Barbie Drama - Adorno and Horkheimer

Walking away from our class discussion on Tuesday, I found myself suddenly analyzing the trademarks around me. Specifically in the form of products, I kept thinking of what I call products in terms of what they actually are. I know we discussed band-aids and Kleenex when in reality they are bandages and tissues respectively, but there just had to be more examples. Fortunately, a skype session later that evening would provide me with a personal example. Watching as the camera focused in on Savannah, an eight-year-old girl I babysit from back home, I could tell that she was in her usual chipper mood. She was smiling and laughing and it took me a second to realize that we were not alone this evening, as sitting by her side was no other than a new doll.

Now, I played with dolls growing up, but I do not know the difference between Bratz and Barbie or whatever trend is going through the elementary schools right now. Asking about her new friend, I accidentally used the word Barbie to describe the doll as it only comes natural that most girls’ dolls are in fact Barbies, but this could not have been more inaccurate. For the next half hour I listened to the story about how in fact it wasn’t a Barbie, but rather a happily ever after collection doll (still not sure what that actually means). Just as Adorno and Horkheimer were saying, “countless people use words and expressions which they either have ceased to understand at all or use only…as trademarks” In my mind, all dolls are Barbies, but to Savannah, I could not have been more wrong.

Jameson

I was just getting used to the straightforward talk of our theorists, and then Jameson came along. I felt like Jameson definitely relates back to the hyper-stimulated activity of Habermas, but with Marxism built in. When Jameson talks about how we are so obsessed with consumerism. Much like Althusser upset me in his soapbox of ideology, Jameson upset me too. I feel like he's right though... there is an obvious abundance of consumption and while we're consuming the industry, they're consuming us too. It's a scary thought, but it's so embedded into our ideology that I don't think that it's going to stop- and what does that say about our culture?

A quote that stood out to me was one that I actually am still having trouble understanding ... "The first point to be made about the conception of periodization in dominance, therefore, is that even if all the constitutive features of postmodernism were identical and continuous with those of an older modernism-- a position I feel to be demonstrably erroneous but which only an even lengthier analysis of modernism proper could dispel- the two phenomena would still remain utterly distinct in their meaning and social function, owing to the very different positioning of postmodernism in the economic system of late capital, and beyond that, to the transformation of the very sphere of cultural contemporary society". (485) The quote's long and takes a few minutes to unpack, but what I think it's saying that in dominance, it's not true that older modernism and the new postmodernism aren't identical (but he can't explain it right now) but both ways of thinking are able to easily be identified in their own definition very easily-- and both of these change the way we live, from our culture to our capital economy.

On page 491 when Jameson talks about The Scream it related to Visual Rhetoric, since we talked about Munch's work. I've never really liked the painting before learning how to think critically, but the relation between the two classes made me think of what else the Scream is saying. The disconnect is so obvious between how the painting is put together in its medium and what it's actually portraying. That disconnect is what I feel like Jameson is talking about when he talks about how we are reacting to our culture of consumption- an obvious separation.

Jameson

“Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism”, by Fredric Jameson was a bit confusing to understand, but it is clear that Jameson is a Marxist and he relates to many theorists we have already learned about. Jameson says, “What has happened is that aesthetic production today has become integrated into commodity production generally: the frantic economic urgency of production fresh waves of ever more novel-seeming goods (from clothing to airplanes), at ever greater rates of turnover” (485). This quote really stuck out to me because it reminds me of when Habermas talks about “the cult of the new”, which is something that comes up a lot in the essays we have read by many different theorists. Our society has become so obsessed with getting what is bigger, better, and faster that we don’t even have to time to fully appreciate what we have, because once we do buy the “new” thing, something will come out a month later and we will then want that. It’s just an on-going cycle of wanting what is better than what we do have. This also has to do with how Habermas says we live in this “hyper stimulated sensitivity” and how we just can’t move away from it. This quote is very important, because you can tell when reading it that Jameson is being kind of sarcastic when he’s talking about commodities and how we want the best products out there, but actually those products that we think are the best, really aren’t at all. Jameson is saying that the companies who make the products only make it seem that way so consumers will believe that what they’re buying is the best. It’s amazing how things change- I remember when I was growing up I wanted the new Barbie and now it seems like even little kids are getting the newest and best technology available.

“on my honor I have not given, nor received, nor witnessed any unauthorized assistance on this work”

Pre-class post - Jameson

The quote that stuck out most to me throughout this reading was towards the beginning where Fredric Jameson says, “What has happened is that aesthetic production today has become integrated into commodity production generally: the frantic economic urgency of producing fresh waves of ever more novel-seeming goods (from clothing to airplanes), at ever greater rates of turnover, now assigns an increasingly essential structural function and position to aesthetic innovation and experimentation.” (485) I related it to Benjamin Walter and what he says concerning ‘political art’ and ‘authenticity’. ‘Novel-seeming goods’ are always being reproduced and reproduced and reproduced to be newer, better, faster, stronger … then the previously produced. Jameson recognizes this already back in 1984 already that this reproduction of ‘everything’ is happening at ‘ever greater rates of turnover’. Reproduction of such then causes a chain reaction of other things, such as that they find recognition in the institutional support. Zizek would call this ‘urgency of producing fresh waves of ever more novel-seeming goods’ as products deprived of their malignant properties. Everything keeps being reinvented and taken further from its reality and we don’t remember where it came from…Jameson says that ‘the past is (thereby) itself modified because ‘the new spatial logic of the simulacrum can now be expected to have a momentous effect on what used to be historical time.’ (494) He also argues that “…the culture of the simulacrum comes to life in a society where exchange-value has been generalized to the point at which the very memory of use-value is effaced…” (494) Baudrillard agrees with Jameson here and would say ‘postmodern condition’ has pulled us away from what is real and that we have reached this hyperreal space. Jameson believes in our postmodern age that history to us has become foggy, and the “prehistory” of a society bereft of all historicity. I like the metaphor that Jameson uses: ‘a set of dusty spectacles’ is what our past has become.

AHC – Geena Krueger

jameson

This week for class we had to read Fredric Jameson’s piece titled “Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.” The part of the essay that I found interesting was the section titled, “Postmodernism Cultural Dominant.” Here, Jameson is arguing that postmodernism is not a “style, but rather cultural dominant” (Jameson, 484). What he is trying to say here is that we look at things differently in this time period than modernists. This is a result of a “canonization and an academic institutionalization of the modern movement” (Jameson, 485).

This is a new generation that has its own ideas and now is seen in societies as the “norm.” Jameson says, “As for the postmodern revolt against all that, however, it must equally be stressed that its own offensive features….no longer scandalize anyone and are not only received with the greatest complacency but have themselves become institutionalized and are at one with the official culture of western society” (Jameson, 485). Our society has begun to accept these new ideas and have been embedded within our society that we do not even think about it any more.

He also relates the idea of postmodernism as cultural dominant through what we talked about earlier this year, systems. He talks about how theorists win and lose by saying, “What happens is that the more powerful the vision of some increasingly total system or logic, the more powerless the reader comes to feel” (Jameson, 486). What he is trying to say here is that his work gets thrown aside because people do not want to go against the norms of culture. He says that transformation of society is “perceived as vain and trivial in the face of the model itself” (Jameson, 486).

On my honor I have not given, nor received, nor witnessed, any unauthorized assistance on this blog

Pre Class Post: Jameson

After reading Jameson’s essay, “Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism,” I was pretty confused by the piece. But something I was able to take away from it was the notion of intertextuality. Jameson says, “The producers of culture have nowhere to turn but to the past: the imitation of dead styles, speech through all the masks and voices stored up in the imaginary museum of a now global culture” (494). At this point in history it is not possible for ideas to be original because everything has already been said. Like Pierre Macherey explains, it may seem that something is original but the information and ideas are always drawn from previous knowledge or experience therefore it is impossible for information to overlap and repeat itself.

Jameson also touches on the subject of “the cult of the new” as discussed by Habermas. Jameson says, “What has happened is that aesthetic production today has become integrated into commodity production generally: the frantic economic urgency of production fresh waves of ever more novel-seeming goods (from clothing to airplanes), at ever greater rates of turnover” (485). Everything that is created has to top the previous item and the speed at which this is occurring is rapid. I think an important part of the quote that relates to the paragraph above is the term “novel-seeming.” By this Jameson seems to be saying that the producers want the consumer to believe that they are getting something better and newer but it really is not all that difference, it is just played off to be that way. When thinking about “the cult of the new” I always think about children’s toys. I was watching the news and through results from a survey it was reported that the top items that are being asked for this year are the Iphone4 , the Ipad, and the Ipod Touch.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=1095258n

pre-post for 11/2

This week as I read the Jameson reading I was extremely caught off guard. While the reading spoke to me in certain places I felt disconnected with the majority of the reading. I am hoping after we discuss this further in class I will have a better understanding of Jameson’s intentions for his audience and his personal beliefs. The part of the reading that stuck out to me the most is the quote that follows. “Theories of difference, however, have tended to stress disjunction to the point at which the materials of the text, including its words and sentences, tend to fall apart into random and inert passivity, into a set of elements which entertain purely external separations from one another. In the most interesting postmodernist works, however, one can detect a more positive conception of relationship which restores its proper tension to the notion of differences itself.” (p. 503) The way I interpreted this quote was that although differences seem to be a trend and perhaps even greater than intentional one can find understanding in such disharmony. Similar to that of Jencks’ disharmonious harmony, it is different but as readers and active people in our society we find understanding in the opposite spectrums. I find it interesting that this quote comes from the section Jameson titles, “Collage and Radical Difference.” I see this is in a very general way, a collage the way I know it are pieces of things that separately don’t mean much but together represent something significant. When I was a kid I would have to make collages that represented me so I would include elements of different things I like. Radical difference represents exactly the elements of the collage that together mean something. Perhaps Jameson is onto something with this that can actually be applied to things happening in the now.