Tag Archives: Lady Gaga

Slavoj Zizek Not Gaga for Pop

Posted on by

Slovenian philosopher Slovaj Zizek has a cult following like Lady Gaga, but denied this weekend any romantic connection. I write this with tongue in cheek, Slavoj’s, because of his comic protestations. Zizek was cajoled by Amy Goodman at Saturday’s London Fronline Club event: did he categorically denied the rumor? Zizek said “Absolute denial on everything.” But he wasn’t dissing Gaga or the notoriety of the mischievous meme, even as he protested: “I didn’t even listen to not one of her songs!” The audience ate it up; how total a rejection. Except Zizek continued playfully: “My God, I listen to Schubert and Schumann songs. Sorry, I’m a conservative.” And there you have the reigning academic of pop cultural references, who cannot make a point without recalling a movie scene, rejecting not Lady Gaga, but Pop. Obviously Zizek’s pop culture isn’t yours.

It may escape the notice of average film goers that when themes evoke cinematic moments to Zizek’s memory, they’re not from There’s Something About Mary. Saturday’s discussion brought up Marx Brothers, yes, in the company of Lubitsch and Truffaut, moments of cinema verité, touches of social comment with Zizek’s nuance already scripted. Yes he’s famously evoked Tom & Jerry, and more recently tried to project Hosni Mubarak’s attention to Wiley Coyote’s fatal overrun of the cliff, but I think it’s clear, like Schubert and Schumann, we’re talking about classics. Academia may like to paint Zizek a populist, but his material is not plebeian.

For the curious, from the Marx Brothers: “My client may look like an idiot, and act like an idiot. That shouldn’t distract you, he is an idiot.” (About Rumsfeld being a liar.)

From Night And Day: A young lover finally yields unceremoniously to her suitor’s whining entreaties, to which he puts on the brakes like a reluctant prude. (About the West’s rejection of what it’s always pretended to want, a secular revolution in Egypt.)

From Ninotchka: Customer “May I have a coffee with cream?” Waiter: “We don’t have cream, we have milk. May I offer you a coffee without milk?” (About speaking the unspoken pretense.)

Where Zizek hits low perhaps are his wildly off-color jokes, gleaned from friends over drinks –I like to imagine– as opposed to circulated in morning emails. Zizek was full of sexism-loaded analogies on Saturday, and one joke in particular looks to have fallen between the edits which Democracy Now is re-airing, and even off the published transcript of the full event.

So I’ll retell it, and you tell me if Zizek could have made his point without getting so obscene. He’s addressing human nature’s desire for favorable news, even as by definition it masks atrocity.

A man’s wife is treated in the hospital for a potentially fatal condition. The doctor comes out and tells the husband, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is, we saved your wife, she will live. The bad news is, well, due to circumstances we couldn’t avoid, her rectal muscles no longer function, so she’ll be shitting uncontrollably the rest of her life, and her vagina will be secreting a substance, very unpleasant, and so on, her mouth, her nose, disgusting, and so on. Noticing the husband’s discomfort increasing to an unbearable pitch, the doctor tells him: Relax, I’m kidding, don’t worry, your wife died.

Zizek was illustrating the new Wikileaks state of affairs, our corporate government and its press rejecting the truths which emerged from the leaks, preferring the more palatable, no matter the horrors it perpetuates. Between reality and Zizek’s joke, which was the more obscene?

I also love Zizek’s propensity to drop “and so on” between statements, like verbal checkmarks on the points he’s hit. It’s post-graduate lecture shorthand for “you know the rest.” Chomsky does it too, by fading into mumbles, and it is frustrating to those of us who haven’t covered the assigned reading. But it’s a reminder too, of how much out there we cannot hope to master. That shouldn’t stand in our way of trying to grasp the bigger picture.

Am I right, Slavoj Zizek big picture speaks to us using the vocabulary of the big picture show? It’s the silver screen to be precise, and as yet he’s limited himself to visuals, not lyrics. I think Zizek’s candid revelation about his musical preferences leaves a hint for us that the bigger picture isn’t to be found in today’s compression sculpted pop sound, no matter how politically clever or Gaga the music.

Case of curious cellphone, bandana and Greyson Chance’s perfect microphone

Posted on by
1

Oprah Winfrey records own show on cellphonePT Barnum would have been a terror on Youtube –I’m certainly sobered to see what fools America every time. Is sudden-tween-throb Greyson Chance’s talent for real? Too soon to say. But the 6th grade sound man at Cheyenne School of Edmond, Oklahoma has unlikely genius. * What’s hard to believe about doctors bandaging Bret Michaels’ massive brain hemorrhage with his signature headband? * And my favorite, Oprah Winfrey recording a show performance with her cellphone to attest to her surprise at “the coolest thing ever!”

Oprah
It happened ages ago (in blog-years) but television talk shows bind these three example together. Do you remember Oprah’s anniversary whatsit, taped like a big tailgate party in downtown Chicago? Oprah stood there on the outdoor stage beside the Black Eyed Peas and held her cellphone up, aimed at the audience, as if the dozen or more cameras on cranes, wires and rails weren’t going to be enough. And the crowd erupted in spontaneous dance, although it was choreographed, and a concept swiped from a European video. But Oprah’s deal went viral because, OMG would you believe it, and there was Oprah, OMG’ding herself, careful to record it to show her friends in case they wouldn’t have believe her, or watched the show.

Now how many of you believe the media diva even has her own phone, much less carries it or knows how it works?

Watching the video again, an establishing shot before the music begins shows someone in the audience (who later would turn out to be a dancer) aiming their cellphone like a camera, in case the audience at home needed a reminder that’s what normal people do today, and that’s what Oprah would be doing, to confound your awe with hers. Compound.

After the video had done its viral thing, Oprah had all the crowdsourced uploads removed, being unlicensed and all. I think it was really because her feigned incredulity wasn’t going to pass muster. Better a memory gone viral than video evidence of Oprah taking her viewers for fools.

Bret
Bret Michael’s blue bandana as he reclined on the hospital bed on the cover of People Magazine was just too silly for words. No doubt America wouldn’t know him without his bandana wig, so it was definitely an art director’s call.

Alright, it wasn’t a video, but the internet rumors went viral. Fans started to twitter about an oddly fortuitous recovery which put him back on the Celebrity Apprentice season finale, so now poor Bret is back in the hospital to prove it wasn’t a PR stunt, this time for a hole-in-the-heart, probably something to do with a tatoo, in any case nothing to interfere with his headband.

Chance Michael Grayson plays Cheyenne School 6th Grade show at Edmond, OklahomaGreyson
Brand-spanking-fresh-phenom Greyson Michael Chance wowed everyone on Youtube, and Ellen’s people, reportedly before his views had even hit five-digits –are talent scouts that grassroots? He encored with the same brilliant performance on her show, thus certifying his authentic talent, based on the law that lightening can’t be fixed twice. Although the equalizer setting, for lack of a technical term, was remarkably identical, wasn’t it? Same tweaked toning, same very attentive fader, especially if it wasn’t the same microphone.

Seriously, SNL, of the notoriously bad music soundboard, should hire whoever miked that primary school performance.

On the subject of expensive equipment, how often do you see a shiny grand piano at a public school choir concert?

Although the camera work was shaky, the cameraman kept an interesting crop on Greyson, framed by the waiting choir girls. It reminded me of the soldier backdrop they used to give President Bush. Authenticity came of the development that none of the girls were compelled to look too interested, I’m guessing that was sheer fortuity. The result was that Young Mr. Chance was strangely placed off-center, the better to feature the girls. An actual parent would have framed their son to show his feet at the pedals, I guarantee you.

The close crop remained even as Greyson finished and the school emcee offered her remarks, her head off camera. The lens never zoomed, fitting for a digital still camera which cannot zoom in video mode, or because appearances of homemade authenticity be damned, broadcast editors will not abide zoom.

But Greyson gave the game away when he took his bow, aimed not at the audience, but directly at the camera. You’d figure he already had countless home recordings of his Lady Gaga cover, both practice and dinner guest performances. On this stage the camerawork was let to look improvised, like a parent’s afterthought, while Cherub Gaga sang the performance straight ahead, in the same direction to which the emcee addressed the audience. So to whom was Mr. Chance taking his bow?