The Snooki Effect

Blame it on Snooki.Yesterday I finally got to see the most recentAcademy Award Best Picture, "The Artist," but not before I had beensufficiently warned.  There on the boxoffice window, typed in bold and ominous font, was a sign that read:

ATTENTION!
"TheArtist" is a SILENT, BLACK and WHITE movie.
(Andthe surgeon general has determined that it may cause migraine headaches,cancer, leprosy...)
OK, I kid…they did not mention leprosy.  Of course, in order to cover their tracks,they might also have posted on that sign that the film contains symbolism andmetaphor and only a very few of the words presumed to be spoken are actuallyprinted on the screen.  In truth, the film is miraculous...not because ofits quality, but because of its very existence. It is a very good movie, a true homage to early Hollywood and anentertaining, informative piece of art. But what is miraculous about it is that it could ever have been made inthe first place.  Of course it wasn'tmade in Hollywood, but in France, and it was made on a very tight schedule witha budget that was less than what an A-List movie star would make for a singlepicture.  But it was made, so alas, thereis hope.

Culturally speaking, what was once branded as eliteand snobbish is now virtually extinct. What was high quality and sometimes thought-provoking is nowsnobbish.  What was mediocre is now highquality.  And what was once idiotic isnow PURE GOLD.

It is the Age of Snooki.  It is the Age of Cultural Junk Food, servedsuper-sized at the drive-thru window, and we are eating it up like there's notomorrow.I remember seeing a clip of the cast of The JerseyShore when they first appeared on The Tonight Show.  Jay Leno did a skit with them on a mock quizshow and drew laughs from their lack of knowledge of even remedial facts.  It seemed like the show itself was a spoof,an over the top, let's see how far we can go with this whole "reality T.V."thing sort of goof.  Then they becamesuperstars.  Now they sit on the couch attalk shows and are treated as serious cultural commodities, as, dare I sayit…artists. 

Lower that bar, follow that dollar.And why is this so? There has always been entertainment and popular culture that hardlyqualified as Shakespeare or Ibsen.  MostVaudeville acts, indeed most early movies were anything but sophisticated.  But what is different today is the growingsupremacy of the banal, the glorification of the downright moronic, and theunused brain cells that flitter away in their exhaust.

"Citizen Kane" wouldn't get made today unless maybeGeorge Clooney took it on and bankrolled most of it himself.  Today, Louis Armstrong would be stuck in a gig-to-gigexistence playing 30 seat clubs for meal money. Franz Kafka would be told to change the giant bug in "The Metamorphosis"to a vampire or a werewolf and to get rid of all the symbolism crap and put insome good fight scenes.  I hear there are discussions of Snooki having herown show now that she's pregnant.  Flashforward to September, 2013: "And the Emmy goes to…"

We reap what we sow. But that does not have to be the case.  There are oases of quality still to be found,not necessarily on the front pages or on AOL news feeds, but they are there.  It may require a little searching, sometimesaway from the major television networks, sometimes to a movie theater twentymiles farther away than the local multiplex, sometimes past the usual suspectson the bookshelves or in the DVD displays or even on iTunes.  The quality is there, and now perhaps madeall the more special by the search for it, by the rarity of it.

By the NEED for it.