cleaner!).
The teen machine and pop music April 2, 2008
Pop music and the teen machine are intrinsically linked as both possess the capability to communicate with, and shape subjectivities. Indeed, Felix Guattari’s work on adolescent subjectivity reveals the regimes and structures, which seek to constrain and dominate the adolescent sense of self. This entry shall argue music has the potential to be an interpretive and reflective form of communication, but is absorbed and used by the teen machine to neutralize and contain potential threats. It is made into a commodity, which becomes trapped within signifying processes, and perpetually reproduced. Therefore, the political and social purpose is undermined by the teen machine. This argument will be supported by a close analysis of the grunge movement of the early 90s. Finally, the affects and flows of the machinic junkie through the musical medium will be explored. Thus, we shall see how music has the capacity for freedom and rebellion, yet is contained by the processes and production of the teen machine.
When sound, particularly music, is incorporated into the cinematic frame, it has the potential to open up avenues of interpretation and perception. Gilles Deleuze suggests, the off-screen sound establishes an off-screen presence(Deleuze, 1989, 235). This sound can be divided into two categories. Diegetic sound, which both the audience and filmic world are entitled to, and non-diegetic sound, which privileges the spectator. The latter category enables the viewer to be engaged in a communication, which only they are entitled to. Deleuze outlines two purposes for pop music; to create interaction or reflexivity (Deleuze, 1989, 236) . Though, these two categories are not static; there is a certain amount of fluidity between all categories. Pop music generally falls into the latter category, as it predominantly serves as a reflexive tool. It may imbue the image, with a particular meaning. For example, Skins Episode 2 (Paul Gay 2007) uses a piece of dream-like electronic music during Cassie’s walk through the school corridors.
\
The school environment is usually filled with a more frenetic and chaotic sound, as was established in the previous scene. The collaboration of floating camera movement, tracking Cassie’s face, and the dream-like soundtrack, suggests her interiority operates differently to her peers. While the camera movement, suggests a steadiness and calmness, the music creates an imaginative wishful thought space. It compliments her internal plea to Sid, “look up if you like”. It acts as an reflective moment between the character and spectator, whose perception of the episodes protagonist is expanded. We are privileged with an insight into the characters interiority, which contradicts the presentation of Cassie throughout the episode. The ditzy, spaced-out girl is replaced by a perceptive and calm figure. Sound in the cinema acts as a process of interaction and reflectivity that can potentially open up the possibilities for interpretation.
The teen machine acts to commodify the teen experience. The machine facilitates movements and flows of desire(screenmachine, 2008), overtly and subvertly. While, the commodity is “something transcendent”, which exists beyond its physical properties and creates value (Marx, 1867, 42). In regard to the teen machine, the overarching production purpose is the consolidation of an adolescent subjectivity. While a plethora of commodities are produced, they all seek to establish a static adolescent subject as consumer. However this defies the reality of adolescence, which remains in a constant state of mental, emotional and physical development. As Felix Guattari suggests, they are in a state of constant “becomings” or change(Guattari, 1996, 63). Therefore the teen machine produces commodities, which will appeal to the particular subjectivity a teenager may wish to adopt, or engage with. Pop music is packaged and integrated into the machine adding to the “a-signifying systems” of adolescence (Guattari, 1996,72) . These work to connote differences and similarities amongst the teen consumers. Thus the teenage experience can be bought and sold on the market.
Pop music can acts as medium through which the adolescent can present their subjectivity and identity, perceptually independent of other machines. As noted above, music is fluid and therefore appeals to the sensory changes in the teen body. Furthermore it can communicate with the adolescents inability to remain calm while ruptures and changes are occurring internally and externally. Guattari highlights, that adolescence is “the entrance into a sort of extremely troubled interzone where all kinds of possibilities, conflicts and sometimes extremely difficult and even dramatic clashes appear” (Guattari, 1996, 64). Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989) (which is not strictly a teen movie, but comprises many adolescents) opens with Rosie Perez engaging in a ‘dance-fight’ timed to ‘Fight the Power’
by Public Enemy.
The camera is static while silhouettes of Perez move through the street stage to the words ‘Fight the powers that be’. This speaks of the continual ruptures in the white patriarchal society, African American adolescents came into contact with during the late eighties and early nineties. Kimberley Bercov Monteyne noted in her work ‘The Sound of the South Bronx’, that “hip-hop in general and rapping in particular is youth culture rather than an older tradition to be passed down” (Monteyne, 2007, 93). It acted against both racial and youth categories, which sought to contain the adolescent subjectivity. Therefore popular music possesses the potential to engage with the adolescent listener and communicate with their experiences.
Unfortunately, this idealised view of popular music modes often become subsumed by the teen machine. The name ‘popular music’ is indicative of the eventual problem of the medium. The political message of the genre is lost amongst the mass reproduction and consumption of the product. Julian Tanner conducted a sociological studies of adolescent musical consumption. They noted, the emergence of casual listeners of more specified genres, such as rap, “has been taken by some as evidence of a more postmodern youth culture in which musical tastes have become more eclectic and individualized, no longer an emblem of collective identity” (Tanner et.al, 2008, 121-122). Therefore the listeners capacity to engage with a teen collective identity, is diminished by the constant reproduction.
The grunge movement of the early 90s was the anti-thesis of the 80s ‘big-hair bands’, which were slick, glossy music machines. Nirvana created songs such as ‘Breed‘, ‘Smells like teen spirit‘, and ‘Come as you are‘, which spoke to the disaffected youth, who had been maligned by the music machine of the eighties. Breed describes a plea from one of Cobain’s former girlfriends, who doesn’t care if they don’t breed, they can “plant a house, [they] can build a tree”. The band attempted to defy the categorisation of adolescence, which sign -posted the moments of development including child-rearing , home-ownership, and marriage. However, grunge’s potential harm to the teen machine was diminished, by the constant reproduction of poor copies, in an attempt to repeat the success experienced by bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Egos and Icons (1997) explains the rise and fall of the genre as a deconstructive tool that was appropriated and legitimated by the mainstream. Krist Noveselic at the 2 minute mark, highlights how he had spent his life running away from the mainstream, but then found himself “assimilated into it by Nirvana’s popularity. Ultimately the genre was destroyed by the continual reproduction of the commodity, which depleted the original intensity felt at the movement’s birth.
Grunge fashion by Marc Jacob’s for Perry Ellis, featured in US Vogue 1992.
Pop music possess the ability to profoundly affect the listeners subjectivity and their psychological state. It can be regarded as as one of the drug Guattari discusses, which “is a way of making yourself be, of personally incarnating yourself, while the ground of the existential is blurred”(Guattari, 1996, 102). Thus, the individual can forget the subjectivity, which is forced upon them and be liberated, if only for a moment. Last Days (Gus Van Sant, 2005) explored the effects of the music machine through the character of Blake (inspired by Kurt Cobain).
He is completely absorbed in the music machine, which transports him from his dilapidated home to a creative, imaginative space where he is free to express himself. However, the camera never enters this private space, instead it slowly draws away from the window as the music builds. Indeed Van Sant acknowledges the inability to communicate the intensity of the machinic junkie’s experience through the cinematic or sound medium. It remains an individual experience. Therefore, the machinic junkie attempts to escape from reality existence through the possibilities of the machine.
While pop music is capable of liberation and rebellion, it is legitimated and reproduced by the teen machine, thus constraining its independence. Sound and music can act as reflective and interactive tools, which seek to liberate thought and perception. Indeed, the political and social rebellion of popular music appeals to the adolescent who seeks to assert their independent subjectivity. However, the teen machine uses commodification to contain the teen experience. Ultimately, these messages are absorbed and neutralised by the teen machine. Indeed, freedom can only be experienced for a moment by the machinic junkie, who leaves reality to experience intensities and flows, which cannot be contained by the teen machine. Thus, the music seems incapable of freeing the adolescent, while it is constrained by the mechanisms of the teen machine.
Filmography
Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)
Egos and Icons (Muchmusic, 1997)
Last Days (Gus Van Sant, 2005)
Skins: Episode 2 – Cassie (Paul Gay 2007)
Bibliography
Deleuze, Gilles, 1989. ‘The Components of the Image’, The Time Image. London: The Athlone Press. 225- 261
Guattari, Felix, 1996. ‘Adolescent Revolution’, Soft Subversions. ed. S. Lotringer. New York: Semiotext(e). 63-72.
Guattari, Felix, 1996. ‘Machinic Junkies’, Soft Subversions. 101-105.
Marx, Karl, 1872. ‘The Fetishism of the Commodity and the Secret Thereof”, [Das Kapital] Karl Marx Capital: An Abridged Edition, ed. David McLellan, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. 42-50
Monteyne, Kimberley Bercov, 2007. ‘The Sound of the South Bronx: Youth Culture, Genre, and Performance in Charlie Ahearn’s Wildstyle’, Youth Culture In Global Cinema. ed. Timothy Shary and Alexander Seibel. Austin: University of Texas Press. 87-105.
screenmachine, 2008. Screen Machine: screen cultures television theory (online). (Cited 30 March 2008). Available from http://screenmachine.wordpress.com/
Tanner, Julian et. al, 2008. ‘Our favourite melodies: musical consumption and teenage lifestyles’, The British Journal of Sociology. 59:1. 119-144.
The teen machine March 19, 2008
The teen film is subject to much debate as a result of its conflicting definitions and categories. For this entry I am referring to any film where the protagonists are 12-20 years old (Thomas Shary, 2002, 19).Furthermore the term adolescent and teen are not strictly interchangable, as I have used below. It is worth noting that in some circles teen is considered the social construct, while adolescent is a biological definition. However as Felix Guatarri argues many of these biological points are in fact social constructs (Guattari, 1979, 67). I wish to address the break between the filmic image and reality. Obviously, as established below, the term reality is contentious, however for this argument I am using it to describe the teen audience who interacts with the film.
Most adolescent films deal with the possibility of the teen character moving from the relative innocence of childhood to adulthood, by passing through the adolescent domain. Already we are coming into a conflict with reality. As Guattari states, adolescence is a stage of constant movement, or “becomings” (Guattari, 1979, 63). Therefore the filmic medium cannot truthfully depict the event of adolescence, as it is fluid. Grease (1978) attempts this movement during the carnival scene. This is the crucial makeover scene, where Sandy moves from childhood into the dangerous realm of adolescence. The black leather, curled hair, high shoes and cigarette all denote the supposed dangers of adolescence. However, her awkwardness with the cigarette suggests the impossibility of adopting a particular identity overnight. She cannot simply move from one state to another, rather it is a process of constant development.We could consider her experience a machinic subjectivity; the subjectivity produced by the teen machine. Guattari defines machinic subjectivity as “everything that contributes to provide a sensation of belonging to something” (Guattari, 1996, 101) . Indeed, Sandy’s desire is to be adequate for Danny and recieve satisfactory judgement from the Pink Ladies.
A more contemporary example is She’s all that(1999), which functions on the premise of the makeover scene. Whereby art student Laney Boggs is “made over” to conform with the pre-supposed image of adolescence, demanded by her peers. The inauguration into adolescence is suggested in both cases to be a matter of image, as opposed to experience. Laney’s image eventually slips, as I would argue Sandy’s does, as the identity she is forced to adopt is artificial. Guattari suggests, the movement from childhood (which he acknowledges is a flawed category) “opens up” entirely new experience and opportunities, “but almost immediately, everything closes up, and a whole series of institutionalised social controls and the internalisation of repressive fantasies march in to capture and neutralise new virtualities” (Guattari, 1979, 64). Laney’s image can be read as a commodified adolescence, which is nicely packaged but lacking experience. It is the antithesis of the adolescence as it based soley upon the stasis of the ‘after image’.
I do not wish to suggest here that adolescents are immune from the teen machine, which bounds individuals in certain power structures. In truth, these films feed the teen machine, which promises the adolescent that as long as they conform to the power structure they will belong. Ultimately, though this is a false ideal. The adolescent is in a constant state of change, while the filmic adolescent can maintain the image at the end of the film in the collective memory of the spectator.
Reclaiming the city March 16, 2008
Interesting idea. Read about the street cricket. Particularly liked the section concerning starbucks. Space Hijackers
