Because I am, as a blogger, somewhat inconsistent in bringing you the quality pop cultural analysis you expect, allow me to point you to some other analysis of same:

First, a discussion of Valentino as the first teen idol at Pop Feminst, which is part of an ongoing teen idols series that combines the greatness of nostalgia with tought-provoking and cogent arguments in favour of the power of the teen girl as consumer and cultural arbiter. At the end of her post, Rachel asks some interesting questions:

Valentino is a man who lived a celebrity without precedent. How much of the construction of the “teen idol” is socio-historical (based primarily in Valentino’s androgynous template), and how much of it is intuitive, or– though I despise the word– “natural”? Why was the first teen idol a movie star and not (as is much more common) a music star? Was it because Valentino predates rock ‘n’ roll/pop? Can Valentino be seen as a historical figure in rock ‘n’ roll, having set the standard for the ideal fandom?

Most important: with the 19th Amendment ratified in the United States 1920, was Valentino’s meteoric rise in 1921 somehow connected to the anxiety/energy surrounding women’s liberation?

I suspect the first teen idol being a movie star has a lot to do with the non-existence in 1921 of synchronized sound on film.

On a completely unrelated note, I was thinking about this post on This Recording while I was watching one of the myriad Family Guy reruns that are on my television in any given day. Molly quotes Cartman on his Family Guy hate:

Everywhere I go: “Hey Cartman you must like Family Guy, right?” “Hey, your sense of humor reminds me of Family Guy, Cartman!” I am nothing like Family Guy! When I make jokes they are inherent to a story! Deep situational and emotional jokes based on what is relevant and has a point, not just one random interchangeable joke after another!

On the one hand that is an entirely true criticism of Family Guy, because South Park is still making satire in the classical way — when they make a joke, it usually has a point, even if I don’t always agree with it. Family Guy has a problem, I think, in that their poor taste comedy sometimes blurs the line between, for example, making fun of racist culture and just being racist,1 but I think the reason Family Guy is so popular is the same reason that torture porn movies make so much money: there’s no clear agenda they’re pushing, the spectacle is in the offensiveness. The whole point of Family Guy is like “Look what I made you watch! That dog just punched that baby! That guy is a total rapist! And you’re laughing at it!” It’s kind of a dialogue with the viewer about taste. Does this mean that it basically just makes people really comfortable with poor taste and offensiveness? Maybe. Especially when it’s just the same thing week after week. Also, when people quote it out of context without realizing that, coming from a cartoon, something might have ambiguous status on the satire-offensiveness line, but coming from just like, a dude you know, it moves onto the wrong side.

Okay, back to the thesis.

  1. You could just as easily replace the word “racist” with “sexist” or “ableist” or whatever other “-ist” you want, my point is more that it is often difficult to discern the difference between pointed satire and like, nihilism. ↩