VL-IV Un-Pop culture: co-optation

[Robert Mahnke]

Laura says: "We take it as a given now, that Dylan will huckster lingerie,
The Band will hawk verizon, etc., but I remember the shock value of the
opening battle-cry that appeared in 1971, marking the first time they took
"our" idealism and commodified it...."

Thomas Frank, better known for writing What's The Matter With Kansas, wrote
an earlier book called The Conquest Of Cool in which he argued, if I recall
it correctly, that it was not that business co-opted and commodified the
counterculture, but rather more of a dialectic, as explained in the excerpt
here:

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/259919.html 

Good stuff.  Those of us who didn't live through the 60's have to study hard
to keep up with the rest of you.


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
Of kelber at mindspring.com
Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2008 4:46 PM
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: VL-IV Un-Pop culture: co-optation

If a partial theme of the book (as described in one of the essays posted by
Dave here, damned if I can remember which one) is:  what happened to the
'60s?, the books answer is, in part, co-optation.  TRP co-opts a lot of the
pop-culture.  He deliberately wants to show us the cheesy stuff.  WHo needs
to be a radical or a narc, for that matter, when you can veg out in front of
the tube [for the present day, read: screen].

There's no question that the new medium of TV was used to attack the
counter-culture.  We take it as a given now, that Dylan will huckster
lingerie, The Band will hawk verizon, etc., but I remember the shock value
of the opening battle-cry that appeared in 1971, marking the first time they
took "our" idealism and commodified it:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHiH-vLyRbU


Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>Sent: Dec 31, 2008 2:46 PM
>To: bandwraith at aol.com, pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: VL-IV Un-Pop culture: The decline of standards.
>
>"Classic" in this book refers to a car, a tv
>show, a movie or some other pop venue, and nothing
>more.---bandwraith
>
>More falling off.  
>
>
>      
>