The “The Twilight Saga” Saga
February 25, 2009 at 7:31pm | In literature, pop culture, sexuality, year in review | 2 CommentsTags: 2008, conceptual blogging, gossip girl, inability to blog, media studies on acid, new years resolutions, twilight, waxing poetic on pop culture, ya fiction
While Michael Tom was regaling you throughout the month of January with posts about Chris Crocker, Joe the Plumber, and breakdancers kicking babies in the face, I have to admit I felt like a bit of a fraud. 2008 was the year when I finally lost touch with popular culture to a point where I barely know what any of that stuff even IS. I also recently discovered that several of my friends didn’t realize that Michael Tom even wrote for this blog and were under the impression it was all me, all the time. They were pretty confused about why I was writing all that stuff, when my bro is the true pop culture junkie of the fam (if he has his way, I think Lady Gaga will become the largest item in our “tag cloud,” oh shit is she already??).
We believe in new year’s resolutions around here at Tiny Gems; one of mine for 2009 was to get back in touch with popular culture, because I have a feeling it might be kind of ridiculous/awesome right now and I’m missing out. But for now – instead of pretending that I gave a shit about stuff I didn’t even know existed – I’m going to tell you about the two pieces of 2008 popular culture that I completely, unabashedly, truly and deeply GET:
Except that maybe I don’t really get it.
Part One: On the Really Weird Sexual Politics of Twilight
(Spoiler alert, y’all: I read all four of the Twilight books in, like, a week while bored out of my mind at my parents’ house. I’m going to talk about all four here. If you want plot summaries or whatever, check wikipedia… loser.)
I know that – at least according to the many repetitive reviews I’ve read by this point – I’m supposed to think Twilight is this giant metaphor for abstinence or somebody’s half-baked idea of Puritanism or whatever. And it seems, as a “feminist,” I’m supposed to be afraid of its subliminal mental poison and what it’s doing to the selves of today’s teenage girls. The (possibly sad?) truth, however, is that the sexual politics and dynamics that permeate Stephenie Meyer’s supremely weird/fascinating – and yet fucking horribly written – Twilight “Saga” are actually, umm, a lot more complicated than that. OK, OK, I know, they get married. Which is totally lame. But which doesn’t begin to explain away the towering weirdness of everything else that’s going on here.
OK, so I understand the common ‘abstinence’ reading of the first book; before I continued to the others I thought I got it, too. But after that, what sex is both representing and being represented by begins to shift in directions no one is really addressing (maybe because no one except me — as both a voracious reader of children’s and young adult fiction and someone with a degree in “sexuality studies” — would actually bother…..), and that maybe no one – not even the author herself – actually understands.
Pouring some out for our homies: the pop-culture fallen of 2008
January 7, 2009 at 5:23pm | In pop culture, year in review | 2 CommentsTags: 2008, 2009, fifteen minutes of fame
Although it’s a bit late for a year-in-review, I’d like to remember a few pop-culture phenomena that we (probably) won’t be seeing much more of in 2009. Sometimes, I wonder if there is a retirement home for faded internet memes, vanished non-celebrities, and other cultural referents so out-of-date as to be beyond irony – something like The Surreal Life, but without the cameras.
Rest in peace, 2008 — your fifteen minutes are over.
Samuel Joseph “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher
Chris Crocker and Onch (of Paris Hilton’s My New BFF)
Ron Paul and his grassroots (“Google Ron Paul”) followers
The video of a breakdancer kicking a baby in the face
LOLcats
Everything’s fine in 2009
January 7, 2009 at 4:27pm | In pop culture, year in review | 1 CommentTags: 2008, 2009, heaven's gate cult, lady gaga, waxing poetic on pop culture
Here are Paris and Nicky Hilton on New Year’s Eve (photo care of The Superficial) to confirm that, yes, 2009 will be exactly like 2008 – only moreso.
This year, we at Tiny Gems resolve to give you a close analysis of the fascinating, absurd pop-culture landscape of the early 2000s before it inevitably recycles. And just in case you were wondering what evidence we have for this brand pop-culture millenialism, I give you – of course – “Poker Face” by Lady Gaga.
Look forward to more music, TV, film, art, design and trash-talk all the time in 2009.
The Good Dude
October 5, 2007 at 10:37am | In culture, sociology | Leave a CommentTags: 2007, 2008, drinking forties on the corner, subcultural phenomena, the good dude
About a year ago, MT and I discussed what we considered a sort of cultural phenomenon, and which we called, “the Good Dude.” I forget when the Good Dude first came into our consciousness/vocabulary, but I remember that it was either while walking home from the radio station or while drinking forties on a corner in South Philly. Whatever. The Good Dude sprang into being, somehow, and he is real.
The Good Dude is a subcultural phenomenon; maybe he crosses the boundaries of multiple subcultural spaces, but so far we have found him in punk/indie rock. He’s the guy who sets up the shows, who knows everybody, who’s always chill and doesn’t harsh your mellow or whatever. HE IS ALWAYS A DUDE. Everybody knows him and when you drop his name in conversation, they say, “oh yeah, ______, he’s a good dude.” The Good Dude is always a dude because it is essential that his sexuality not be involved with his good dudeness. The Good Dude is probably single, or even asexual. If he has a girlfriend (a boyfriend is possible, but less probable), she is really cute but not beautiful or whatever, and she wears cute dresses or whatever. We hypothesized that the Good Dude is always and exclusively a dude because a woman’s sexuality would become too involved/scrutinized if she was at the apex of a large social network. Gross, but probably true.
In terms of sociological network analysis, the Good Dude has DEGREE CENTRALITY: he is directly tied to many people, they KNOW HIM and they even all LIKE HIM. He might also have some BETWEENNESS CENTRALITY: he is such a good dude, that he is free to transcend his own subcultural existence. He is the kind of guy who is friends with everybody and “likes ALL kinds of music!” He doesn’t have structural autonomy because it is essential that many of the people he knows know each other. They must talk about what a good dude he is in order to reinforce his status as the Good Dude.
Let’s ALL be good dudes to each other in 2007/2008.
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