Re: [microsound] B.S. (britney spears)

[Kenric McDowell <kenric@xxxxxxxxx>]

> Your language is so passive as to suggest these things are inevitable or
> even "natural". This bothers me because you can't ascribe motivations to a
> natural force, nor can you say that a force in its 40s, wearing a fancy
> suit or sporting a hard-on. I think that misses more than a little from the
> equation.
I'm not so stupid to suggest that "technological and cultural forces" are
natural or unnatural. That's an entirely different conversation. I'm just
noting their relation to Britney Spears as a product.

>> These forces are achievements in and of themselves and the fact that they
>> converge in her,
Outside of politics or value, these are amazing technological and social
achievements. Like capitalism or spectacle they are not benign but
nonetheless are incredible forms.
 
> No, not "literally", "figuratively". You're not talking about real things,
> you're talking about concepts.
Okay, that's fine. My mistake, I tend to get excited about this subject.

> What definition of humanity precludes celebrity?
Humanity without the ghost of the celebrity image. With Britney, because her
participation in "her" productions is so mediated, the gulf between the
celebrity and the actual person is very large. According to her own
mythology she has left the company of drones and become something more, but
this is bunk since she has no talent and could be killed or worse if her
records sales drop. However, she is no idoru and all of this must meet at
one person's physical presence. Otherwise, where is it, how can the product
exist without her?

> Bah, the same thing that would happen to any celebrity. If you want to talk
> about her as some kind of convergence (or signifier, or whatever) then the
> above doesn't distinguish what she represents from any other "superstar".
Except for the fact that she is completely unaware that she has no talent.
She consumes her images as a consumer at the same time that she produces
them. Have you read interviews with her? She believes her own hype. This is
why I find her a tragic figure. She, as an individual, not an icon, is a
positive feedback cycle of production/consumption.

> Again, not at all literally. I appreciate you're not writing a paper here,
> but still...
But what? What is wrong  with writing a paper about Britney Spears the
social phenomenon, anyway? This type of thing has been going on at least
since Barthes.

> If all that you attribute to Britney is as you say, then this "convergence
> of forces" would be pretty stupid to allow her to be represented as knowing
> and calculated. 
Perhaps I have simply bought the lie. I think it is much more likely that
you would *have* to be vacant or dumb with greed to believe that any of this
stuff would be good for you or put you in any kind of non-disposable
position.

>I can't see how you can say she is all these non-human
> things, then claim to have an idea of what the person is like.
It is her fusion with her media image (in her own mind and in the mind of
her fans) that makes  her as you would  say, conceptually or figuratively,
non-human. Of course she is still a human being. As I encounter her she is
merely an image. Somewhere in between is the reality.

-km