Subject: Re: ny times article
From: asnyder@artorg.hmc.psu.edu (Alan J. Snyder)
Date: 1991-05-08, 05:59
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

bwdavies@rodan.acs.syr.edu writes:

> >In article <1991May7.175126.11490@grebyn.com> fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Oceanstar) writes:
>> >>...

>> >>I'll tell you what I really objected to, in that article.  It was the
>> >>strong statement that Peakheads are elitists--that our interest in the
>> >>series wanes in direct proportion to how many others are getting
>> >>involved, that if it's not "hip" to a small select in-crowd, then we,
>> >>like the avant-garde art scene in NYC, will decamp for unsullied
>> >>pastures.  Yuk.  Didn't y'all find that comment offensive?

> >I don't know.  While I wouldn't consider myself to be an "elitist",
> >I'm still pretty disappointed when musical groups or literary movements
> >I'm interested in are suddenly "discovered" by the mass media and 
> >large numbers of people.  Maybe it's just me, but it often seems like
> >the quality goes down and many of the aspects that interested me
> >begin to be dropped in favor of a more general appeal.

> >Is it elitism to want something you've enjoyed to stay amazing,
> >even if a lot of other people hop on the bandwagon?

Maybe yes, maybe no, but at any rate it's quite un-American.  It is a fact of modern American culture that anything that becomes extremely popular by definition appeals to huge masses of people, whose tastes for whatever reasons are not the same as those of the people who generally post to this group.  I think that one internalizes that fact so that when something begins to get sucked into popular culture we withdraw.  

I thought that The Simpsons contained strokes of genius, was pleased by its popularity, rooted for it against Cosby, and was amused (OK, angered) by school and government officials who blamed it for all our failures, but after a certain density of T-shirts was reached, it became hard to look forward to.  I also enjoyed Cheers, America's #1 show in its true heydays but it always appealed on multiple levels (smart writing and lots of yuks) and managed to stay out of the T-shirt business.

If TP had been the favorite show of every Joe in America, it wouldn't have been the TP we know and love.  I recently railed on about anti-intellectualism in America, so I won't do it again here.  But the fact remains that what most of us netters want in a TV show is not what will really succeed, unless it succeeds on another level (eg, Cheers, Rocky and Bullwinkle) and then we are conditioned to withdraw if its success crosses certain boundaries.

I suppose I'm an elitist because of some of these opinions.  But the Hipness accusation is unfair.  The problem here is the prospect of compromise to please the mainstream, not familiarity only to some in group.  Difficulty accepting the former may make me an elitist; what Mr. Grimes describes are snobs.

- Alan Snyder
--
asnyder@ernie.artorg.hmc.psu.edu