Stuart Hall and Paddy "greatest name for a critic I've ever seen!" Whannel's The Popular Arts, claim that all popular culture is "pre-digested," an idea they get from Theodor Adorno (all of which is according to John Storey's An Introduction to Cultural Theory and Popular Culture).
I've had this thought myself (aren't I smart!), specifically in reference to the paper I'm working on right now, Villainous Soliloquy. My initial thoughts on the series, the thoughts that led to the paper, are here. In the mini, Luthor rehearses a remarkably eloquent argument for why he hates Superman and we should too. I argue that, no matter how convincing his argument is, a lot of readers will reject that argument 'because he's Lex Luthor.' Seventy years of superhero comics have created a cultural, or at the very least generic, presupposition that whatever Luthor says must be wrong, by definition. Therefore, if he uses critical language to make an argument, and he's alway wrong, then his rehearsal of that argument in the end merely condemns critical language itself, which is a great example of 'pre-digested' mass culture.
However, if we define mass culture as 'that which is pre-digested,' then we're presumming it's inferiority, both the art and the audience. We're presumming that counter-narratives are not possible within mass culture, but only as a matter of denotative semantics. See, I think counter narratives are not only possible, but demonstrably exist within mass culture. You don't have to look any further than comics by Moore, Gaiman, Ellis, Bendis, Ennis, and Morrison to see that, and that's merely the main stream!
Readers enter some art experiences, the theatre, the television, the book, with different expectations. In some contexts, they expect to be challenged, to have to think, to actively evaluate the content of what they're reading or seeing. In some contexts, they expect the art to be 'pre-digested,' to merely justify and support whatever they already believe. In a Superman comicbook, they expect the latter, but in many, many other comics, they expect the former. The difference in comics is obvious as hell, most of the time. Comics have different imprints, and theylshow pretty clearly whether they'll be challenged or spoon-fed (puke fed?). A DC or Marvel book is unlikely to challenge you, but Vertigo, ABC, Marvel MAX, Helix all signal "there here's a book that'll make yah think, dude."
Part of the mass-culture experience, then, is determining which art experiences advertise themselves as challenging and which as coddling. Counter-narratives are possible, but they're usually labelled as such so that you can avoid them if you like.
The real monkey-wrench in that system is the stuff that looks like it's mainstream coddling, but once you scratch the surface, has a whole lot more going on to it than that. Toss anything by Joss Whedon or J. Michael Straczinski in that pile, by the way. However, here's the tough part: if the audience takes it as a 'pre-digested' even though the content isn't, what happens? Some of the audience gets it and some don't. About one third of the reviews of Lex Luthor: Man of Steel that I saw on-line said that it was convincing, and about two-thirds said it wasn't, citing "it's Lex fucking Luthor!" That's a totally unscientific sample, of course. I don't claim it should have any mathematical weight. However, it does show that a good chunk of the 'mass market' doesn't read just for pre-digested art.
In closing, I'd just like to say, Stu, Paddy, you know I love ya, but get your heads out of your asses, okay?
Posted by orion at October 28, 2005 3:32 PM