AS 10/31

I really like pop-culture. Sure, it can be soulless, vapid, morally-ambiguous, and manipulative, but come on – it’s also fun. Who of us can’t sing along to “Material Girl” and not feel a tug for the garish excess of the 80’s and a pre-Kabbalah Madonna; or blast “London Calling” and feel liberated by the radically eclectic mix of punk and early ska? The late 70’s and early 80’s were all about the underground exploding to the foreground. Punk became an anti-establishment subculture that was suddenly bread and Bible to a generation of middle-class kids seeking an outlet for their desperate discontent. Punk became profitable. Tamed, punk faddishness evolved to the deconstructed apparel aesthetics of the 80’s. Alternative rock, nurtured by the legacy of The Clash, the Ramones, and the Sex Pistols, breed the grunge movement – flannel shirts and stringy hair, soulful gazes and restless angst. Now the 80’s are back to being “in,” Avril Lavigne is the new skater punk, and everybody’s making money selling the image and the idea – recycling is, after all, hot.

That’s what struck me in the discussion of Hebdige -- the idea of the re-identification of subculture as the norm. The Punk scene had their rebels -- biting, kicking frenzied underdogs who screamed and gnashed and publicly cursed authority figures. Now punk is an image packaged and sold, morphed to fit any number of unique tastes from goth chicks to skaters. Britney is pop-princess and little girls run around in minis. We’ve about run out of acceptable others to rail against, exoticized, or assimilate. Rock stars are boring. Pop culture has turned cannibal.

Showtime’s Dexter is cable TV’s newest, hottest show. The titular Dexter happens to be a brilliant blood splatter expert whose extracurricular activities include sawing people into pieces. You don’t get more deviant than a guiltless serial killer, yet this popular television show naturalizes this killer’s instincts, giving him a sympathetic undertone. Oh, and it helps that he conveniently only goes after bad guys who have fallen through judicial cracks. Dexter is a normalized aberration, and audiences respond to his lack of feeling, his certain knowledge of isolation and misunderstood nature, and forgive his peculiarities as they’ve had to forgive their own. Identification of the other as normal and all at a profit. I’m guilty of aiding and abetting; I love the show, every last bloodthirsty minute.