While reading Sandefur's book I came across a wonderful quote from a businessman explaining why he left a big company to start his own business:
I was going to move to a place I didn't like to work for a boss I didn't respect, devoting my energies to office politics for which I had little talent. I was going to make this sacrifice so that I could afford the surf and turf at an elaborately mediocre restaurant on the outskirts of nowhere..."
I was struck by that delightful phrase, elaborately mediocre. So many things in American popular culture fall into that category. It reminds me of a book by Paul Fussell called BAD. Fussell is an uncanny observer of American culture, little escapes his notice. And the thesis of that book was that there is a distinction between bad and BAD. Many things, perhaps most things in any category, are likely to be bad (or at least mediocre). But in order to become BAD, it must be promoted with great pretense to being something of excellence, taste and exclusivity.
There are many examples of this phenomenon in every area. When it comes to food and restaurants, the most obvious is Red Lobster, which the middle class, for reasons I've never understood, believes is fine dining. In reality, Red Lobster is little more than a glorified Long John Silver's. Joe Queenan, another brilliant observer of the finer points of pop culture, captured the experience perfectly in his book Red Lobster, White Trash and the Blue Lagoon (one of my absolute favorite books of all time):
On some of the outings I lined up for my trek through the cultural undergrowth, I honestly suspected that someone had phoned ahead to ensure that the staff would maximize my discomfort. Typical was the night I dragged my family over to the local Red Lobster for our first-ever visit to the garish establishment. Red Lobster, I quickly learned, was a chain geared toward people who think of themselves as just a little bit too upscale for Roy Rogers. Even while waiting in the anteroom of the bogus sea shanty I could detect a certain aura of proletarian snootiness because of the way people were looking at me and my son. While Gordon, age ten, and I had turned up in nondescript T-shirts and shorts, the Red Lobster patrons were bedecked in their best windbreakers and their very finest polyester trousers.
"Next time, show some respect," their expressions suggested. "After all, you're eating at Red Lobster. This ain't some goddamn Wendy's."
The Red Lobster menu consisted almost entirely of batter cunningly fused with marginally aquatic foodstuffs and configured into clever geometric structures. I immediately began to suspect that the kitchen at Red Lobster consisted of one gigantic vat of grease in which plastic cookie molds resembling various types of food were inserted to create a structural resemblance to the specific item ordered. This was the only way to determine whether you were eating Buffalo wings or crabcakes. Technically, my dinner--The Admiral's Feast--was a dazzling assortment of butterfly shrimp, fish filet, scallops, and some mysterious crablike entity. But in reality, everything tasted exactly like Kentucky Fried Chicken. Even the French fries.
Red Lobster was a consummate bad experience. It wasn't just the Huey Lewis & the News ambience, it wasn't just the absence of mozzarella sticks from the menu that day, it wasn't just the party of twenty-nine seated next to us complaining about the service, it wasn't just the Turtles singing "Happy Together" overhead, it wasn't just the absence of root beer from the menu that day, it wasn't just the titular head of the party of twenty-nine incessantly referring to different members of his entourage as "landlubbers," and it wasn't even the way those social-climbing townies gave my son and me the once-over as we came through the door. No, it was definitely the food. The food tasted like baked, microwaved, reheated, overcooked, deep-fried loin of grease.
Admiral's Feast, my ass.
Much the same thing could be said about lots of different areas of the popular culture, and both Queenan and Fussell have made careers out of saying it. When it comes to movies, for example, the difference between bad and BAD is quite clear. Movies like Beverly Hills Ninja or Cannonball Run 2 are, of course, very bad. But you know they're bad movies before you ever step foot in the theater. In order to be BAD, a movie has to be hyped as something more than average fare. It has to be launched with a great deal of pretense and a hint of snootiness, making you expect something serious and compelling.
The perfect example of this effect in movies? Eyes Wide Shut. I'm a huge Stanley Kubrick fan. He is surely among our greatest filmmakers, having made Dr. Strangelove, Full Metal Jacket, 2001 and many other classic movies. So enthusiastic was I about the release of Eyes Wide Shut, a movie he worked years on and finished only days before his death, that not even the presence of Tom Cruise would deter me. But the reality is that this movie, to quote Lisa Lampanelli, sucked out loud. It was an excrutiating 3 hours. I sat there staring at the screen thinking, "This has to get better. This is Stanley Kubrick, for God's sake. There has to be a point to this." Nope. At the end of the film, I only wished that I could sue the Kubrick estate to get that three hours of my life back. It was the most boring, pointless film I had ever seen. And it was made much worse by the inflated expectations.
Music is surely home to many things that qualify as elaborate mediocrities. Kenny G comes to mind. He's managed to fool millions of people into thinking that what he plays is jazz (clearly a higher art form than pop). I remember about 15 years ago when Rolling Stone named him "jazz musician of the year", someone wrote a letter to the magazine. It said, "Kenny G is to jazz what a mud puddle is to fine wine." Quite so. What he's really done is taken a soprano sax and run it through a synthesizer to make sure that any hint of anything sounding like tone is scrubbed from the sound. It's elevator music for suburban white people, who somehow think it's the height of musicianship. To any real music fan, it's absolutely appalling.
I thought it would make an interesting exchange to ask my readers for more examples of this phenomenon in other aspects of pop culture. Don't limit yourself to these categories, there are examples to be found in many other areas as well, like books (The DaVinci Code comes to mind) or even ideas themselves (the phrase "judicial activism", I would argue, is a perfect example of elaborate mediocrity - it sounds substantive and impressive, but it means virtually nothing. It carries the pretense of being a serious analysis of constitutional interpretation, but it simply isn't). Knock yourselves out. This should be fun.
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Loads of films match that description. Spielberg's AI is the most obvious one. Identity is a slightly more obscure one that really pissed me off.
Musically, I would nominate Madonna.
Akin to Red Lobster, I'd like to nominate Olive Garden as BAD.
How about American Eagle clothing stores? Banana Republic? Abercrombie? They all seem elaborately mediocre enough.
American Idol has got to be the ultimate in elaborate mediocrity. The most popular show on television, tens of millions of viewers, tens of thousands of idol wannabes, months of primping, pimping, and preening, dozens of stars, slick production values, a veritable spin off industry of entertainment news and gossip, dozens of fansites...
And all for what? A glorified singing competition and a winner who would still be languishing in mediocre obscurity but for the elaborate entertainment put on for the masses (and the money).
Thomas Kinkade.
Thank you. Y'all can just mail my trophy.
Oh, and as further evidence, I give you every first single by an American Idol winner ever produced. "Flying Without Wings" indeed.
Thomas Kinkade, elaborate? Hmm.
I enjoyed Fussell's "BAD" very much, considering that it's kind of a slapdash, off-the-cuff assortment of more or less subjective opinions. I didn't much agree with his musical judgment. For one thing he completely overlooked Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" as an archetypical BAD piece of classical repertoire.
I have to say I hated Schindlers List, but I never expected it to be good, so I gues it doesn't count. I just knew that Spielberg would go overboard, and he did. Why does the man insist on doing serious movies, Jaws, the Duel, the Goonies are prime filmmaking, but when he has a message in his movies he gotta rub it in like some fucking hallmark movie of the week thing.
A thing more in line would be the Epcot center. Being Danish I don't know much about DW in Orlando, but when we went there (for a conference) we decided to visit the Epcot center. I heard it was Edutainment, so I guessed it would be more suited for a 30 something than some of the other kingdoms or what they call it.
It sucked big time! It wasn't edutainment, it was product placement. I paid top dollar to experience rides that were nothing but posters for certain companies, or for the tourist industry of some countries.
I use the word "ride" in a very loose sense, since it was "educational" all the rides were as exciting as a walk to corner shop, and the educational content of the Epcot center was almost non existant.
The DaVinci Code [rolls eyes]. I kept hearing that it was a gripping tale full of intrigue, twists and turns. As I read it I kept wondering if I was reading the right edition. Maybe mine was a rough draft. It was wooden, plodding, predictible and excruciatingly slow. Trash. Buffy the Vampire Slayer novels are better. [um . . . so I hear]
And almost any music pumped by NPR. They have absolutely no taste. Everything they push is derivative, without emotion or direction. NPR appears to think only boring and pointless music is "important." The same goes for their movie reviews. If they hate it, it definitely goes on my list of movies to watch. They almost never disappoint me.
Budweiser calling itself the King of Beers. I love the ads when they feature their brewmasters who are proud of the quality of their product.
Heinekin being perceived as a premium beer by the masses when it is nothing but Euroswill.
I sent this to a prominent blogger recently because he wasted space critiquing comic strips as if the nation's intellectual life depended on them...
Microsoft Windows
Tacitus,
Google Image Search "Thomas Kinkade" and behold the painter who defines mass-produced sentimental mediocrity.
> How about American Eagle clothing stores? Banana Republic? Abercrombie?
> They all seem elaborately mediocre enough.
As long as we're at the mall, there's Kirkland's. Apologies to everyone who furnished their apartments there. :)
I agree on the Thomas Kinkade idea. I have never thought it was particuarlly good.
Emo, pop-punk, whatever the hell you want to call it. That whole damn "scene" is pathetic.
Any beverage containing high fructose corn syrup. Can we drop our sugar embargo already?
I'll agree with many of these things, including Kinkade (an aside, we walked past the "original" gallery in Placerville, CA, last week -- it's the "largest" -- more space, more dreck.)
My vote: Awards shows (MTV, Espy, etc.) Three weeks of buildup and 3 minutes of content. Add to that anyone featured on the cover of a gossip rag (People, US, etc.)
Any product label that says, in so many words, "Congratulations and thank you for having the good taste and judgment to buy what we're selling you."
Budweiser calling itself the King of Beers. I love the ads when they feature their brewmasters who are proud of the quality of their product.
Oddly, when my old boss took a beer judging class (he brews the best triple you've ever had) with his wife they were given 4 lagers to judge. Now the criterea for judging is not neccessarily liking the taste - as a judge one might have to judge a style they don't like. Instead beers are judged by how well they do that style, how hoppy, carbination or lacktherof, depending on style. So when the class judged lagers - Budwieser won unanimously.
I have to disagree strongly about Eyes Wide Shut. And while Red Lobster is pure grease, I can understand why people go there: you get waited on and almost everything is under $10. Personally, I can't stand any of these generic chain restaurants where their menu consists of items that everyone regularly eats anyways, and can make themselves with little prep time. If I'm going out to dinner, it's because I want to try something a little different. I'm no fan of Applebees, O'Charley's, Ruby Tuesday, or any of those.
But as far as cultural mediocrity, as a little bit of a film buff I have to say that I absolutely hate sentimental historical or biographical films. I'm talking about Titanic, Pearl Harbor, World Trade Center (which, to me, is borderline exploitative), Ali, Ray, Walk the Line, and so forth. The reason I hate them is, as Fussell put it, they are BAD. They all get hyped, despite being typical overcoming adversity stories (usually romance plays a major part in the third act).
Matthew-
I agree on chain restaurants in general, and I agree about those big overblown historical pics, though I think I would separate out movies about big events, like Titanic and Pearl Harbor, and movies about famous people, like Ali or Walk the Line. I've liked some of the latter category, but generally hate the former. Titanic was a ghastly movie, made far worse by that insipid theme song for which I will forever despise Celine Dion to the depths of my soul. Pearl Harbor was equally horrid. I tend to just avoid big blockbuster movies. I've not seen any of the Lord of the Rings series or the Harry Potter series. I've skipped almost all of the big Spielberg movies (Schindler's List, War of the Worlds, Saving Private Ryan, etc) since ET (which I hated), with the exception of the Indiana Jones movies (which I like). I wish I had skipped the last 3 Star Wars installments, but I'm afraid childhood nostalgia got the better of me. I hated Armageddon and Independence Day. I haven't seen either Pirates of the Carribean movie, nor did I see Troy, Alexander, Kingdom of Heaven. I did see Gladiator, which was mildly entertaining (fairly bad script, but I liked the performances of Joaquin Pheonix and Oliver Reed). Such movies definitely fall into the BAD category, except that I long ago learned to expect them to be BAD, which means I now just view them as bad.
Star Wars, Episode I. I have to say, there was probably never a movie as hyped as that in history. I waited 15 years for it to come out, and while I knew it wouldn't be high cinema, when it was over, I nearly cried. It was BAD.
For a national example I choose Starbucks. Most of their offerings are glorified milkshakes with a shot of espresso in them and their "signature" roast is nothing more than burnt beans in elaborate over designed, packaging.
For a local example...New Orleans boast not one Olive Garden, nor Red Lobster, the Smooth (Velveeta) Jazz format failed miserably, and Starbuck failed to run one local coffee shop out of business, there is one whopper:
The Blue Dog
http://www.georgerodrigue.com/index2.htm
Barely recognizable "portraits" with a cartoonish blue dog plopped on the canvas with all the painting skill of a precocious 8th grader. (Actually, I've seen better work from 8th graders)
Once described as the "pet rock for the 90's," sadly he still has not gone away
Any TV adaptation of a Steven King Novel. Hyped for months for two hours of crushing boredom.
The entire state of Florida.
Tool. They wrote Sober and Aenima, then cut and pasted for 10 years. Too many people regard that band as genius, but really they're just hacks.
ArtK, I have to agree about award shows. They basically are a staged sham between the advertisers, studios/labels, and entertainers to regenerate interest in products that are starting to decline in sales. That's why some of the lesser awards will be televised one year, and then not the next. Depending on whether a marketable product had won that year. Aside from the SAG awards, I have no idea why the entertainers would be honored to receive most of these awards; the Golden Globes, for example, is ran by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
Unfortunately the classical music examples are too many to list:
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andre Rieu
Philip Glass
David Helfgott (remember the movie Shine? the guy could not play his way out of a box, but the public bought up his Rach 3 recording)
Any mass marketed item related to Mozart (It makes me sick to think about yuppies sitting around listening to extracted movements from Eine kleine Nachtmusik imagining they know something of Mozart and forcing it on their kids to boost their IQ)
Hmm, I am guessing there are some regional effects going on- I have been to a couple of Red Lobsters that were actually quite good, and as a Louisianian I know how seafood is supposed to taste. I do know that the local (Memphis, TN) Joe's Crab Shack is horrendous, as was the one I visited with coworkers in Corpus Christi, but the New Orleans one was quite good on the couple occasions when I went there. The Olive Gardens here aren't bad, but there are much better local Italian places available.
However, with very rare exceptions, anything outside of Louisiana which is billed as "Cajun" or "Creole" is pretty much guaranteed to suck. And if it ain't New Orleans-style jazz, it ain't jazz.
Ed,
I understand what you mean about blockbusters, but I think you might be surprised by some. I think those you really have to pay close attention to who's directing them. Peter Jackson was making low budget indie films long before he ever got chosen to direct LotR. Spielberg is someone to stay away from. I found War of the Worlds to be mildly enjoyable, but most of his recent films lack substance.
Speaking of directors to stay away from, Ron Howard is definitive BAD. Most of his movies are interchangable from each other and are the definition of "Oscar bait".
"However, with very rare exceptions, anything outside of Louisiana which is billed as "Cajun" or "Creole" is pretty much guaranteed to suck."
Houston would be an exception to that.
"And if it ain't New Orleans-style jazz, it ain't jazz."
You might tell that to Wayne Shorter, not to mention Parker, Monk, Miles or Coltrane.
One other food item - outside of Texas (and KC) people actually go around thinking that real BBQ consists of pork
How about the 'design' home furnishings in Target? (Pronounced "Tarjay", of course, to insinuate that it is far superior to WalMart).
What was Bud judged against? While I have a firm ideological stance against mass-produced, highly advertised, price-point beers, Budweiser is still far from the worst beer I've ever had. So basically what I'm saying is, I don't find that odd at all, depending on what it won against. Remember, mediocrity isn't the worst of the worst--it's best defined as what people settle for, and in this particular discussion, what tends to be far too overhyped and overrated.
William Dembski.
Kenny G and Michael Bolton find themselves in the same elevator. After a few floors, Kenny exclaims "Dude! This place ROCKS!!!"
Others have probably seen this, but Pat Metheny blasted Kenny G a few years back for having the gall to overdub himself on Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World:
http://www.jazzoasis.com/methenyonkennyg.htm
Good call on Gladiator. It still baffles me that so many people rate that film, and I can only think it's because it's so glossy and pretentious.
Steve,
In my college music-downloading days, I decided on picking up that Louis Armstrong song. I went so ballistic when I heard Kenny G on it, that I think I frightened my new roommate.
I was baffled by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (speaking of flying without wings). Seemed like nearly total incoherence with a couple of very dignified-looking actors dragged in by the hair to lend it an undeserved aura of majesty. Granted the visuals were pretty.
Glenn, I agree completely on pork. Although, I did see a Modern Marvels special, fantastic show by the way, on BBQ in which they said that in the Carolinas hogs have long been the preferred meat in barbecuing.
I actually took my cousin, over 10 years my elder, to a BBQ where she had beef ribs and was amazed; she had only had pork before. I can't stand pork bbq.
Matthew--you mean Steve I hope. My views on pork are a well-guarded secret.
The Canadian Broadcasting Company. I'm not sure if there any other Canadians (or CBC viewing Americans) reading this, but for those who don't know, the Canadian Broadcasting Company (or CBC) is a government owned television and radio broadcasting entity that claims itself to be a fearless defender of Canadian culture against the onslaught of the vacuous corporate American cultural juggernaut.
If this isn't laughably pretentious enough, just get a load of the CBC's "antidote":
- British sitcoms and Dramas. But not just ANY British sitcoms and Dramas. Only the BBC is good enough for Canada! (Yet strangely, "The Office", not shown by CBC, is not)
- "Classy" cinema- which is rarely Canadian, and in fact includes many films that were hits in America, including Gladiator, Titanic, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, all mentioned above.
- "Royal Canadian Air Farce", an unfunny, very corny, middle of the middle of the middle of the road sketch comedy series whose only reason for existence is to "satrize" Canadian politics. Seriously, if Canada ever suddenly ceased to exist, so would this show.
- "Canadian" comedies and drama, which can be divided into three groups:
1) Shows that take a popular American formula and set it in Toronto.
2) Corny "Distinctly Canadian" originals like "Beachcombers", "Seeing Things", "Air Farce", etc.
3) "DaVinci's Inquest", "Kids in the Hall", "Degrassi Junior High", the only three good shows ever made in Canada. (Note, some would also include "The Newsroom" as a fourth)
- "The Greatest Canadian", a national poll to determine, well, the Greatest Canadian. It really should have been called "The Greatest English-Speaking Pro-Medicare Anti-Separatist Canadian Politician". (Note: I am a big bleeding heart Lefty, so I can make fun of Medicare).
And I must note that Don Cherry, fucking Don Cherry, made it into the top ten. But that's more Canada's fault than the CBC's.
- Speaking of which, last but not least is...Hockey. Fucking Hockey. Fucking "Hockey Night in Canada". Fucking Don Cherry. To Americans, Hockey is Sport. To Canada, Hockey is Canada. And they we right.
So in conclusion, CBC = B-A-D.
Cheers, eh?
Matthew wrote:
I avoided LoTR not because it was a blockbuster but because, unlike most geeks, I have almost zero interest in sci fi or fantasy. As a child I enjoyed the Narnia series very much, and I loved Madeline L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time. But that was before I was 13 years old and the last time I found sci fi or fantasy remotely interesting.
Dorothy Parker had a phrase for this stuff: "This wasn't just plain terrible. This was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it."
A perfect phrase, really.
MJ Memphis wrote:
Now there I have to disagree completely. Heck, even Wynton Marsalis wouldn't agree with that statement and he was born and raised in Nawlins. As Steve pointed out, the list of jazz legends who don't play New Orleans style jazz is long. Are you really going to try and argue that be bop, which started in New York, isn't jazz? Miles Davis? Duke Ellington? I love New Orleans and I love New Orleans jazz, but this is just silly.
Steve wrote:
I'll argue even more strongly with this, being something of a BBQ expert (and one who made several pounds of pulled pork on Sunday for a party). Texas is the one that is out of step in its love of beef BBQ. In the other big four BBQ centers of the country (the Carolinas, Memphis and KC), pork is king. And the reason why it's beef in Texas is simply because that's where the cattle are. Don't get me wrong, I love brisket and think Texas BBQ is great. But BBQ began primarily with pork and it's still the dominant meat of choice for BBQ around the country.
And someone mentioned Andrew Lloyd Webber, who absolutely defines BAD in my opinion. Here's another great excerpt from Queenan's book, where he begins his descent into the worst of American popular culture by going to see Cats. I'll continue it on through his take on Michael Bolton:
In the "beer" genre, I consider "Sam Adams" to be in this category, along with Bass ale.
Sam Adams is a mega brewery disguising itself as a micro (it isn't the only one - Red Hook (owned by A-B, makers of Bud) and Sierra Nevada both are as well, but at least Sierra Nevada's good). In fact, Sam Adams is a frequent target of negative campaigning (humorously, of course) by several *real* micros including Stone Brewing (Arrogant Bastard) and Rogue Brewing (Dead Guy Ale).
Bass, at least what they send to America labeled as an "IPA" is practically water to my taste buds, having had real hoppy pales from American and excellent bitters and pales from within the UK. I can barely taste a Bass now and will pass on that in favor of just about anything else from the Isles if the place has it, or even something cheap yet good like a Yuengling.
Jason-
Oh, perfect phrase - as expected from Dorothy Parker. God, that woman could write. Only Mencken compares to her when it comes to writing aphorisms like that.
Joe -
Redhook is partially owned by A-B, but as far as I can tell, the quality of their brews hasn't changed since they were bought out. As a matter of fact, I'll be heading to the brewery tonight!
Ed Wrote:
"I'll argue even more strongly with this, being something of a BBQ expert (and one who made several pounds of pulled pork on Sunday for a party). Texas is the one that is out of step in its love of beef BBQ. In the other big four BBQ centers of the country (the Carolinas, Memphis and KC), pork is king. And the reason why it's beef in Texas is simply because that's where the cattle are. Don't get me wrong, I love brisket and think Texas BBQ is great. But BBQ began primarily with pork and it's still the dominant meat of choice for BBQ around the country. "
The BBQ quip was tongue in cheek, I have cooked my share of pulled pork as well.
Food. Just plain ordinary groceries. Except that you can't get that any more. What you get is "new", "improved", "now with new flavours!" groceries. There is no plain tea; there is "new!" peach/spice/mango tea. Or cinnamon/apple cider/cloves tea. No plain potato chips; now there is an entire aisle of different mixes and colours.
It seems that one flavour is no good. Two are barely passable; to merit being on the shelves, an item must include at least three additions.
Whatever happened to just plain vanilla?
Joe Queenan? Oh, that guy.
When I was living in England, my brother bought me a copy of his book Queenan Country: A Reluctant Anglophile's Pilgrimage to the Mother Country for Christmas. Reading it gave me indigestion. My. God. That man is the prissiest, most insufferable, snotty, nose-in-the-air self-righteous prick I think I've ever read.
You want eloquent snark? Read Bill Bryson. At least that man has a soul.
How dare people treat eating at Red Lobster as a special occasion! The rest of us know you're only truly classy if you're paying at least $50 for your seafood, and you're eating it at some place no one has ever heard of. High prices and obscurity only, please....none of that *sniff* popular stuff will be tolerated. And people without taste are lower than dirt.
Ugh. I'm sorry, and I know you disagree with me so it's not really even worth discussing (we're all allowed our own tastes....or perhaps not?) but I just find that kind of thinking completely unpalatable. Maybe I haven't given the man a fair shot-- but I can't help but suspect he wouldn't give me one either.
argystokes: I didn't say RedHook was bad (their ESB remains on my "first 10 choices" list when at american restaurants with semi-limited choices) - only that they aren't really a micro. Hook is definitely better than Sam.
sorry if "guilt by association" came across there; it wasn't meant to.
Nope, we won't agree on this one. I love Joe Queenan. But I hated Red Lobster long before reading his book. And it has nothing to do with paying $50 for seafood or having to go to a "fancy" restaurant. I've had great seafood at dives on both coasts. Heck, I've had great seafood for $5 served out of barrells on the sidewalks of the Embarcadero in San Francisco. But at Red Lobster, everything is deep fried in so much batter as to be unidentifiable (just like a Long John Silver's), and what's not deep fried has no taste at all. I don't get why anyone would consider it even a mediocre place to eat, much less a place for special occasions. But of course, as you said, tastes do vary.
Whole Foods. Whole Foods is, in my mind, the Olive Garden of grocery stores.
Disclaimer: This may be entirely without merit. But you see, I live in a part of the country that simply does not sport these chain restaurants. There is no Olive Garden here, no Red Lobster, no Applebee's, etc etc. And there is also no Whole Foods. But everything I've heard about these places, every impression I've gotten, leads me to put them in the same category. Who knows, maybe Whole Foods is actually good, but it seems awful by association.
Bass is one of those beers, like Foster's, that is much more commonly found abroad than its country of origin.
Here's my nominations for the BAD category:
Olive Garden: last time I went there, they only had ONE salad dressing. (That was many years ago, so they may have improved.) Who needs an "Italian" chain when there's little mom-and-pop Italian restaurants all over every city in the US?
"Miami Vice," the Movie: beneath all the "The TV show you love reborn as a big-budget movie" hype, all we got was one more lame buddy-cop-action-shoot-em-up-splatter-fest, with all characters nothing but cardboard cut-outs courtesy of our Ministry of Drug-War Propaganda. Oh, and a movie that can't decide whether it wants to be a movie or a music video.
Tom Cruise, the George W. Bush of acting. Forget "hello," forget $cientology too, he lost me with that face, which never projected any feeling except "I'm a spoiled brat who got by on my good looks alone, and never had to make any real choices or sacrifices, and never experienced any real setbacks or other upsetting moments."
Suburban megachurches. A Gothic cathedral is majestic and commanding; a suburban megachurch is just plain dull and bullying.
Hannibal Lechter movies. So the deranged cannibal is all cultured and erudite and talks purty. So what? He's still gotta die.
Jodie Foster
Any movie where the bad guy is more interesting than the good guy because the swcript is badly written, the good guy is played by someone who can't act, and the bad guy is played by someone who enjoys the over-the-top role because he has nothing to lose. (See "Dune" below.)
"V for Vendetta." The most soulless depiction of London ever to hit the big screen. Also the most simpleminded and pretentious political message since "The Turner Diaries."
Lefties who make idiotic excuses for terrorism while pretending to be The Most Enlightened People in the World.
"It's all about the oil!"
"Dune." The book AND the movie.
"Top Gun"
'The Deer Hunter'
The Mormon temple in Bethesda, MD: Disney-Stalin eyesore on the outside, pink and purple kitsch on the inside. (See "suburban megachurches" above.)
That's about it for now...
Fosters in America isn't even made in Australia. Its made up in Toronto and is far weaker in taste (and strength) than its Australian ancestor. I have no idea if some Canadian legal limit is part of that or not.
Good Lord, M. Night Shyamalan.
Raging Bee:
Yes! I meant to say V for Vendetta! Terrible, terrible movie, terrible story, completely idiotic message.
Also: Hayden Christiansen.
Joe Shelby:
That's doubtful, it's much more likely to be the US legal limit. In the US, beer with more than 5% alcohol by volume magically turns into malt liquor. Most Canadian beers that are exported to the US have significantly lower alcohol content than their domestic counterparts.
--"Miami Vice," the Movie--
I'd say Michael Mann altogether.
there isn't any "american" national standard for labels - most micros easily go out, labeled and marketted as "beer" with percentages well above 6 (Dead Guy Ale is 6.2; Arrogant Bastard is 7.6), across the country.
some *states* (and some counties within states) have limits on who can sell what based on alchohol levels, but whether something is a barleywine or a beer (or a "malt liquor", most of which, btw, are well less than 5%) is solely up to the brewer as a marketting thing. if the law has some internal "code" that labels, that's within the law, but nothing on the beer label ever changes with respect to such localized distinctions.
Almost anything marketed as "Celtic" qualifies these days, particularly in the realm of music. The crown jewel in this respect has to be Enya, who uses a gorgeous voice and prodigious range to produce some of the most mind-numbing stuff I've ever heard.
> Any movie where the bad guy is more interesting than the good guy because the
> swcript is badly written, the good guy is played by someone who can't act, and
> the bad guy is played by someone who enjoys the over-the-top role because
> he has nothing to lose. (See "Dune" below.)
Most any comedy in which the good guy is made to look good by making everyone around him to be stupider. (Groundhog Day comes to mind first, but there must be lots of others).
Also any thriller in which the villian corners his prey, then tarries to gloat a few seconds too long before the kill, thus dooming himself. Wait, that would eliminate every single thiller ever produced since the beginning of film. So never mind.
Re: The Mormon temple in Bethesda, MD - for those who don't travel the DC beltway on a daily/weekly basis, think the "Emerald City of Oz" peaking up 200 feet above the trees, with a golden Jesus at the top of the spire holding a golf club out and yelling "fore!" to the east, and you'll have it.
The traffic reporters still refer to one of the bridges over the beltway as the "Surrender Dorothy Bridge" (thanks to some now painted out letters a graffiti artist put there years ago).
nicole: here's my review of "V:"
http://motherwell.livejournal.com/63999.html
I have a more recent one of "Miami Vice" too:
http://motherwell.livejournal.com/71810.html
Isn't that more "any comedy in which the male star is made to look good by not being Andie MacDowell"?
Will E: M Night Shyamalan is pretty much the living embodiment of elaborate mediocrity.
elaborately mediocre. So many things in American popular culture fall into that category
It might be more productive to try listing elements of American popular culture which are NOT elaborately mediocre (or just plain mediocre.)
But I'm coming up empty...
Ken Wilber. He's supposed to be this whole fuse-western-knowledge-with-buddhism thing, and supposed to blow your mind, but I picked up one of his books and within five pages got to "Of course, evolution can't work. When a whale evolved from a cow, what happened to its legs? Either it had them or it didn't and there could be no transition."
Moron. Moron with raisins.
Duke
The Matrix. The first one especially. I knew the others would be bad.
--It might be more productive to try listing elements of American popular culture which are NOT elaborately mediocre (or just plain mediocre.)
But I'm coming up empty...--
Nah, despite its obvious excrescences (K-Fed or Nicole Richie, say, or "World According to Jim"), I think American pop culture is better than ever. The Daily Show and Colbert Report for starters. Our version of "The Office" I think easily matches the original. The White Stripes. Sam Raimi's Spiderman movies. The Sopranos. The Onion...
But that's just me.
Chain pizza, need I say more?
It might be more productive to try listing elements of American popular culture which are NOT elaborately mediocre (or just plain mediocre.)
Well, the problem is there are art forms that START as art, only they LATER get mass-produced and corner-cut to save costs, and the result is that all *new* versions of that form are mediocre as a mockery and insult to the original.
Distinctively American art that had high moments but went to long or cost-cutting clones killed it:
The Animated Feature: the market never really figured out Disney's "magic", even ex-Disney artists (Bluth). Dreamworks never had a successful entry into this field). Granted, not every Disney feature is top of its game, but all are generally of a high quality and care (well, we could have done without the early 80s output...).
The CGI Animated Feature - Pixar still generally does good work, but Dreamworks and the others all tried to do the "well, nobody goes to 2-D anymore, Eisner said so, so if we just do it in 3-D, they'll show up anyways". Madagascar and several other recent flops have once again reminded the animation world that STORY MATTERS. Dick and Fart jokes can only hold one for so long, and "Something about Mary" in CGI is still the same crap that "Something about Mary" was as live-action.
The Looney Toons / Merry Melodies library. Up to the peak of the Warner years ('47-'59) the quality coming out of there was astounding. Even when, for cost reasons, they couldn't keep up the realism they had, Maurice Noble set a new direction by looking to impressionism as a source for an alternate art style that would still work while not being expensive to maintain, particularly on the later Chuck Jones Road-Runners. There will never be enough superlatives for Freeling (at his peak), C. Jones, Noble, Maltese, Avery, and McKimson, and the rest of Termite Terrace.
But by the time the 60s rolled around, the Freeling-DePatie cartoons, following the same cheap abstract style they used in Pink Panther (which works there, dammit, 'cause it was new and didn't have a legacy of expensive quality to meet), just plain sucked. The recent semi-3D toons meet real people movies have all sucked, too.
Real Jazz is still out there, but its a niche culture, not the mainstream.
Some tv series at least START with high quality, but last too long well past when the good ideas run out - at this point most dramas that didn't start out as soap operas end up that way as the only means to explain why characters disappear as the actors leave the show (West Wing, Law and Order). With TV shows, its hard, 'cause even late in the game, after "jumping the shark", there's always one or two that are still remembered...
Strange, we seem to be lamenting the ubiquity of middlebrow culture just as the rest of the blogosphere is lamenting its demise. Heavens, movie musicals are not opera, nor is Kenny G "authentic" to any place or style. We are a microwave culture where everyone wants to eat a little bit better than Stauffer's Pot Pie every night (well, occasionally, anyway) but no one wants the trouble of haute cuisine.
Remember when cable tv was going to revolutionize television, so that you could always view what you wanted just so long as there was even a small market for it? And yet what we got was 300 stations all showing a different made-for-tv movie? In other words, we got programming no one in their right mind wants to see. But in our culture each of those 300 providers is guaranteed a tiny market slice and its advertizers.
My nominee here: Perrier. Let's see, it's pretentious, largely useless, almost never more pure than the local tap water, and yet in the glut of waters on the market, has somehow regained its cachet even after the benzene problems.
By the way, I understand that Texans don't get it, but pork has always been the prestige meat in America. Even though pork has always been more expensive, Americans consumed far more of it from pre-colonial times up to the late 1950s. And McD's never even pretended to be middlebrow.
"Are you really going to try and argue that be bop, which started in New York, isn't jazz?"
Not really, I was being facetious there. I am pretty picky on my food (and was *not* being facetious about most "Cajun/Creole" outside LA being awful), not so much on my music.
As far as "elaborate mediocrity" goes, how about the whole "Intelligent Design" movement? It's certainly elaborate, while containing nothing of substance. Or is "mediocrity" giving too much credit there?
"Any beverage containing high fructose corn syrup. Can we drop our sugar embargo already?"
Nearly every beverage that opts for cane sugar over corn syrup is better, but even then there are exceptions. Take, for instance, Virgil's.
Most specialty root beers go for $3 to $4 a pack, but you'll be shelling out $7 for Virgil's, quite possibly the most disappointing concotion to ever disgrace the label "root beer". Sure, it has all natural unbleached sugar, anise, licorice, pimento berry oil and all that crap, but it tastes horrible.
Religion?
I was going to say Stephen King, but I don't think his PG horror has been respected by anyone in the past 20 years and thus doesn't qualify as BAD. His idea of terror is putting his protagonist in a mildly uncomfortable situation, and escaping before anything that can reasonably be labelled as "bad" happens.
To go back to something kehrsam was saying earlier about cable television. Like he said, it was originally supposed to be a platform that reaches every niche market. Instead those niche channels have all blurred into generic soulless entertainment channels. As Ed discussed a couple of weeks ago, that's exactly what happened to MTV, and recently ESPN. I would also include Sci-Fi (which now, aside from its decent original shows, runs very little classics, and instead ultra low budget b-movies, and wrestling for some reason), TNN (which turned into a meathead station, SpikeTV), the History Channel (which aside from Modern Marvels, runs documentaries about ghosts, UFOs, conspiracies, and any other pseudohistory they can find).
Oddly, when my old boss took a beer judging class (he brews the best triple you've ever had) with his wife they were given 4 lagers to judge. Now the criterea for judging is not neccessarily liking the taste - as a judge one might have to judge a style they don't like. Instead beers are judged by how well they do that style, how hoppy, carbination or lacktherof, depending on style. So when the class judged lagers - Budwieser won unanimously.
Wonder if they had any Miller High Life there. For a cheap mass produced beer, it's actually pretty good.
I can't really comment on restaurant chains; once I learned how easy it is to cook, it's a rare day to head out somewhere. Still, I'd avoid just about any restaurant chain that originated in Florida (Outback, Hooters, etc.). In fact, I think I have to agree with LJ: the entire state of Florida. And I grew up there. Very strange place. Hell, even Jimmy Buffet falls into that now. About the only album of his I can listen to anymore is Living and Dying in 3/4 Time.
Hmph.
I'd take the discussion more seriously (or more lightheartedly) if it hadn't gotten to be a parade for Tastes That Have Fossilized Before Their Time.
roger tang, you're named after one of the original middle-brow wannabe products, how can you not love the discussion?
If you want to know about the state of someone's musical knowledge, ask them what they think of Andrew Lloyd Webber. If they hate him, they know bugger all.
People critisize Webber based on his plays, not on his music. His plays are overdone bathetic crap. But people don't really go to a Webber production for the story, they go for the songs.
The man knows how to pick a lyricist. He also knows how to write music. Putting it all together into a good play, not so hot. I enjoy Cats because of the tunes, the plot can be safely ignored. Jesus Christ, Super Star and Phantom of the Opera hang together better because they were adaptations of earlier stories. Andrew is not a story teller, he's a composer.
Andrew Lloyd Webber's music is best listened to at home, on your stereo. No pictures, no "story", just sound. Listen to McCavity or Music of the Night on your sound sytem with your eyes closed. You'll get a much different picture than you would at a theatrical production.
No, your problem is not with Andrew Lloyd Webber, it's with the context in which you experience his music. That makes all the difference.
That's so 70s.
Andrew Lloyd Webber is best listened to by the deaf.
Arbitrary snobbery (pork vs beef, sufficient beer A vs sufficient beer B, hash vs bud) is as annoying as complex specified mediocrity (Red Lobster). Maybe I'm completely misunderstanding this discussion but for something to be BAD it must be bad and have airs of erudition or perceived culture/class or hype or whatever, right? Then isn't it your own damm fault for being seduced by the airs/perception/hype? Did you think that Red Lobster was a good place to get a nice bouillabaisse? That the same guy who brought you the pseudo-deep Matrix would write a nuanced critique of modern politics disguised as a dystopian action film? In the words of the 43rd best beer in America/President, Bush Lite, "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice..." well you know the rest.
Todd McFarlane.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_McFarlane
And probably wikipedia, too.
Rowan Atkinson's show once referred to Lloyd Webber as a series of continual reworkings of Puccini's Greatest Hits. Musically, he adds little that's "new" to the canon, and like most typical 20th century composers, merely uses the most appropriate styles and "rules" of the past to get his story across.
He was more important to restoring British musical theater than any specific contributions to Broadway, in that the Brits to my mind didn't really have much showing since the advent of the Broadway musical overshadowed their tradition of G&S.
How could you guys miss Andrea Bocelli, Charlotte Church? And The Three Tenors! (Though each of those 3 were great performers on their own.) Unfortunately this category also includes some good musicians who keep making elaborately mediocre crossover records (e.g. Yo Yo Ma).
I'll admit to liking Philip Glass, though I don't expect any depth from his music. Also, I have to cop to having a couple of Enya CDs.
Christianity: Elaborately mediocre theology. And if it's not elaborate and mediocre enough for you, there's always Mormonism or Scientology.
Don Knotts as Lear sounds totally cool.
I'd add A&E to Matthew's list of cable channels. They seem show all crime reality shows now.
I agree about the original Matrix, which was beyond absurd.
Seinfeld.
I disagree about V for Vendetta. I'm sure you have your reasons -- perhaps artistic, perhaps political -- but to many of us who hate living in George Bush's America, it just feels good to see the people rise up to overthrow a tyrant. End of story.
WSOP
Watching people play cards on TV is as entertaining listening to Kenny G sing Andrew Lloyd Weber on an AM radio while eating at Red Lobster drinking a major American branded beer.
There, I'm curmudgeoned out.
No kidding. Whats worse is that people believe that somehow skill determines the winner at the WSOP. You might as well watch the World Series of Bingo.
on the other hand Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown at least replaces insipidly stupid commentary and analysis with just plain fun (and prizes for good charities)!
--I was going to say Stephen King, but I don't think his PG horror has been respected by anyone in the past 20 years and thus doesn't qualify as BAD.--
But King has never, ever, presented himself as anything but entertainment, and junky entertainment at that. Steve is relentlessly unpretentious and prosaic.
The same cannot be said, however, for such BAD literary luminaries like Don DeLillo or Cormac McCarthy or Maya Angelou. You know I'm right. Overwritten, overrated--please can't they just be over?
Hey, Cormac McCarthy is a great writer
And Red Lobster is a great restaurant!
Seriously, I found "Child of God" to be overwrought, filled with "look at me, ma, I'm writin' powerful prose!" passages, and a whiff of condescension to the subject matter. But that's me, and that's what I consider BAD. I've read parts of his other novels out of curiosity--why has he such an aversion to quotations around dialogue? That just hits me upside the head as precious and self-consciously "artistic."
But my main point was that Steve King cannot be considered BAD by any measure (bad, maybe, but not BAD).