Re: Adorno on TV

[Ralph Dumain <rdumain@xxxxxxx>]

At 12:17 PM 6/2/99 +0000, L Spencer wrote:
>But re-reading the pieces included in that Routledge volume this
>weekend I was struck by the fact that in key passages the mass
>media are treated as an expression and an integral part of
>society. Its
>stupidities are treated as OUR stupidities. The media are treated >as part
of the way in which we make ourselves more stupid (as
>opposed to
>informing ourselves and developing our culture). If this is just
>as
>bleak a description of the mass media it does at least not treat
>audiences as wholly passive.

This passage moves me; it hits close to home.  If you came to Washington
and accompanied me to a movie theater filled with a ghetto audience, you
would witness a level of willful stupidity that would make your jaw drop.
You should read my review of my experience of ALIEN RESURRECTION.  You
know, the intelligent black people I know will not patronize any theater
where a ghetto audience predominates, that's how bad it is.  It's not class
snobbery, it's preservation of one's sanity.  Now when it comes to some
first class barbeque, it's a whole other matter.  Therein Hegel would find
an aesthetic embodiment of the speculative truth of the age.

I've given up on all but a few adults, but I've become a master at
directing film criticism to children, at the highest possible intellectual
level.  I did an absolutely brilliant job recently in explaining the latent
ideology of THE MATRIX to a 12-year old girl, and was completely
understood, a result almost unobtainable with adults.