TWIN TALES OF TRADITION AND MODERNITY
My latest articles on Substack are “Warm beer and bathos” and “Barbie and Ken – Infantilization for the Masses.”
Ironically, they are both about the same thing – the quest to find some kind of “uniquely American common ground.” This challenge has never been more urgent, nor more difficult.
I hope you will take a look.
In the Bathos article, a casual rumination on modern culture, I reference a history of modern advertising by sociologist Jackson Lears:
Rather than the false promise of “magical transformation” through the purchase of the right brands, Lears believed that humanity was in urgent need of “a new animism, a reenchantment of a world grown mechanical and cold.”
In the Barbie article, I explore the underlying ethos of the new $100 million “live action” film scheduled for release July 2023. The all white Gen X and Y producers are using a juvenile cartoon aesthetic to speak to a perceived mass audience of “adulescents.” The film is a political experiment with potential generational significance beyond most Hollywood fare.
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