MTV, the Distraction Factory, and the Academy
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I’d argue the point just on substance (barring CNN, I’d rather watch rock ‘n’ roll on TV than anything else, and it’s also the most adventurous radio station one could dream of) but also its “identity”–content aside, it does its job with greater panache, serves its audience better, contributes more to society, and is more aesthetically rigorous than any other station or network that’s ever been on TV.
Sure MTV’s owned by a big nasty media conglomerate that’s only trying to get people to buy stuff; so are Scooby Doo and Dan Rather. MTV gets a bad rap every which way: to the layperson, of course, the station is the unquestioned cause of the alleged lack of attention span of today’s youth, and even in the academy MTV is seen as the quintessential symbol of postmodernism, an “ahistorical, apolitical, asocial, amoral” flow (as one critic puts it) of uninterrupted meaningless imagery. A new book, Dancing in the Distraction Factory: Music Television and Popular Culture, challenges these preconceptions. It’s written by Andrew Goodwin, associate professor at the University of San Francisco, occasional Reader contributor, and old friend of mine. In the book he reasonably but firmly takes on the postmodern analysis of MTV as a pastiche of deliberately unmeaningful images and what are called in the trade “blank parodies” of other “texts.” (Two well-known examples: the Metropolis and Triumph of the Will imagery in Queen’s “Radio Gaga” clip and the reference to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in Madonna’s “Material Girl.” In both instances the references are blank i.e., neither approving nor disapproving.) The book’s very readable by academic standards; as I understand it, Goodwin argues that the idea of the station as timeless and directionless is a myth: it actually follows normal programming inclinations (regular programs, “dayparting” to target certain audiences, and so forth) much like any other TV or radio station, and for most of the same (economically driven) reasons. Secondly, he points out MTV’s patent liberal-left bias, which conforms to the usual romanticized ideals of the rock ‘n’ roll politic. (And even surpasses it: I would add that over the last year or two the station’s notorious promulgation of sexist stereotypes in videos has dropped drastically. Cheesiness remains, but it’s increasingly balkanized in heavy metal or the hardcore rap offerings, to which some of the more enlightened pop and alternative rock and rap videos are in tacit and sometimes outspoken opposition.)
