December 1998 feature by Steve Kleinedler |
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Making Sense of Reference
Ok, I'll admit it. I enjoy that special glow of cleverness that washes
over me when I toss out a witty reference that only a handful of my peers
catches. This luscious sensation is bested only when I am the sole person
nodding at someone else's esoteric verbal volleys.
Dropping arch references has become the feature of modern discourse. This
is undoubtedly fueled by reference-laden fare like:
Worse, the merest glimmers of originality are immediately thrown on the
cultural compost heap for future references. Heathers is the prime
example. The characters in that movie inhabit their own world, the
invention of the screenwriter. The music (other than what plays over the
credits) and programs of their environment exist only within that
story -- there are no eight-bar snippets of pop songs written by real-life
musicians of the day. Nods to our world constitute a kind of an
anti-reference: Moby Dick is reduced to one word, "Eskimo." Of
course, the movie became a pop-culture extravaganza, and I can't even
discuss Herman Melville or Moby Dick without someone booming
"ESKIMO" in my ear. Aren't they clever? None of us is any
better, especially those of you who found yourself thinking about
Heathers when I used the word 'myriad' earlier in this article.
Here's an interesting theory I read long ago. I'm not sure who said it.
(But it wasn't TV's Frank, Tom Frank, or Winona Ryder.) Anyhow, this
theory goes that the only original themes are that of Cinderella
and Jack and the Beanstalk. While that claim may have some
simplistic merit, it's less stale than a world where the only themes are
derived from pop songs of 1976-1984 and television shows from 1955-1980.
What happens when they run out of mediocre television shows from which to
make even more mediocre movies? Hollywood will have to mine the '80s, and
are you really prepared for a Very Special Facts of Life Reunion?
The '90s are the decade in which anyone who had 15 minutes of fame in the
previous two decades were allowed even more airtime (even if only in Old
Navy ads). Personally, I'd prefer to dwell in the present and praise
originality, but then I couldn't be so smug.
in the junk drawer
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