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Pop Culture vs. Old Culture

  
  

Page: 12(3)

 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
12:22 / 12.06.07
Good Charlotte are indeed very subversive. Not as subversive as Johnny Cash, but hella subversive.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
12:27 / 12.06.07
he doesn't get a say in where he is presented

Ahhh, but doesn't he? Are the marketing men and TV network schedulers not merely worshippers and acolytes of this godfrom aspect by another name? Ahhhh...
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
12:47 / 12.06.07
He's not a godform, he's a manifestation of an archetype - I think there's a difference, even though there is the common ground of be created from the same ideas.

He's not a God either - Gods create the need for archetypes, as light created the need for eyes.
 
 
Quantum
12:53 / 12.06.07
You can cultivate relationships with Pop Culture entities like Bats that DO have depth and impact and open you up to a world of independent action from said entities beyond what many would expect.

See, I think that's true and an example of good practice (although I've never experienced it myself). In My Mind pop culture entities are roughly similar to spirits or elementals or goetic demons or whatever, rather than Deities. If there's a minor angel skilled in finding metals and precious stones (e.g. Amox, Brap, according to Dee & Kelley) that's an entity you can contact, why is it implausible you should contact an entity that appears and acts like Gimli or Batman?
My uncertainty arises when you try and posit an entity for everything, like the demon of stale bong water or summoning batmite, or trying to channel Andrew from Buffy (the season five Angel Andrew when he turned cool natch). I'm not saying Batman is equal to Bael, but it seems daft to say only Old Culture has entities. My rule of thumb is, if you've worked successfully with an entity then good on you, but the hypothetical conjecture on whether or not the American Dennis is an avatar of Coyote seems like debating the number of angels that can attend a pinhead rave up.

(Great. Now in my head I've got an image of Amox and Brap and all their mates, with glowsticks, at a warehouse party run by Pinhead the cenobite from Hellraiser and his mate Bael, all off their tits and laughing at a teenage socially inept Dennis in a Coyote costume.)
 
 
Quantum
12:55 / 12.06.07
He's not a godform, he's a manifestation of an archetype - I think there's a difference, even though there is the common ground of be created from the same ideas.

Couldya start a thread on what those terms mean and the difference between them please? Thanks.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:27 / 12.06.07
Surely the line is "He's not a godform, he's a very naughty boy"? Normally I wouldn't sink to Python humour, but the fit here is just too good...

I think you're probably right, Quants. As a parlour game or a pastime, it seems perfectly fine to have a go at _treating_ Dennis the Menace as a "limited avatar" of the Trickster archetype, the need for which was presumably created by the existence of a Trickster god, of whom all trickster deities in current parlance are more or less limited avatars, as are... well, pretty much everything else, in fact. Applying these rules, I'd struggle to exclude anyone - Bugs Bunny, Dennis the Menace, Chris Morris, Jeremy Beadle, Nightcrawler, the Insane Clown Posse - from the status of trickster(s). When Dennis never actually effects change - when the best that can be said is that if you are looking at the 1950s comic strip rather than the TV series, the SNES game or the John Hughes (late period) film, you might then be encouraged by it to have "good ole fashioned American fun" - because apparently playing outside is the ultimate weapon in our war against the greyfaces. At this point, our trickster figure seems to be so watered-down, so piss-weak, so Good Charlotte (see also Mordant Carnival in the Trickster thread in Convo talking about the way everyone else is always Mister Wilson) as to be an active disincentive to actually doing or experiencing anything disruptive.

This before we move on to the question of what exactly is so bad about being Mister Wilson - he has a place in the world, a wife who loves him, and his relationship with Dennis is more nuanced and more affectionate, I ween, than the ideas so far advanced here. After all, Dennis is five years old, Mister Wilson is retired from a lifetime of public service. If you are behaving like Dennis at 60, or like Mister Wilson at five, something is amiss, but it's not exactly good versus evil.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
14:09 / 12.06.07
Ahhhh, but neither is good versus evil! Do you see?
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
14:09 / 12.06.07
Sorry, I'll stop now.
 
 
Quantum
14:13 / 12.06.07
apparently playing outside is the ultimate weapon in our war against the greyfaces.

Dude, it's Grayfaces, with an 'a'. You're so Mr Wilson, out of touch with the youth of today. Sorry, 'kidz 2day'.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
17:41 / 12.06.07
Don't make me hurt you.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
18:10 / 12.06.07
Oooh. Edgy.
 
 
Quantum
18:29 / 12.06.07


Trickstah.
 
 
EvskiG
18:36 / 12.06.07
Oooh. Edgy.

I'd go with this one instead:

  
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
18:49 / 12.06.07
Ah, there he's sticking it to the facist parents! What could be be edgier?
 
 
Quantum
18:54 / 12.06.07


Trickstah!
 
 
EvskiG
19:03 / 12.06.07
What could be be edgier?

Lots of things, obviously. But the character used to be a bit less saccharine than the example you used.

Always liked the 1960s Mad parody showing Dennis holding a human skull: "Mom, look what I found in Mr. Wilson's head!"
 
 
grant
20:17 / 12.06.07
There are more examples of early Dennis the Menace (USA) over here and, with further commentary here:

But having seen the horrors of war, Hank Ketcham had perspective. Any mischief any child could possibly get into would never approach the gruesome reality of men murdering each other on the battlefield. He could make kids as bad as he wanted and they would still never be really bad, on balance....

Ketcham's early Dennis Mitchell is mean-spirited.... And adults (including his parents) seem to genuinely dislike him.

This probably illustrates something about pop culture icons - they always get tamer over time.

Have you ever seen any of the early Bugs Bunny cartoons? Or the first few Daffy Duck cartoons? They were genuinely scary in look and character - or at least scarier than what they became.

Heck, even Mickey Mouse was basically a frustrated date rapist when he started out.

And now look at him....
 
 
grant
20:50 / 12.06.07
(By the way, that first Daffy Duck link goes to a possibly edited version of the original cartoon. Alas. That happens sometimes.)

Anyway, no matter how these characters change over time, I suppose there's no way of getting around the fact that they were created for laughs.

But still.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
21:10 / 12.06.07
I'm not really arguing that a pop-culture figure can't express some element of a God, or a shadow of an archetype. Elsewhere I've got into the way a lot of modern heathens use action figures on their altars because some element or aspect of the character puts them in mind of a God; Luke Skywalker standing in for Tyr, the Human Torch for Loki, Gandalf for Odin (though that last one's pretty much a gimme). I like clocking Tricksters in pop-culture, or characters with other Lokean traits; my latest catch was ([+] [-] Spoiler for Heroes. )

Still, I don't think it's in any way helpful to dilute the potency of the Trickster by flagging every remotely prankish or triflingly mischevious fictional character as a Trickster figure. As has been outlined elsewhere there are important elements of the Trickster that are just completely missing from DtM(US), even in his earlier, stroppier incarnation. I'm impatient with this phenomenon because I think it serves to remove powerful, meaningful figures from us, and us from them; it feeds complacency with one's present state and situation, rather than provoking the desire to examine and perhaps to change. Limiting, stagnating, dull dull dull.
 
 
grant
23:41 / 12.06.07
I'm impatient with this phenomenon because I think it serves to remove powerful, meaningful figures from us, and us from them; it feeds complacency with one's present state and situation, rather than provoking the desire to examine and perhaps to change.

Hmm. I think it maybe does that at the same time it creates a feeling of omnipresence - the motifs that show up everywhere. Possibly diluted, in different bottles for sure, but the same stuff.

There's something about the difference between literature and religion here, too - there's something about flagging every remotely prankish or triflingly mischevious fictional character as a Trickster that reminds me of objections I've heard religious students make to the idea of a Christ-figure in stories.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
00:07 / 13.06.07
Oh, I have no problem with people seeing echoes of the Trickster in Bugs Bunny, or inserting Trickster Gods or other Gods into fiction. For e.g.: Diana Wynne Jones is not (to the best of my knowledge) a believer in Team Norse and Luke in Eight Days of Luke is not Loki-the-God, and yet he does express certain important elements of Loki's nature.

I guess what I'm arguing for is a slightly more thoughtful appraisal, of necessity not one rooted in religion but in psychological resonance, where we look at what one can get from Anansi, Coyote et al outwith a theistic perspective, and thus allow ourselves to see what we're maybe not recieving from more dilute figures like DtM. What I'm seeing now is a strong--a very strong--tendency for people to draw 1:1 equivalences between little characters and Big Gods (or big archetypes, if that's yer poison). The equation Trickster Gods = all mischevious characters be they everso slight does not add up for me, less so the ever popular Coyote = Anansi = Prometheus = Dennis = Calvin = OMG I am Calvin and yr all Miss Wormwood!1!!.
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
05:33 / 13.06.07
Couldya start a thread on what those terms mean and the difference between them please? Thanks.

Give me a few days to think it over in terms of content, and clear my plate of other priorities.

The equation Trickster Gods = all mischevious characters be they everso slight does not add up for me, less so the ever popular Coyote = Anansi = Prometheus = Dennis = Calvin = OMG I am Calvin and yr all Miss Wormwood!1!!.

I don't see Calvin as a Trickster; whilst he may satisfy the principle requirement of disobeying rules and living primarily by his own, he doesn't satisfy the requirement of playing tricks - he's a dreamer with a talent to make his fantasies come true, and at best he is a Trickster in the sense that he has created Hobbes who is often known for playing pranks (most often against Calvin).

Now these principle requirements are personal things - looking at Wikipedia Tricksters it doesn't list both of these as defining a Trickster, but rather or otherwise disobeys normal rules and norms of behaviour - to me, simply disobeying rules is not enough to make a Trickster, just as being mischevious is not enough to make a Trickster in your eyes.

The reason I'm willing to explore the concept of Dennis being a Trickster, despite his being somewhat nauseating in character and slight in effect, is because he satisfies my basic requirements of the Trickster - he doesn't satisfy what I like in a Trickster, i.e the tendancy to go out and fuck swans, enforce his will upon the cosmos, and create change that doesn't make things any more perfect but rather enables and enlightens, however (for me) these arn't absolutes needed to explore, especially when they can distract from exploration.

Another reason I'm willing to explore Dennis as a Trickster is because he's what I think of as being a reasonably pure manifestation of the Trickster archetype - not in the sense of how I view this archetype, but rather how his creator did. Dennis was based off a one time incident involving the creators son, who then went on to draw off this influence and whatever was within him, to explain this kind of behaviour - to me it's a watered down encounter with a mystery, with a watered down explanation of this mystery, leading to a watered down manifestation of an archetype - an archetype which has been created through similar processes of varying degrees, throughout human history

Now all this is helpful to me in two regards; the first is dealing with a Trickster whose attentions I don't particularly have to be concerned with, so that I can understand certain aspects of the Trickster as a whole, and the Trickster I know and love, without being blown away by the intensity - it's like dealing with a Kitten, instead of a Tiger. Sometimes it's great to be blown away by the intensity, however sometimes it's not helpful because it's just too much to deal with - dealing with it on a small scale, like lifting weights, allows not only the progression to a larger scale, but also the refinement of technique at the maximum scale currently available.

The second reason I don't mind exploring Dennis as a Trickster is to understand how archetypes manifest themselves, not just in pop culture but also in the minds of individuals, and how these manifestations contribute to the evolution of an archetype; he's helpful to me specifically because his creation hasn't been influenced by an intimate relationship with established and powerful manifestations of his archetype, hence cultural bias and god worship haven't contributed as much as they would have otherwise.

What I'm seeing now is a strong--a very strong--tendency for people to draw 1:1 equivalences between little characters and Big Gods (or big archetypes, if that's yer poison).

What I see is the tendancy to recognise similarities between little characters and big gods - to me, Dennis is to Coyote what a mens lavatory sign is to an anatomy chart.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
11:34 / 19.08.07
Of course, Dennis the Menace is also a corporate property. It was interesting to see the argument that he was encouraging children to go out and challenge authority rather than play video games, when Dennis the Menace (US) is himself a video game. A video game, a TV show, a John Hughes (late period) movie. --Haus

Be interesting to examine the magicoreligious implications of doing magical work with/worshiping a corporate property. --Zippy McCavanaugh

I've been sort of reflecting on this myself, in a rather abstract way. Is evoking a coporate property always going to be fraught with the risk of limiting yourself (in the case of US!DtM by imputing that figure with qualities not actually present in his narrative and in fact arguably undermined by same)?

Or is there the possibility for samzidat fun here, somewhat akin to the better class of fanfic, which (it has been argued in the face of my Potterslash squick) contains the possibility of healing a broken narrative. Is there a potential for a magical working that would function in a similar way? (And if so, can we do a spell to swop JKR's bank balance with DWJ's?)
 
 
EvskiG
15:06 / 20.08.07
Seems to me that, say, Bart Simpson (to use a more popular and modern example than Dennis the Menace) is no more or less a "corporate property" than, say, Jesus.

Both are characters I consider fictional. Both have organizations that claim a monopoly on their presentation. And both have people who appropriate or detourn them to serve as mouthpieces for their own ideas.
 
 
Haloquin
22:30 / 20.08.07
You can cultivate relationships with Pop Culture entities like Bats that DO have depth and impact and open you up to a world of independent action from said entities beyond what many would expect. - IMS

See, I think that's true and an example of good practice (although I've never experienced it myself). In My Mind pop culture entities are roughly similar to spirits or elementals or goetic demons or whatever, rather than Deities. If there's a minor angel skilled in finding metals and precious stones (e.g. Amox, Brap, according to Dee & Kelley) that's an entity you can contact, why is it implausible you should contact an entity that appears and acts like Gimli or Batman? - Quantum

This clarifies something and at the same time confuses me.

For a few years I've been working with a friend on Buffy based workshops and workings. At Avalon Witchcamp each year (or rather the gathering that replaced it this year) we have run a workshop (within a magical framework of circle, invocation etc), presented as magical working at the shallow end of the pool... and people seem to get as much out of it as they do working with the deities that are invoked during the Camp and worked with during that week.

I'm very aware that working closely with a deity, developing a relationship with them, etc. is rather different from working with them for a week in a group setting. So I wonder if both Buffy and week-long-workings are paddling pool works. I wonder if, as the deity work can be deepened, the Buffy work can be deepened. And this wondering was intensified at the last Workshop when the feeling of inviting Buffy, Willow, Giles and Xander into the circle (as a Goddess of Strength, a Goddess of Magic, The Guide and the Sacred Fool respectively) was so damn similar to inviting in deities or the four Feri Guardians (damn big entities who feel as big as deities or bigger, and more primal than some).

This confused me, I had been approaching them open-mindedly, but in the spirit that they were characters that we were using to represent powers or archetypes.

Was it just the powers behind them I was feeling? Is it that these are, as IMS puts it, entities? That makes sense to me, and I plan to develop my work with them, alongside my work with 'real-deity' and old-culture entities. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out, how it all compares.

I strongly feel that the two are not equatable... but I wonder if sometimes entities can become deities... and where the line is.

The structure I've been working with Buffy in has been borderline communal, I wonder if that makes a difference. In the latest workshop I got the strongest sense of them as external, albeit not well-defined, beings/entities. And I got an urge toards awe. Which surprised me. And an urge towards developing a relationship with them.

It is late now and I need to sleep, so apologies if this is garbled, but tis very much on my mind.
 
 
Imaginary Mongoose Solutions
22:09 / 04.09.07
You bring up an interesting point. I've largely been off this forum since I've started dipping my toe into Feri.

Feri Guardians... despite the fact that part of my brain still approaches them as artificial constructs have shown themselves to be (UPG speaking, of course) very, very dynamic and powerful. The "feel" old and (here's an icky word) "authentic to me" despite their origins.
 
 
Mako is a hungry fish
01:50 / 05.09.07
And I got an urge toards awe. Which surprised me. And an urge towards developing a relationship with them.

Maybe it's within their power to manifest such energies, so that you take them in and act upon them? If their source of power is worship, or even just being acknowledged, than it's certainly within their best interests to do so.

The "feel" old and (here's an icky word) "authentic to me" despite their origins.

Reminds me of that Buffy halloween episode where they played dress up and became their characters, as they tapped into what those characters represented.
 
  

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