Chronique

I’ll get right back to that, I promise. But let me cede a point to Mr. Gabler, who has in other writings contributed a great deal to my understanding of the history of American popular culture, Hollywood in particular. There is a cultural elite, in America, which tries its utmost to manipulate the habits and tastes of consumers. It consists of the corporations who sell nearly everything with the possible exception of classical music and conceptual arts, and while its methods include some of the publicity-driven hype that finds its way into newspapers, magazines and other traditional media, its main tool is not criticism but marketing.

And an especially effective marketing ploy has always been the direct appeal, over the heads of supposed experts and fuddy-duds, to the consumer. Make-believe elites — which is to say independent voices in the public sphere, whatever the terms of their employment or the shape of their sensibilities— disrupt the perfect union of buyer and seller. No pesky commissars prodding and scolding, just a bunch of people doing what they want, which coincidentally happens to be what the companies with the biggest advertising budgets want them to do. No argument, no debate, no chance of wiggling through something you don’t like or staring at something you don’t understand. Freedom!

Notes