Texts in mind: "The Conquest of Cool," "The Culture of the Cold War," "BoBos in Paradise," "Essential Fantastic Four Vol. 2 (Issues 21-40)," various environmental lifestyle tales of the present day ("100 Mile Diet," "No Impact"), standard 50s culture and business texts, lots and lots of ads, and "No Logo."
So: anti-consumerism is arch-consumerism.
That's probably not the key point of Thomas Frank's "The Conquest of Cool," but that's the one that's staying with me right now. The joy of writing this as a blog rather than an essay is that I can occasionally get my reminiscence on (which I'll generally try to avoid - I'm sure that's ad copy for something) and harken back to "No Logo" and that whole late 90s undergrad feel. Naturally, all that is tatters now, too. I've almost got to wonder if the only option left for non-consumerist mentality (short of swearing off purchases) is to just go blindly into the store and buy the first thing I see.
In brief: Frank argues that the broad counterculture of the 1960s (not the focused one which Roszak discusses) was never that far removed from being co-opted - indeed, may well have been pre-packaged. The desire to get beyond the organization man, grey flannel suit, other-directed ethos of the 1950s was readily present in the business mentality of the day, particularly in the advertising companies which sold things. People wanted to shake things up, wanted to sell in a different manner, wanted to get beyond the pseudo-scientific strictures of the industry at that time - but the advertising establishment was against them. "The Man," if you will.
So: it takes something different and unlikely which achieves extraordinary success to change things, and it's offbeat ads that deconstruct advertising claims and tricks which manage it (to some degree). Volkswagens get beyond their Nazi-mobile heritage by presenting themselves as solidly engineered vehicles unconcerned with style (and therefore never fall out of style). Avis admits that it needs to work harder because it's number two, and even highlights small failures that they needed to fix. And menswear changes rapidly.
All well and good, all apt and appropriate to our modern, can't-fool-us sensibility. The trick is that it's a trick, too, which we may recognize, smile at, and then buy - or merely accept without reflection and buy anyhow. A savvy consumer is an ultra-consumer. "Consumer Reports" may get you a better product, but it also makes you aware of more products. (I'd always believed that "CR" was a 1960s product, but wikipedia tells me that it started publication in 1930.) And the "Whole Earth Catalogue" is still a catalogue.
The rigours of hipness means that you're constantly buying to stay ahead of the curve, too. Eventually, it's not even necessary to get young people to buy your products - you just need to convince elder young-at-hearts that you're selling youthfulness and you're set. The Globe and Mail had a great article on this problem for the Gap over the last decade - as they moved towards marketing themselves to first-wave Gen-Xers and later Boomers, they stopped endorsing the youthful vibe that was de rigeur for everyone in the early oughts. (Even further back, I recall an endorsement of Vancouver's Kitsilano neighbourhood as the locus of youthful vitality. I did a lot of my grocery shopping there and I usually found it filled with people in their middle ages. But if 60 is the old 30, then it's all okay - if kinda odd.)
Anyway, this endorsement of diversity by tastemakers for the broad marketplace (which suggests that the notion of conformity in diversity is not at all recent) is a nice contrast piece with Whitfield's "The Culture of the Cold War." Save for the epilogue of the second edition, most of the book is directed towards a discussion of the postwar era up to the end of the Eisenhower administration. Most of it's a review of almost every lecture or discussion on the 1950s during my undergrad years (the benefit of some good literature courses which looked at American drama in particular and my wife's paper on the controversy around Elia Kazan's lifetime achievement Oscar in 1999), but its presentation of the fear and paranoia that typified so much of the early years of the Cold War is effective. Furthermore, its argument about the demise of its mindset may not be conclusive, but the point made that the assassination of JFK did not lead to reprisals or vigilantism against pinkos and traitors (which it certainly would have 10 years before) certainly indicates that it had dissipated somewhat.
Precious little is made of youth culture at the time, of course, in Whitfield's book. Television and film are given significant mention, but the terror of comic books in the mid-50s is left undisturbed. The contradicitons of the era are neatly encompassed in this panic, of course - capitalism equals profit from competition through the presentation of choices to the consumer and the recognition of underserved markets versus the need to control and limit the choices available to young people (even if it means that they don't get to choose) for their own protection. Whitfield mentions that Edward R. Murrow's program suffered for want of endorsement in the late 1950s, but the troubling comics of the age always offered plenty of ads. (Though once "Mad" became a magazine it stopped offering advertising... but that's for a later discussion on the canon of marginal, underground comics versus the exclusion of the mainstream.)
The lack of advertisements is the most curious adaptation that I had to make while reading the "Fantastic Four" anthology. These black-and-white reproductions offer only the 21 to 22 pages of story from each issue (plus the occasional filler pic and the covers) without any of the features I've expected from comics - ads, a checklist for other titles from the publisher with some in-house gossip, and the letters page. Regardless, there's plenty to be made from these collections. Unsurprisingly, there's plenty of science-y patter and boosterism from Reed Richards, but there's also lots of other details thrown in.
(My favorite was at the end of #21 - after defeating Adolf Hitler, disguised as the Hate-Monger and armed with the H-Ray which drives people into a rage, someone off-panel notes that "The Hate Ray must have been one of the last achievements of his enslaved Nazi scientists!" I couldn't help but think of the poor enslaved scientists - thank goodness most of them have been freed to work for the United States now, except those still enslaved by the Soviets....)
A lot of FF stuff so far hasn't been particularly countercultural - but there's been plenty of military-industrial complex paraphenalia to go around. Really, the only way to fly is with one's own ICBM - once one gets the necessary clearance for launching it in New York, of course.
So: what do these add up to for this week? Well, one is that "the establishment" is always looking for ways to identify markets and to sell to them. (Cross makes the point in one of his studies of children's culture that it's toy makers who are most concerned with the direction of family structures, since these determine what and how they will sell.) Another is that more reading's going to be needed on the direction of "silent majority"-type cultures as the McCarthyite impulse fades and before Nixon endorses it.
And for further reading, I'll have to dig up my old copy of David Brooks' "BoBos in Paradise" later this summer. After reading "The Conquest of Cool," I'll have to see how well it fits in with Brooks' book. I'm not entirely sure if it does. Still, this notion of arch-consumption as part of the 60s and a natural precursor to a Pottery Barn'd life makes a lot of sense. I'd just like to see how Brooks deliniates its development.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Monday, March 5, 2007
Comic Book Citizenship
Texts in mind: "What Video Games have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy," "Understanding Comics," "Rethinking Comics," "Comic Book Culture," "Kingdom Come," "Marvels," various cover letters and my resume
It's the time of year that high school and college jobs start to open up for the next school year. Oh, there will be more - or less - later on as enrolments are finalized and shortfalls (hopefully) have to be filled in, but right now is when the good postings come online (in high schools) for things like IB History and Senior Social Studies.
This is important because of the need for cover letters and resumes. All these were lost when my wife's old computer died suddenly last year - in the middle of comps - and needed to be recreated over the last few months. The resume/CV part is pretty easy - I've gone to school a lot (4th degree now), I've taught a little (if four years of substitute teaching counts), and I've done a lot of service work over the last three years.
It's odd to reflect on service and trumpet it, but however true it is that they're done in the name of citizenship, it's also true that some of it is done in the name of filling up the CV, too. However, all these citizenship line items are from the last three years as I've been out at grad school - and that's kind of odd when one considers the clear role of citizenship training that Social Studies is supposed to play. (Part of this is due to the labour disputes of the early decade in BC and part of it is due to my moving around, but all that's for a different post.)
All these things came together in a funny way over the last couple of weeks. Yesterday, I noticed Waid and Ross's "Kingdom Come" on the university bookshelf and finally got a chance to read it. Leaving the religious aspects and the countering of 1990s antiheroic comic book protagonists aside for now, I particularly noticed the discussions about citizenship and engagement that the golden age DC heroes bruited about and reflected upon their difference from silver age heroes - my particular field of academic interest.
The other funny way that these things came together was from a happenstance re-read of the intro to Gee's "What Video Games have to teach us..." and his discussion of different readers and readership for particular texts. His focus, of course, is on the texts in his title (also near and dear to my heart) but it made me pause and consider the task of academic exploration of comics and of effective literary engagement with this particular type of text. I remember the old Bangs-ism about how writing about rock and roll is like dancing about architecture (which I think was a working title for "Almost Famous," but that's for another blog) and knew that some consideration would have to be given to the task of creating a vocabulary for this work.
Now, this isn't to say that this act of "creation" would be a solo proposition - there are other books on comics and there are other articles, dissertations, and whatnot that have done this sort of work- but simply that it would be necessary to start to internalize and refine the vocabulary to suit my needs. Hence, the consideration of Scott McCloud's two books, "Understanding Comics" and "Rethinking Comics."
These were read out of sequence (such that I rethought before I understood?) due to the nature of demand in a university library for particular texts at particular times. (They'll likely be recalled within days.) They're books I'll almost certainly buy at some point - some of the discussions of symbolism, presentation, and genre are perfect for teaching, especially in high school - but they've also got some problems for my research.
The big problem, of course, is that I'm dealing with a square text - 1950s and 1960s superhero comics, among other texts, and their relation to American youth during the push for science and technology education after Sputnik. If it was truly a cool topic, I'd be doing head comix and underground 'zinesterism and whatnot. (As my supervisor's noted - noticing the innovation of this far before I could - it's kinda radical to look at the mainstream during the 1960s rather than the canon of marginal comics.)
The problem with this square text is that it's also been the dominant genre in comics since the Comics Code Authority and basically what got comics going in a big way. This is a problem for McCloud because he believes that comics can be much, much more than adolescent power fantasies. (And I should note that I believe he's right, but I won't get into a bibliography of non-superhero comic books to establish my slight bona fides in this department.) McCloud has a reason, of course - he's calling for an expansion of the industry and a realization of its possibilities - but it's something that I have to get beyond for the purposes of research.
McCloud does note that he's read superhero comics, enjoyed superhero comics, and continues to read and enjoy superhero comics (and provides a postscript to his buddy Kurt Busiek's "Marvels" teasing him for taking the critical acclaim and accolades from McCloud as well as the success that Busiek'd always had) - but McCloud also needs to tear them down somewhat to aid his argument. That's well and fine - he's working in the now, and I'm working in the past. (His discussions of "How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way" and other books about comics art, such as Will Eisner's, reminds me that I am not done this part of the work of collating and creating vocabulary.) He's working to create new meanings and I'm searching for old meanings which were given the widest possible circulation. Lucky for me, the post-Wertham comic books got themselves mixed up with science fiction at a time when science education became part of national defense - and when scientific study became part of one's civic duty. I certainly can't claim that too much of my service record is science-based.
The other thing that I'll need to hunt down are records of the comic book culture at the time. Pustz's book (tidily named "Comic Book Culture") provides a list of some of the early 'zines that started up at the time, while also detailing the path Roy Thomas took from 'zine culture to comic book industry. (I'm so totally Stan Lee'd in my early comics education that it's all I can do to not write "Rascally" before his name.) It's interesting to note that letters pages didn't appear in comics until 1958, and that the letters usually included the addresses so that fans in the area could meet and congregate - in no small part, thanks to the 'zines. These fanzines and the conventions which comic book fans put together allowed new fans to be educated about the history of the genre and the particular characters - in effect, preparing them to be comic book citizens. (Also preparing them for comic book capitalism through the sales of old, collectable issues, but that's for another post.)
So I've gained a few more titles to have to chase down for eventual research, but I've also gained some further problemitization for my dissertation topic. I'm pretty sure it's not that much of a problem - essentially, that science education became a major facet of citizenship for youth at this time - but one still has to wonder if the question is what sorts of citizenship qualities were presented to youth at the time rather than what sorts of science and technology warnings that they received. More on this later.
It's the time of year that high school and college jobs start to open up for the next school year. Oh, there will be more - or less - later on as enrolments are finalized and shortfalls (hopefully) have to be filled in, but right now is when the good postings come online (in high schools) for things like IB History and Senior Social Studies.
This is important because of the need for cover letters and resumes. All these were lost when my wife's old computer died suddenly last year - in the middle of comps - and needed to be recreated over the last few months. The resume/CV part is pretty easy - I've gone to school a lot (4th degree now), I've taught a little (if four years of substitute teaching counts), and I've done a lot of service work over the last three years.
It's odd to reflect on service and trumpet it, but however true it is that they're done in the name of citizenship, it's also true that some of it is done in the name of filling up the CV, too. However, all these citizenship line items are from the last three years as I've been out at grad school - and that's kind of odd when one considers the clear role of citizenship training that Social Studies is supposed to play. (Part of this is due to the labour disputes of the early decade in BC and part of it is due to my moving around, but all that's for a different post.)
All these things came together in a funny way over the last couple of weeks. Yesterday, I noticed Waid and Ross's "Kingdom Come" on the university bookshelf and finally got a chance to read it. Leaving the religious aspects and the countering of 1990s antiheroic comic book protagonists aside for now, I particularly noticed the discussions about citizenship and engagement that the golden age DC heroes bruited about and reflected upon their difference from silver age heroes - my particular field of academic interest.
The other funny way that these things came together was from a happenstance re-read of the intro to Gee's "What Video Games have to teach us..." and his discussion of different readers and readership for particular texts. His focus, of course, is on the texts in his title (also near and dear to my heart) but it made me pause and consider the task of academic exploration of comics and of effective literary engagement with this particular type of text. I remember the old Bangs-ism about how writing about rock and roll is like dancing about architecture (which I think was a working title for "Almost Famous," but that's for another blog) and knew that some consideration would have to be given to the task of creating a vocabulary for this work.
Now, this isn't to say that this act of "creation" would be a solo proposition - there are other books on comics and there are other articles, dissertations, and whatnot that have done this sort of work- but simply that it would be necessary to start to internalize and refine the vocabulary to suit my needs. Hence, the consideration of Scott McCloud's two books, "Understanding Comics" and "Rethinking Comics."
These were read out of sequence (such that I rethought before I understood?) due to the nature of demand in a university library for particular texts at particular times. (They'll likely be recalled within days.) They're books I'll almost certainly buy at some point - some of the discussions of symbolism, presentation, and genre are perfect for teaching, especially in high school - but they've also got some problems for my research.
The big problem, of course, is that I'm dealing with a square text - 1950s and 1960s superhero comics, among other texts, and their relation to American youth during the push for science and technology education after Sputnik. If it was truly a cool topic, I'd be doing head comix and underground 'zinesterism and whatnot. (As my supervisor's noted - noticing the innovation of this far before I could - it's kinda radical to look at the mainstream during the 1960s rather than the canon of marginal comics.)
The problem with this square text is that it's also been the dominant genre in comics since the Comics Code Authority and basically what got comics going in a big way. This is a problem for McCloud because he believes that comics can be much, much more than adolescent power fantasies. (And I should note that I believe he's right, but I won't get into a bibliography of non-superhero comic books to establish my slight bona fides in this department.) McCloud has a reason, of course - he's calling for an expansion of the industry and a realization of its possibilities - but it's something that I have to get beyond for the purposes of research.
McCloud does note that he's read superhero comics, enjoyed superhero comics, and continues to read and enjoy superhero comics (and provides a postscript to his buddy Kurt Busiek's "Marvels" teasing him for taking the critical acclaim and accolades from McCloud as well as the success that Busiek'd always had) - but McCloud also needs to tear them down somewhat to aid his argument. That's well and fine - he's working in the now, and I'm working in the past. (His discussions of "How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way" and other books about comics art, such as Will Eisner's, reminds me that I am not done this part of the work of collating and creating vocabulary.) He's working to create new meanings and I'm searching for old meanings which were given the widest possible circulation. Lucky for me, the post-Wertham comic books got themselves mixed up with science fiction at a time when science education became part of national defense - and when scientific study became part of one's civic duty. I certainly can't claim that too much of my service record is science-based.
The other thing that I'll need to hunt down are records of the comic book culture at the time. Pustz's book (tidily named "Comic Book Culture") provides a list of some of the early 'zines that started up at the time, while also detailing the path Roy Thomas took from 'zine culture to comic book industry. (I'm so totally Stan Lee'd in my early comics education that it's all I can do to not write "Rascally" before his name.) It's interesting to note that letters pages didn't appear in comics until 1958, and that the letters usually included the addresses so that fans in the area could meet and congregate - in no small part, thanks to the 'zines. These fanzines and the conventions which comic book fans put together allowed new fans to be educated about the history of the genre and the particular characters - in effect, preparing them to be comic book citizens. (Also preparing them for comic book capitalism through the sales of old, collectable issues, but that's for another post.)
So I've gained a few more titles to have to chase down for eventual research, but I've also gained some further problemitization for my dissertation topic. I'm pretty sure it's not that much of a problem - essentially, that science education became a major facet of citizenship for youth at this time - but one still has to wonder if the question is what sorts of citizenship qualities were presented to youth at the time rather than what sorts of science and technology warnings that they received. More on this later.
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