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Yule Heibel's Library tagged ideology →  View Popular, Search in Google

Feb
8
2008

Read the entry, "What's 'authentic'?," by Andrew Taylor, but then read the first comment that follows, by Bill Ivey. Taylor, writing from an arts manager perspective, observes: "Since arts organizations are often perceived (or perceive themselves) as havens of authentic expression, it might be worth a moment to define, exactly, what that means." Ivey, donning his "folklorist" hat, contrasts the "authentic" barn-raising, say, with the construction of a pre-fab barn -- or "authentic" blue jeans and their history of being workwear, with the "brand" of "authentic" designer jeans. Apples & oranges, and the oranges, it seems, are watery -- or "thin," as Ivey puts it: they offer "the illusion of purchasable membership in networks defined by exactly the history and shared values that in modern society are available to very, very few."

www.artsjournal.com/...079959.php
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authenticity branding culture culture_industry folklore ideas ideology marketing

  • Since much of modern mass or popular culture is of the pre-fab barn variety, it's not difficult to identify a longing for heritage-defined, community-based products or performances as a significant element of our overarching ethos. There are many thousands of examples of the way th marketplace has exploited this idea. Blue jeans connect with the "authentic" idea of real men doing real work; a Ralph Lauren shooting jacket invokes the "authentic" world of entitled patrician ease; a faux-antique farm table links consumers with the sturdy values of an agrarian past.

      

    This, to me, is the sense of authenticity that pervades mass culture today. It is an idea that is particularly potent in our "thin" consumerist society, offering, as it does, the illusion of purchasable membership in networks defined by exactly the history and shared values that in modern society are available to very, very few.

Aug
29
2006

  • I'm curious why the article referred to the cruise ship industry as "beleaguered."
    • Yule Heibel
      Yule Heibel on 2006-08-29

      this is an excellent point -- the local media always like to play up the "little red riding hood" complex (this is my thesis that it was only the wolf that made LRRH significant; without the wolf, who would care 2-cents about L'il Hood? So, you need the wolf to make people care...

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  • letter-to-the-editor response re. Alaskan tax on cruise ship passengers - Yule Heibel on 2006-08-29
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