Why we're here. Posted Fri Jul 27 08:19:56 BST 2001 by 'Evans'

A few points that might help explain why SOTCAA exists, and why it must exist.

1) From a historical perspective, popular culture is at its most vibrant, exciting and unpredictable when there is the least amount of mediation between the people who produce it and the people who consume it.
2) Culture will always be mediated in some way. In music, it's by the labels. In fiction, it's by the publishers. In TV it's by commissioning editors and others. By definition, the record label bosses, the publishers, the commissioning editors are not creative people. Their bottom line is not the same as the creative person. It is, quite naturally, profit. There will always be conflict between the creative person and the mediator, one of whom just wants to see his/her vision take shape, the other of whom wants the product to sell. The conflict is built into the relationship between creator and producer. As long as the non-creative end doesn't have the upper hand, it is a relationship that can work, allowing extraordinary individuals to say and do extraordinary things in front of millions of people.
3) Pop music is a perfect example of what this site is fighting against. In the early days of pop music, record labels had only the vaguest idea of what it was they were selling. All they knew for sure was that the kids loved it. In the eternal struggle between creator and producer, the creators had the upper hand, because the producers had yet to develop efficient ways of maximising the profit they knew was lurking in that vinyl. As the years have gone by, the mediators of pop music have figured it out - hormones+rebellion+sex+sentimentality=an absolute killing in the lucrative teen market. In terms of pop, the producers have now won. (This is not to say there is no good pop being made or released. Just that the days of interesting, provoking, carefree, often insane pop in the mainstream is no longer possible. Hence the fragmentation of the pop market into a myriad micro-genres.)
4) To comedy, at last. When Python was commissioned, no-one other than the six Pythons knew what the fuck was going on. When The Young Ones appeared, the BBC didn't really understand what this new generation of comedians was doing, but intuited that it was significant enough to warrant a series and commissioned just that. In that eternal struggle between creator and producer, as in pop at an earlier stage, the creators were winning because the producer were not yet hip to the best ways to sell this stuff.
5) The present - we may have crossed the line. We may be crossing it now. SOTCAA is concerned about this.
6)All the signs are there. It doesn't really matter whether you like Ali G, I'm Alan Partridge or Time Gentlemen Please. If you do, of course you must go with your instinct and laugh. But aside from your personal taste (and your defensiveness), you must surely wonder if these phenomena, and others, are symptoms - that the producers are winning. SOTCAA is right to draw attention to these programmes, along with disparate other phenomena, from Jamie Theakston to nostlagia TV to filed removed video to 100 Greatest shows. This is not a scattergun attack based on personal prejudice. SOTCAA is arguing that these are signs we should be reading, signs that may well signal something any lover of vital, unpredictable culture (in this case comedy) must surely be worried about. The manner in which these programmes and people arrive on our screens is every bit as important as what we thought of them when we consumed them. To use pop as an example again - you may love the vintage Spice Girls, but can you really ignore the cynical, demographically researched way they were assembled and marketed?
6) If you want to defend your ground over individual shows you like, then SOTCAA is clearly not for you. SOTCAA is attempting an overview of the popular culture industry as it stands at this point in history,using comedy as its focus because it happens to be the form both Corpses love above all others.
If you do not want to engage with the issues underlying SOTCAA - which have nothing to do with personal prejudices - then for God's sake do it. That's why this site exists. If not, then never visit it again - but don't complain when the producers turn comedy into the sickeningly cynical and predictable culture production line mainstream pop has become.


Subject: Re: Why we're here. [ Previous Message ]
Posted By 'The Lord Privy Toast Rack' on Fri Jul 27 09:53:05 BST 2001:

The above letter was found in an NME Angst from 1982.

Subject: Re: Why we're here. [ Previous Message ]
Posted By 'scarebear' on Fri Jul 27 10:07:34 BST 2001:

wow, I love it when pople piss all over the genuine

Subject: Re: Why we're here. [ Previous Message ]
Posted By 'The Lord Privy Toast Rack' on Fri Jul 27 10:10:56 BST 2001:

How do you know I don't genuinely love old issues of the NME?

Subject: Re: Why we're here. [ Previous Message ]
Posted By 'The Lord Privy Toast Rack' on Fri Jul 27 10:11:36 BST 2001:

(coughing) ...Genuine? Sorry?

Subject: Re: Why we're here. [ Previous Message ]
Posted By 'Evans' on Fri Jul 27 10:55:49 BST 2001:

>(coughing) ...Genuine? Sorry?

Thank you for taking the time to be a prick.

Subject: OH, and while we're here. [ Previous Message ]
Posted By 'scarebear' on Fri Jul 27 11:05:58 BST 2001:

to say my comment about not finding the cats and ears joke on Animals not overly amusing is 'ignorant', and then shoving a whole load of Star Wars flavoured swan crap about justifying the Phantom Menace, you missed my point entirely. I was saying that a lot of brass eye wasn't particularly instant for me and some things fell flat...

And I can see you are partial to the Angst columns, since your replies are pretty good facsimiles of the all-bases-covered defensiveness they have perfected over the years.

Subject: Re: Why we're here. [ Previous Message ]
Posted By 'Choon' on Fri Jul 27 11:59:31 BST 2001:

Anyone interested in starting a campaign to have The Lord Privy Toast Rack's mother sexually assaulted in her bed?

Subject: Re: Why we're here. [ Previous Message ]
Posted By 'The Lord Privy Toast Rack' on Fri Jul 27 12:05:16 BST 2001:

>to say my comment about not finding the cats and ears joke on Animals not overly amusing is 'ignorant',

Ahh... it just was a tit-for-tat reply, not actually anything to do with this thread. That's why it doesn't make any sense.

Perhaps I should have put it more simply: That's not why I'm here. Who the fuck is "we"? Speak for yourself. Especially "point" 6: "If you want to defend your ground over individual shows you like, then SOTCAA is clearly not for you. SOTCAA is attempting an overview of the popular culture industry as it stands at this point in history, using comedy as its focus because it happens to be the form both Corpses love above all others." i.e. the aim has nothing to do with comedy, that's just a convenient handy thing to make an adolescent fuss about. We certainly should get hung up on actually watching and analysing real comedy shows - that's far too risky. What if we saw something that contradicted our theories!?

i.e. I did (for some reason) take the time to read it carefully, and thought it was balls, and can explain why.

Subject: Re: Why we're here. [ Previous Message ]
Posted By 'The Lord Privy Toast Rack' on Fri Jul 27 12:06:26 BST 2001:

I have no mother.

[ Add Your Comment On This Subject ]
[ Add Your Comment Quoting Message ]