{"id":1139,"date":"2005-05-24T11:44:23","date_gmt":"2005-05-24T18:44:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2005\/05\/tucked_into_the_curl\/"},"modified":"2005-05-24T11:44:23","modified_gmt":"2005-05-24T18:44:23","slug":"tucked_into_the_curl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2005\/05\/tucked_into_the_curl.html","title":{"rendered":"TUCKED INTO THE CURL"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the comments in yesterday’s item<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> struck me as
\nparticularly relevant to the death of arts criticism in general: “Mass marketing requires a reductive
\nconcept of the human. The aesthetic values of global capitalism by necessity esteem baseness.”
\n

<\/P>
\n

Anyone with the slightest cognizance of pop culture knows this by now. But back in 2000,
\nwhen Steve Dollar wrote a piece called “Cracker-rap losers”<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> in Salon, it
\nwas not so commonly recognized. Go read the piece. It’s a great (and entertaining) example of
\ncriticism that captures the reductive core of the culture. The writing is like a surfer tucked into a
\n50-foot curl. Here are a couple of sample paragraphs:<\/P>
\n


\n

Sometimes it’s hard to know whether Fred Durst really is the angriest dog in
\nthe world or just another high school loser getting the last laugh. His lyrics may be dumb, but the
\njoker knows that commodified rage is the surest route to rock star success — if not a spot on the
\npermanent guest list at the Playboy Mansion. The frontman for Limp Bizkit has become one of
\npop’s most public icons, instantly flagged by his backward, red Yankees baseball cap, his chinful
\nof goat scruff and his ever-present arm candy (today Carmen Electra, tomorrow the
\nworld).<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n

<\/P>
\n

And:<\/P>
\n


\n

Though Durst seems convinced that everyone hates him — everyone but the
\nfans, man, and the dudes at Napster — he deserves some kind of due, if only for having the brains
\nor moves to make the music industry work overtime to accommodate one more mediocre
\nblowhard. And he has gotten it: Along with Eminem and Kid Rock, he’s part of the wigga holy
\ntrinity, even though his straight-outta-the-sandbox raps make Slim Shady sound as eloquent as
\nShakespeare, and his streak of Puritan misogyny makes Rock’s early-morning stoned pimpin’ seem
\nlike a feminist conspiracy. Like his fellow Caucasian rappers, who each have made bank emulating
\nhip-hop style, Durst belongs to a neo-cracker elite, contributing to a national trailer-park zeitgeist
\nwhose prime movers include Howard Stern, a bunch of those bone crushers in the World
\nWrestling Federation and Wisconsin truck driver Susan Hawk from “Survivor.” There’s probably
\nno better time to proudly call yourself “a redneck fucker from Jacksonville.”<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n

<\/P>
\n

Postscript: <\/B>My staff of thousands tells me the San Francisco Chronicle picked
\nup<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> the AP story about the folding of the National Arts Journalism Program,
\nwhich the staff thinks AP picked up from yesterday’s item. This thrills the staffers because it
\nmakes them feel useful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the comments in yesterday’s item struck me as particularly relevant to the death of arts criticism in general: “Mass marketing requires a reductive concept of the human. The aesthetic values of global capitalism by necessity esteem baseness.” Anyone with the slightest cognizance of pop culture knows this by now. But back in 2000, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1139","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-in","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}