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Defiance: Prize Winners, Folk Fans and Other Unexpected Sources of Resistance
Two recent films hightlight early examples of an evolving audience.
By Russell Brown Oct 3, 2005
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They seem like strange bedfellows, but something struck me as oddly similar about the new Jane Anderson film The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio and the recent Bob Dylan documentary, No Direction Home.
It wasn’t so much the main characters or stories, but more an
unexpected new take on the consumer culture of the fifties and early
sixties, which serves as a backdrop for both films. You generally don’t
think of this era with much respect for the sophistication of the
audience -- it was, after all, the time of “keeping up with the
Joneses,” where every household must have the best and brightest new
appliance. But these two films showed me a different past, with
characters who were participating in a very new millennium movement:
media resistance.
No Direction Home, the miniseries that aired last Monday and Tuesday nights on PBS’s American Masters,
focuses on the early 1960s New York village beat scene where Bob Dylan
found his first following. In a nostalgic moment, one man recalls that,
“Back then, a performer was judged on what he had to say, not how much
he made. People would ask each other, ‘did you see this singer -- what
did he have to say?’” It’s an important distinction, and you wonder
whether Dylan would’ve been greeted with such a warm reception if he
were a young singer/songwriter today. As the film continues, it covers
in detail his conversion from an acoustic folksinger to electric
rocker. During these early shows, he received mostly boos and catcalls
from fans who hated the new sound. In one instance, before he performs
"Maggie’s Farm," he scolds the audience, proclaiming, “this is a folk
song.” What he means, we now know, is that his music, in a sense, is
all “folk music,” because it is all about what he “has to say.” Dylan
never understood why his fans were so angry about the transformation,
because he felt the essence of the music was the same. But in
retrospect, what the audience hated, one might argue, was not so much
the different instrument, but rather the fear that he was abandoning
political songwriting, “selling out” to the more commercial, electric
sound. Of course they were ultimately wrong because Dylan didn’t stop
writing challenging music, so the protests didn’t last long, and he went on to attract an even larger fan base.
But you have to
respect an audience that is savvy and passionate enough to demand that
a performer remain relevant. By screaming “Judas” before an electric
set, you guess that this disgruntled listener was more worried that
Dylan was going to turn to fluff than just convert the type of
instrument he played. “Political rock” wasn’t something that had been
invented yet, and so just the sight of an electric guitar might’ve
conjured images of bubblegum pop. Folk music, at the time, was the only
entertainment that “said anything,” and this was symbolically
represented by acoustic. What’s interesting, though, was that the
audience was aware of the difference in what might today be the
distinction between indie and mainstream -- and vocalized their
preference. The picture we have of the early sixties -- of conformity
and repression -- did not apply to music. These fans were suspicious of
the electric guitar because they worried that Dylan might become as
homogeneous as a kitchen product, and their version of “media
resistance” was to demand he remain “folk.” The documentary portrays
the audience as “not getting it.” And maybe that’s true -- they didn’t.
But that doesn’t mean they were wrong to question the change. Their
apprehensions were noble, albeit misplaced.
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio features a main character who exhibits her own form of media
resistance via the deconstruction of advertisements, and reflects a
similar savvy about how she was being manipulated by the market. The
story follows Evelyn Ryan (Julianne Moore), a housewife with 10
children who earns extra money for the family by winning jingle-writing
contests for products like Dr. Pepper by mixing both a catchy tune with
a dead-on analysis of how these companies want their products to be
perceived. And she wasn’t the only one. In a key sequence, Ryan visits
with other “professional” contest winners (called the Affadaises) and
trades secrets on how the contests are judged and scored. Language
patterns and successful strategies are revealed, and they exhibit how,
in fact, to beat the marketers at their own game. It’s a fascinating
perspective on this time, because generally you see footage of old
advertisements and assume the audience was not sophisticated enough to
decode the messages. Deconstructing media and advertising is a modern
concept, we like to think. But in reality, the Affadaisies not only
recognized how they were being sold to, but also used that knowledge to
make money themselves. (Is there a modern version of this “taking
revenge” experience? Not really.) One might even
argue that winning contests was a form of rebellion: that “playing” the
machine is, in fact, subverting it. Perhaps this explains why the
contests ended. At one point in the film, the Affadaisies lament that
talent driven competitions were being replaced by random raffles and
giveaways. No reason is given, but these companies probably didn’t want
consumers thinking so much about the men behind the curtains, that it
was better for the facade of marketing to remain faceless.
The
fifties and early sixties are often portrayed as times when people
simply bought the hot new product without question. But perhaps this
too is a deception. From today’s perch, it’s fun to think of older
times as simpleminded and foolish, because it makes us feel that our
choices are in-the-know. But maybe the reverse is true. Nowadays,
shopping on the Internet with credit cards is easy and quick, and you
don’t think for a moment about who’s getting the money. Furthermore,
because it is often difficult to determine which mega-corporation
actually owns the company that produces a specific product, it’s even
more difficult to know the political ends that may be supported by
buying a certain record or washing machine. It is conceivable today to
buy the work of a “subversive” artist, but ultimately put money in the
pocket of a right wing conglomerate media mogul. But because of the
speed of the purchase, and the skill with which companies hide their
masters, you wouldn’t know it.
In this context, the audiences
and consumers of the fifties and early sixties (as depicted in these
films) had choices that were well-informed and, perhaps, more moral
than ours. We hear few complaints today when artists do not “say
something” -- that is not a quality that is valued amongst the
mainstream or the indie (“alternative” today is not usually political,
it is quirky and off-beat, which ultimately says nothing.) And,
furthermore, the average consumer has no relationship with a product or
the company that produces it (unlike the women of the fifties, who were
so familiar with companies that they could write advertising for them)
and so no idea what exactly they are buying into when they are buying.
Yes, fifty years ago things may have looked a lot the same, a sea of
products to “keep up with the Joneses.” But, it seems, more thinking
came into play.
Getting Reel is a biweekly commentary about movies and the world.
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