12.06.00, 3:54 p.m. || common sense & talk shows
In class I invoke Ricki and Jerry and Maury to illustrate my point,
to show how ideology is not an option but something we invoke always
already. It's just a matter of recognition, of realizing that what's
being uttered is not only ideological, but a question of power.
"See here," I say. "Talk shows are notorious for
ideologically asserting the authority of common sense, but when you look
closer, what appears as 'common sense' -- like, 'It's Adam and
Eve, not Adam and Steve!' -- is really deeply invested in racial
and sexual hegemony." I gesture widely and earnestly. "So that appeals
to 'common sense' are really bids for ideological power on the part of
the audience." And more: "Does it matter that the audience members may
not occupy positions of institutional influence? No. Power is not just
something that's held by the World Bank and the IMF -- though it is
and it richly deserves critique-- but it's also something that's in the
air: you breathe it in and sometimes you spit it back out. Power is
exercised every time someone says, 'Girls don't act like boys,'
whether or not the person making the statement is the head of a
university or a housewife."
I'm a sucker for the shows because it's true, I love a good scandal, but particularly because they
make me consider the politics of being public, the popularity of "the
talking cure," and especially the disciplinarity of discourse. The presence of
the shows in class became an inside joke -- each session my
students would offer me accounts of talk shows they'd watched during
the week. I want them to understand the seduction and to then recognize the
danger -- the ease with which hegemonic notions about "proper" behavior
and bodies are reproduced with a casual throw of the hand,
or the tireless repetition of "common sense." I want them to recongize how appeals
to the "natural" are the most authoritative use of "common sense" ideology, and to understand
also how it then functions as hegemony or disciplinarity or power. And
more, I want them to apply this kind of critical thinking everywhere,
anywhere, including the hour they spend on the couch, chips nearby and
remote in hand, watching Maury send a wayward girl to boot camp or
Montel wax moralistic about a makeover.
I'd like to think that they are never going to
able to watch talk shows again without thinking of me, and that they've
maybe learned to find a different kind of pleasure from popular
culture.