Last night's voting tally: 744 votes for Clay. Oh yes, it is a new record. I needed to do something to combat the obvious favoritism towards Ruben.
Perhaps it's time I tried to explain my overwhelming love for this show. While I have any tiny shred of credit as an intelligent person left. Because, you see, I love it as an intelligent person. And yet, my claim to love it unironically is also true.
"But how can this be?" you ask. "Surely no one of the generation that is currently between the ages of 18 and 30 could love anything unironically and still claim to be intelligent! In this age of snark, as the ascendancy of post-structuralism has come and passed, leaving us not only without structure, but without anything to put in its place, nothing can be genuine!"
And yes, I know it sounds incredible. But, folks, it can be done. And my goal is to prove it to you.
So we’ll start with the unironic love I bear towards American Idol. Unironically, genuinely, and completely, I love Clay. I do. That’s a good part of why I watch the show, and why I fell for this particular incarnation more than I would have fallen for any other. In some ways, Clay is the person I want to be. Offbeat, funny, loveable, artistic, kind, introspective but friendly – and yes, I don’t know the kid, I’m just attributing qualities to him based on a combination of clever editing, performance, and my own desires, but that’s what television is about anyway, so that’s what I get to do.
I think, actually, that if I’d been born male, and skinny (instead of female, and tending towards plumpness), I might have turned out something like Clay. But I wasn’t, and so, instead, I remain me and feel great fondness towards people with those qualities that I do not possess.
So, unironically, watching this show it’s as if I’ve come upon a character I love in any other t.v. show. I’ll follow it just to watch that character. In short, I become a fan.
But that only explains my love for Clay, the totally unironic part. It doesn’t capture my love for the entire production, the show -- and that’s where the complicated self-justification and theorizing comes in. Because, see, I love this show. I love it for itself, not just for Clay. I have grown to love it, and now I cherish every beautiful, slick, cringingly product-placed moment of it. I love it the way I fall for entire productions, like I fell for Twelfth Night, or Xena, or a production of Arcadia a few years ago, or even, in some ways, the way I fell for Deep Space Nine. (I’m not helping the cred here, am I? Stay with me!)
What I’m trying to say is that there is a common quality, I think, involved, when I fall for a show, whether staged or filmed, not just for an actor, character, script, director, etc. And that quality , I’m not quite sure what to call it yet, but it’s something like “subtext,” or “liminality,” or “boundary-crossingness.” It’s one of the qualities that goes into my love for all things transvestic. It’s the central quality that makes me believe the Fools are the center of Shakespeare, especially King Lear. In fact, I’m coming to believe that this quality is actually at the heart of what I believe is important about all art.
There, is that pretentious enough for you? From American Idol to an entire theory of aesthetics. But that’s what I’m trying to say here – that in some way, this show, this fame-based, product-placed, ridiculous reality show has hit on a quality that is absolutely key to my personal aesthetic philosophy.
And it isn’t a completely unironic theory of aesthetics, either. I don’t think anyone could develop a theory of aesthetics in this world without it including irony – in fact, in some ways, what I’m trying to get at hinges on irony, in that it is based on a combination of two things that are ordinarily kept separate, as is irony. Irony is (at least, in one of its definitions) the combination of two unlike things. The juxtaposition of the expected and the unexpected. It is a boundary-crossing, at heart.
I’m straying into the world of the abstract and forgoing the concrete. Always a bad idea. So back to American Idol itself. How does it, of all things, fit in? Because I think that through a wonderful, fortuitous, brilliant combination of factors, American Idol manages to reach outside itself. It manages to be of more than one world. It lives a multiplicity of texts, and each reader is involved in creating – not just a maintext and primary subtext – but a multitext. It is written and rewritten.
A lot of this hinges on the fact that it’s a reality show. I mean, that genre in itself is a wonderful example of boundary-crossingness/irony/whatever. We take it seriously, yet we can’t take it seriously.
How could you have a more beautiful example than MTV’s titling one of the first of the breed “The Real World?”
Of course it’s so not the “real world.” Yeah, in the real world, people watch and comment on your every move, everyone’s beautiful, and it doesn’t really matter if you have a job because MTV gives you everything you need. And yet, it is the “real world,” because the people on it are not actors. They are not being given a script (at least not mostly), the direction of the show is not planned out in advance (at least not mostly), and (most) anything can happen.
Do you see what I’m getting at? Do you see the multitext being written even as the show comes into being? There are at least two texts here: there’s the text of absolutely literality – what happens on the show. Then, there’s the text of producer manipulation – how did editing contribute to that scene? Who’s being told to do what? What goals were in mind when these people were picked to be on the show? Then there’s the text of cultural subtypes and subtexts – how do these people play into those types and texts? How else can we interpret their actions? How are subtypes/texts changed simply by the fact of these people’s new, weird fame? An extraordinary thing happens here: we see, in process, the creation of something that is both real and not real, both show and not show – that is both/and and neither/nor.
And when you get to American Idol, not only do you see that in process, you are asked to participate in it. Not just as a writing/rewriting viewer, not just as someone who can read multiple texts from every angle (and people do – witness that an enormous amount of dialogue about American Idol is not about what happens on the show, but how to read it: was that scripted? What did he really mean? How are they trying to play this? What tricks of editing did they use to make the clip show have that particular meaning?)- with American Idol, we become not just a reader, but a participating writer. In other words, television audience is being made more like live audience. We are becoming an up-to-the-minute (at least, somewhat) participant in the multitext itself.
Now, yes, I concede that in many ways, this is nothing new. Television has always been an obsessively audience-responsive medium. At least, it’s tried to be. And I’m not really trying to say that my pet shows are somehow advances on the genre that no one saw coming. What they are, though, is intensely successful at it. I love American Idol because, whether it means to or not, it has the liminal multitext, the ironic audience, the whatever-it-is down. And it plays that thing, that elusive, amazing thing, absolutely to the hilt.
American Idol not only allows for multitext, it encourages it. Witness, Ryan Seacrest. I love, love, love Ryan Seacrest. I love him more every week. Because this man is a master of multiple meaning. It’s like a constant game of “how many subtexts can Ryan slip in this week?” He’s scripted – one text --; he’s live – another text –; he’s Hollywood/Ironically distanced; he’s young/old; he’s gay/straight; he’s shallow/deep; he’s genuine/fake; he’s beautiful/unbeautiful – it goes on and on. He’s a walking irony, that beautiful plastic Seacrest is.
Yes, yes, I know – you’re going to claim that I’m totally reading depth into the amazing plastic Seacrest that does not exist. But see, that’s what I’m trying to say – he can be read. He loves the power of audience, and that is absolutely key to being an avatar of this multiple ironies thing I’m talking about. And I do believe, wholeheartedly, that this quality is not only essential to why Seacrest hosts AI, but also to what makes me love the show in the first place. He is intentionally multitextual, whether any producer of the show would put it that way or not.
And so goes the rest of the show. It is a brilliant, beautiful combination of about sixteen different layers of meaning, all overlapping, all nebulous, all both intended and unintended – with more proliferating every week. It’s a perfect example of its genre, a brilliantly designed commercial product, a masterful example of audience involvement – and fun to watch.
Now how could I not love it?
So. After all that, here are some multiple meanings you could read into my very own entry!
87. It’s just a pitiful attempt to justify enthusiasm for what’s really a shameful freakshow of American culture.
88. It’s just a pitiful attempt to justify my love for Clay Aiken and Ryan Seacrest, which is actually just based on looks, but, as an intellectual, I can’t admit that.
89. It’s just a pitiful attempt to justify my watching of something that’s actually very bad for the world, but which I watch because I’ve slipped into a morass of unemployed dullness.
90. It’s just a pitiful attempt to sound smart, when really, I’m as dumb as the next unemployed slob.
91. It’s patronizing “love-the-masses” rhetoric of the type that ought to have been outlawed about a decade ago.
92. It’s elitist academic crap that says much and means nothing.
93. It’s a rambling and self-deluding example of psychoanalytic insecurities.
94. It’s an overgeneralization that really says everything about me as a reader of the world around me and nothing about the actual world.
95. It’s a frivolous waste of time in these serious, serious days.
96. Or….and here’s my favorite reading of all: it’s brilliant! You love it! It rules! And it makes you And it makes you want to vote for Clay seven hundred and forty-four times! (Did it work?)
Perhaps it's time I tried to explain my overwhelming love for this show. While I have any tiny shred of credit as an intelligent person left. Because, you see, I love it as an intelligent person. And yet, my claim to love it unironically is also true.
"But how can this be?" you ask. "Surely no one of the generation that is currently between the ages of 18 and 30 could love anything unironically and still claim to be intelligent! In this age of snark, as the ascendancy of post-structuralism has come and passed, leaving us not only without structure, but without anything to put in its place, nothing can be genuine!"
And yes, I know it sounds incredible. But, folks, it can be done. And my goal is to prove it to you.
So we’ll start with the unironic love I bear towards American Idol. Unironically, genuinely, and completely, I love Clay. I do. That’s a good part of why I watch the show, and why I fell for this particular incarnation more than I would have fallen for any other. In some ways, Clay is the person I want to be. Offbeat, funny, loveable, artistic, kind, introspective but friendly – and yes, I don’t know the kid, I’m just attributing qualities to him based on a combination of clever editing, performance, and my own desires, but that’s what television is about anyway, so that’s what I get to do.
I think, actually, that if I’d been born male, and skinny (instead of female, and tending towards plumpness), I might have turned out something like Clay. But I wasn’t, and so, instead, I remain me and feel great fondness towards people with those qualities that I do not possess.
So, unironically, watching this show it’s as if I’ve come upon a character I love in any other t.v. show. I’ll follow it just to watch that character. In short, I become a fan.
But that only explains my love for Clay, the totally unironic part. It doesn’t capture my love for the entire production, the show -- and that’s where the complicated self-justification and theorizing comes in. Because, see, I love this show. I love it for itself, not just for Clay. I have grown to love it, and now I cherish every beautiful, slick, cringingly product-placed moment of it. I love it the way I fall for entire productions, like I fell for Twelfth Night, or Xena, or a production of Arcadia a few years ago, or even, in some ways, the way I fell for Deep Space Nine. (I’m not helping the cred here, am I? Stay with me!)
What I’m trying to say is that there is a common quality, I think, involved, when I fall for a show, whether staged or filmed, not just for an actor, character, script, director, etc. And that quality , I’m not quite sure what to call it yet, but it’s something like “subtext,” or “liminality,” or “boundary-crossingness.” It’s one of the qualities that goes into my love for all things transvestic. It’s the central quality that makes me believe the Fools are the center of Shakespeare, especially King Lear. In fact, I’m coming to believe that this quality is actually at the heart of what I believe is important about all art.
There, is that pretentious enough for you? From American Idol to an entire theory of aesthetics. But that’s what I’m trying to say here – that in some way, this show, this fame-based, product-placed, ridiculous reality show has hit on a quality that is absolutely key to my personal aesthetic philosophy.
And it isn’t a completely unironic theory of aesthetics, either. I don’t think anyone could develop a theory of aesthetics in this world without it including irony – in fact, in some ways, what I’m trying to get at hinges on irony, in that it is based on a combination of two things that are ordinarily kept separate, as is irony. Irony is (at least, in one of its definitions) the combination of two unlike things. The juxtaposition of the expected and the unexpected. It is a boundary-crossing, at heart.
I’m straying into the world of the abstract and forgoing the concrete. Always a bad idea. So back to American Idol itself. How does it, of all things, fit in? Because I think that through a wonderful, fortuitous, brilliant combination of factors, American Idol manages to reach outside itself. It manages to be of more than one world. It lives a multiplicity of texts, and each reader is involved in creating – not just a maintext and primary subtext – but a multitext. It is written and rewritten.
A lot of this hinges on the fact that it’s a reality show. I mean, that genre in itself is a wonderful example of boundary-crossingness/irony/whatever. We take it seriously, yet we can’t take it seriously.
How could you have a more beautiful example than MTV’s titling one of the first of the breed “The Real World?”
Of course it’s so not the “real world.” Yeah, in the real world, people watch and comment on your every move, everyone’s beautiful, and it doesn’t really matter if you have a job because MTV gives you everything you need. And yet, it is the “real world,” because the people on it are not actors. They are not being given a script (at least not mostly), the direction of the show is not planned out in advance (at least not mostly), and (most) anything can happen.
Do you see what I’m getting at? Do you see the multitext being written even as the show comes into being? There are at least two texts here: there’s the text of absolutely literality – what happens on the show. Then, there’s the text of producer manipulation – how did editing contribute to that scene? Who’s being told to do what? What goals were in mind when these people were picked to be on the show? Then there’s the text of cultural subtypes and subtexts – how do these people play into those types and texts? How else can we interpret their actions? How are subtypes/texts changed simply by the fact of these people’s new, weird fame? An extraordinary thing happens here: we see, in process, the creation of something that is both real and not real, both show and not show – that is both/and and neither/nor.
And when you get to American Idol, not only do you see that in process, you are asked to participate in it. Not just as a writing/rewriting viewer, not just as someone who can read multiple texts from every angle (and people do – witness that an enormous amount of dialogue about American Idol is not about what happens on the show, but how to read it: was that scripted? What did he really mean? How are they trying to play this? What tricks of editing did they use to make the clip show have that particular meaning?)- with American Idol, we become not just a reader, but a participating writer. In other words, television audience is being made more like live audience. We are becoming an up-to-the-minute (at least, somewhat) participant in the multitext itself.
Now, yes, I concede that in many ways, this is nothing new. Television has always been an obsessively audience-responsive medium. At least, it’s tried to be. And I’m not really trying to say that my pet shows are somehow advances on the genre that no one saw coming. What they are, though, is intensely successful at it. I love American Idol because, whether it means to or not, it has the liminal multitext, the ironic audience, the whatever-it-is down. And it plays that thing, that elusive, amazing thing, absolutely to the hilt.
American Idol not only allows for multitext, it encourages it. Witness, Ryan Seacrest. I love, love, love Ryan Seacrest. I love him more every week. Because this man is a master of multiple meaning. It’s like a constant game of “how many subtexts can Ryan slip in this week?” He’s scripted – one text --; he’s live – another text –; he’s Hollywood/Ironically distanced; he’s young/old; he’s gay/straight; he’s shallow/deep; he’s genuine/fake; he’s beautiful/unbeautiful – it goes on and on. He’s a walking irony, that beautiful plastic Seacrest is.
Yes, yes, I know – you’re going to claim that I’m totally reading depth into the amazing plastic Seacrest that does not exist. But see, that’s what I’m trying to say – he can be read. He loves the power of audience, and that is absolutely key to being an avatar of this multiple ironies thing I’m talking about. And I do believe, wholeheartedly, that this quality is not only essential to why Seacrest hosts AI, but also to what makes me love the show in the first place. He is intentionally multitextual, whether any producer of the show would put it that way or not.
And so goes the rest of the show. It is a brilliant, beautiful combination of about sixteen different layers of meaning, all overlapping, all nebulous, all both intended and unintended – with more proliferating every week. It’s a perfect example of its genre, a brilliantly designed commercial product, a masterful example of audience involvement – and fun to watch.
Now how could I not love it?
So. After all that, here are some multiple meanings you could read into my very own entry!
87. It’s just a pitiful attempt to justify enthusiasm for what’s really a shameful freakshow of American culture.
88. It’s just a pitiful attempt to justify my love for Clay Aiken and Ryan Seacrest, which is actually just based on looks, but, as an intellectual, I can’t admit that.
89. It’s just a pitiful attempt to justify my watching of something that’s actually very bad for the world, but which I watch because I’ve slipped into a morass of unemployed dullness.
90. It’s just a pitiful attempt to sound smart, when really, I’m as dumb as the next unemployed slob.
91. It’s patronizing “love-the-masses” rhetoric of the type that ought to have been outlawed about a decade ago.
92. It’s elitist academic crap that says much and means nothing.
93. It’s a rambling and self-deluding example of psychoanalytic insecurities.
94. It’s an overgeneralization that really says everything about me as a reader of the world around me and nothing about the actual world.
95. It’s a frivolous waste of time in these serious, serious days.
96. Or….and here’s my favorite reading of all: it’s brilliant! You love it! It rules! And it makes you And it makes you want to vote for Clay seven hundred and forty-four times! (Did it work?)
Labels: american idol, audience, celebrity, clay, representation, spirit of the age, tv
0 Responses to “multitext this!”
Post a Comment