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Category Archives: Cultural Critique

It’s A Mall World After All

21 Mar

American chain stores are learning to ship internationally, and the world breathes a collective sigh of relief.  No longer will Parisians suffer the indignities of a couture wardrobe devoid of an Ann Taylor blazer.  The days of British men muddling through with authentic country apparel are almost over, J.Crew will be just a click away.  And the Italians?  Their long suffering over hand-blown Venetian glass is screeching to a halt; Crate & Barrel is coming to the rescue.

Hey, I’m all for an accessible and enjoyable shopping experience.  I love a good basic (in the form of ceramics or T-shirt) as much as the next gal.  But it strikes me as just a bit odd that we are exporting our chain stores to the most artistic and (at times) stylish parts of the world.  (By “most artistic” I don’t mean to suggest that other nations have a lock on talent, but they do have a culture of supporting the growth and success of artists.)

It took me a couple of years to understand the British love affair with the Gap.  They see it as a mid-scale product, where as we see it as a place to periodically peruse the racks jammed with markdowns ending in $.98.  But what the Gap lacks in ingenuity it makes up for in their branding of themselves as “American.”  Foreignness can be fun; in food and fashion.  Coveting a look for its “otherness” is certainly understandable.  But coveting goods which are unrecognizable as “American” is a bit confusing.  Many of the chain stores reformulating their software to accommodate international shipping are known for their blandness.  The ubiquity of white ceramics and housewares in Crate & Barrel can make the store seem like the set of Wonkavision.  The whole point of the design at Ann Taylor is for women to blend into the workplace.  It’s hard to imagine a French woman walking (on very un-American heels) along the cobblestone streets to her place of work; passersby stop and smile, one older shopkeeper puts down his broom, leans against his doorway and with a gauloises dangling from his lips, utters; “ooh la la, zee mademoiselle looks tres magnifique c’est matin, Ann Taylor, non?”  I just can’t picture it.

My romanticized naïveté is also to blame for my insisting that somebody made a mistake in research or a typo is at fault; but Lane Bryant simply could not be shipping to France.

 
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Posted by on March 21, 2012 in Cultural Critique, Style

 

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Where The Boys Are

16 Mar

St. Patrick’s Day, Mardi Gras, Spring Break.  What do these springtime festivities have in common?  Alcohol and ensuing wantonness.  There are other events that involve excessive drinking as well (New Year’s Eve, sporting championships, four years of college, etc.) but without as much (ahem) carousing. Perhaps it is due to the time of year, but the trinity of St./Mardi/Break also seems to entail disrobing.  Of course the wearing (or not wearing as the case may be) of the green can occur in rather chilly clime.  But a green beer/whiskey induced snogging marathon knows no geographical boundaries (and can be accomplished while wearing a jaunty plastic green derby.)

There is nothing new about springtime debauchery, or drinking and impromptu romantic entanglements.  MTV didn’t create the bacchanalian beaches, they just filmed it.  (Cameras may alter people’s behavior, but when people are that far gone, it’s probably just incremental changes.)  Phone cameras, social media, and youtube didn’t create opportunities for regret.  Ruining a reputation has always been as easy as pie.  People love to talk about other people; it’s simply what we do.  We don’t need technology or tabloids to do so, we just need a willing listener.  It’s neither bad nor good, it just is what it is.

What is bad and not good, is that it is only women whose reputations we are discussing.  Since the dawn of time (or at least since the first caveman slurred; “take off those pelts baby” and flung a string of purple stones at her – which probably really hurt) it has been women whose bodies have been the entertainment and who have been punished for their cooperation.  Even when a woman has kept her bikini top on and engaged in the same overindulgence of spirits as her male companions, it is her reputation that is at stake.  Almost any (absurd) behavior a drunken male engages in is followed (in the clear light of day) with slaps on the backs or guffaws of; “Dude, you were off the hook” (or some other vernacular which also makes no sense.)  The male’s behavior is seen as “normal” and a way of blowing off steam.  His random romantic interludes (if there were any) are heralded. While in the girl’s hotel room next door…The kinder mascara smudged friends are unconvincingly cooing; “everyone does it. don’t worry about it. in a couple of weeks no one will even remember.”

One could argue that branding a woman was an effective deterrent to behavior that in fact could have had dire consequences.  Effective birth control is a relatively new invention.  Women died in childbirth on a somewhat regular basis.  A girl/woman could fall pregnant and have absolutely no means of supporting herself or her child.  She would no longer have access to the only acceptable profession; matrimony.  Her matrimonial chances might be diminished if there was even a hint of behavior that could render her unsuitable.  Whether she did anything or not, she could be ruined just the same.

Women now support themselves and (hopefully) have access to reliable birth control.  What possible reason, anthropologically speaking, do we still have for branding women who drink in excess and physically exploit themselves and/or others?  While our culture has ratcheted up the sexualization of girls and women (to extremes never before experienced) we have remained stalled in our judgments.  Fashion, celebrities, video, film, television, and music have not just progressively disrobed women but have objectified them to cartoon proportions.  Through modern science (and photoshop) women now look more like Betty Boop and Jessica Rabbit.  When women are depicted engaging in acts of romance, they are almost always done so from the perspective of what pleases a man.  Girls and women in videos (and real life) dance to simulate an act that can only pleasure their gentleman dance partner.  The objectification of women is, shall we say, off the hook.  Yet, we cling to our scarlet A ways.  Could it be that at our core, we are not comfortable with our cultural objectification of women?  Are our judgments a way of saying; “No, go back, we’ve led you astray?”  The alternate explanation; that we are in a backlash to the second wave of feminism that simply knows no bounds, is more likely, but far more disturbing.

 

 

 
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Posted by on March 16, 2012 in Cultural Critique

 

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And The Beat Goes On*

14 Mar

Have you heard the news?  The Encyclopedia Britannica is stopping the presses (see: changing marketplace.)  No doubt this is quite the blow to Britannica employees and door-to-door salesmen (see: Fuller Brush, Willy Loman.)  But perhaps this is actually not all bad news.

The encyclopedia had a hallowed place in many homes and hearts.  The (wonderful) film Ball of Fire (1941) updated the 7 dwarfs and their mighty leader, Gregory Peck, into encyclopedia wizards.  The quirky little brainiacs toiled for years, documenting every subject known to humankind.  It was a noble undertaking, and one made all the more enjoyable with the arrival of Barbara Stanwyck.  For decades, real-life families across the country paid for one volume of encyclopedic knowledge at a time.  The books; with their hard covers and lush pages, were displayed with pride in living rooms and dens.  For better or worse, schoolchildren used these volumes to complete homework assignments.  Those without (and there were/are plenty of those) made the trip to the library or relied on source material (a.k.a. parents) or turned in homework destined for less than an “A.”

Encyclopedias are a great source for cursory understanding of a subject, but there are now so many more of those.  With a few keystrokes endless source materials are at our fingertips.  Students (and others) can go directly to the U.S. government sites or the American Medical Association.  The very act of searching (a.k.a. researching) broadens the understanding of a subject.

Will some people confuse wikipedia with an authoritative (and fully vetted) source?  They already do.  Does the cessation of printing encyclopedias put disadvantaged students at a disadvantage?  Not in this day and age.  It’s a pretty safe bet that if a library has an up-to-date version of the encyclopedia on the shelves, they have computers and access to the internet as well.  I would posit that the elimination of the printed encyclopedia evens the playing the field a bit for students, if it weren’t for the fact that having them in the home is no longer a sign of special access to information.

Why is it even worth note you ask (assuming you don’t work in the printing or door-to-door sales professions?)  For the simplest of reasons: progress is sometimes quite progressive.  The shuttering of a theatre, restaurant or nightclub to make way for a food court or Sephora, is not progress, it’s just sad.  The erosion of demarcation between public space and private space is not progress, it just means I have to throw my body over my entree as the woman at the next table styles her hair.  The memory of salesmen, diaper service, milk delivery, Sheriff Taylor and his son Opie, fill us with a warmth and sense of safety.  Change (and growing pains) are always just a bit frightening and our instincts are to cling to vestiges of the past.  For proof, one need only witness an adolescent girl’s bedroom festooned with equal parts stuffed animals and mascara.

There once was a dizzying amount of New York (daily) newspapers, some of them having more than one edition a day.  It took awhile, but with technology we have that once again.  The insatiable human desire for information is part of our charm.  As long as our innovations keep pace with that need, we can say farewell to the past without too much angst.  For those who will miss those smooth, hefty burgundy books, just consider how much fun you’ll have convincing children that you used to have to walk to the library (in the snow, uphill, both ways) to learn who invented the printing press.

*Sonny Bono (1967)

 
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Posted by on March 14, 2012 in Cultural Critique, Media/Marketing

 

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New York State Of Mind

12 Mar

I’ve always fancied myself the Carnac of human behavior and motivation.  I admit, I’ve been known to get flummoxed by habitual bad behavior (tantrums and bullying in the workplace, obliviousness of others in public, etc.) but by and large I find most behavior and/or language to be easily decipherable.  In truth even the bully at work is pretty simple; he fears being discovered, (it’s just difficult to remember that when the behavior takes on science fiction proportions.)  People grooming themselves in public or throwing their garbage at the feet of others, or talking at full volume (on the phone or at a baby) or polishing their nails on an airplane, aren’t evil they probably could have just greatly benefited from a firm swat on the behind at some point, as a gentle reminder that they are not in fact all alone in the universe.

I really do believe that there is very little we say or do that doesn’t speak to how we feel.  We may not know it at the time, but that doesn’t mean it’s not happening.  Of course this isn’t to say that everyone in our realm can read our minds.  A future mother-in-law asking a bride if she can wear black to the wedding, might feel very overweight and not in fact be planning a stealth boycott of the nuptials.  But I assure you there was some feeling behind the query.

So here I sit with my Dr. Nick’s Academy certificate in peopleology and I feel my training/talents ebbing.  I find myself less adept at reading intent.  It’s not slang or inflection or even means of communication that has me floundering.  I can see through all that as if it were mere cement and I engaged my super-x-ray vision.  I am beginning to suspect that my kryptonite, if you will, is the proliferation of snark.  I am fluent in the Don Rickles wannabe variety of snark (for the motivation of this genre of snark see bullying above.)  But there is a subtler variety, one that might even be categorized as “whining.”  On the street, and in the media, I keep hearing these urban whines: People complaining about the livability of the city.  It is objectively bizarre to begin with (ahem, have you ever heard of the 1970s?! you think Disneyfied NYC is hard?) but it also is completely illogical.  Unless you are in a witness protection program, presumably you are free to leave.

I suspect that these grumblings and mumblings are not the noise coming out of a jilted resident on his way back to Indiana.  I have a feeling that what all these complaints really mean is “I thought it would be different, and before you can point out how I’m not where I thought I’d be in life, I’m gonna shoot the first shot.”  But as I mentioned, I’m not entirely sure.  What I do know is that there is something cloyingly adolescent about the negative Nancy natterings.  Snide remarks about paying huge amounts to live in a tiny box, have a certain; “I meant to do that” element to them.  (By the way, when did people decide that what they were paying for in urban housing was somehow related to square footage?)  Speechifying about the dirty tiles in the subway station is reminiscent of a teenager kicking the gravel at the Colosseum and complaining to his parents; ‘it’s really dusty here.”

Negativity is every bit as contagious as happiness.  It also feeds itself like a cruise ship passenger.  It doesn’t make someone hip to hate, it just makes them a bit toxic.  If it’s too loud, too crowded, too hot, too cold, too pricey, too smelly, toodaloo.  It’s a big world, surely there’s someplace for everyone.  If in fact, the grumblings, whining, pithy-esque condemnations are not geographically specific and just a new hipster affectation/slang; ack!  Please let it run a swift course.

 
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Posted by on March 12, 2012 in Cultural Critique

 

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You Could Be Another Lincoln*

04 Mar

Recently I heard of a woman who made a lovely batch of lemonade out of a whole bunch of lemons.  She had spent most of her working life in finance management.  Through pluck and competence she moved up the ranks nicely.  Then she was laid-off at the same time her son was diagnosed with behavioral issues.  Like most of us, her stress behaviors began to kick into high gear.  For her this meant organizing everything within her sight.  She had always found organizing to be soothing and imbued the results with subtle sacred qualities.  Growing up in a chaotic household and moving often as a child, she found order comforting.  So she took the doors off her son’s closet, replaced all his drawers with clear boxes and organized and labeled him into a more focused kid.  Her child’s teacher noticed the difference in his behavior, and a conversation resulted in other children’s rooms being organized by the ex-financial manager.  Packing up her label maker and color coded files one day, she joked to her husband; “This is like a job.”

I think we all know where the story goes from here.  But wait, there is one tiny hitch.  This highly educated, super competent woman decided she needed credentials.  She went off to the Organizing Institute (or something as ridiculous sounding) and got herself a certificate.  I can picture the graduation ceremony: a row of color coordinated graduates holding their hand over the heart and pledging to banish randomness and clutter.  Now that she’s certified does that mean she enjoys client/practitioner privilege?  If she discovers a bloodied shirt and knife in an over-stuffed dresser drawer is she obligated to keep that information to herself?  Why did this seemingly talented, smart, sophisticated woman feel the need to trot off to the wizard to get a doctorate in thinkology?

Could it be that we are now living in the age of expertise?  You’ve heard of the the jazz age, the cold war age, the disco age?  The age of expertise isn’t nearly that interesting or fashion specific.  The expertise age may very well be the product of the perfect storm of populace insecurity and a global speaker’s corner.  Whether people’s insecurities are innate, organic or the result of marketing susceptibility, the results are the same.  Grown people walking around feeling shaky and out of step.  They probably are perfectly happy (or happy enough) but are bombarded with messages about tablescapes, second homes in Tuscany, French parenting, Tiger’s mothering.  Having not mastered the skill of tuning out, sooner or later these various messages boil down to one thing; “other people know more than I do.”  Now, that is actually true.  But the people who know more than most of us are not the ones telling us how to carve the perfect jack-o-lantern.

People achieving expert status without robust credentials is nothing new.  Certainly we can think of at least one radio talk show “doctor” raking in the benefits.  But the platforms for such expertise have expanded beyond computation.  So we find ourselves with a huge audience for “experts” in fields which often have no history of formal certification.  Everything, and I do mean everything, has become an area of expertise.  In just one week I have heard of a woman whose specialty is herding cats, another who designs walls (she’s not a muralist or even a house painter, she tells you where to hang your artwork.)  And the infant/child fetish is still skyrocketing: getting your baby to sleep through the night? 1-800-i’ll take your money is on the way!  not sure how to toilet train? HaveM&MsWillTravel.com is at the ready.  I think we can all agree that there are iPhone app experts being created everyday.

Is all of this malarkey a sign of the end of time?  Hardly.  Would anyone confuse another “it happened to me so it must be universal” book with actual sociology?  Doubtful.  If there is any harm it is merely that throwing around terms like “expert” and inculcating people as such is not helping anyone or anything.  We’d be a lot further ahead to feel confident in our own abilities (to organize our sock draw, or teach our child to use the potty.)  Secure confident people make better decisions, for themselves, their families and even at the polls.

*If I Only Had A Brain – Yip Harburg, Wizard of Oz (1939)

 
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Posted by on March 4, 2012 in Cultural Critique, Media/Marketing

 

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