Week 4

 This week, we read Clement Greenbergs, “Avant Garde and Kitsch,” from 1939. In it, Greenberg discusses that kitsch is accidental art and that the government uses to control people. I think this is true, if one lives in an extreme. For example, living in a state of constant propaganda created by a political party, such as the time Greenberg was living through in the stages of Stalin and Hitler. The average person consuming media can typically recognize overt propaganda and kitsch itself can be against that very propaganda. For example, Star Wars, despite the name, is very anti-war and describes the dangers of living in a Republic, where choices are made by a small group of people who have all the power and never doubt themselves.
This is exactly why it is extremely unlikely kitsch audience is the general mass or that they could be manipulated through modern kitsch, if it is to be described as "accidental". Kitsch is more akin to misunderstood as opposed to accidental. While the overall messaging of the series is anti war, there are those who do not care what the messaging of the series is, they just enjoy the fights. Which is fine, to the extent that the directors and public don't turn their own property into a mangled mess of mixed morals. 

 The only way to tell what the public will like is to advertise it to them and observe the reaction. Tastes come and go and there will always be people finding niches within niches just as there will be people looking forward to the next star wars. People enjoy kitsch because it has a trope they like in it. Yet even underrated things include tropes in them, just as used as the ones in their more popular contemporaries, so why does the other thing do better? Well, just as Greenberg states "the avant-garde itself, already sensing the danger, is becoming more and more timid every day that passes. Academicism and commercialism are appearing in the strangest places. This can mean only one thing: that the avant-garde is becoming unsure of the audience it depends on — the rich and the cultivated." So, overall, money is what decides what people enjoy, though people can enjoy other things. The issue is that no one has time or energy to search for those other things. Even with the internet, looking for an underrated geenre can take forever, let alone a song itself. This in turn affects peoples enjoyment of more niche things. For example, math rock.

Giraffes? GIRAFFES! "When The Catholic Girls Go Camping, The Nicotine Vampires Rule Supreme"

(2007). When The Catholic Girls Go Camping, The Nicotine Vampires Rule Supreme. [Beef Studio] Topham and David P.

To the average person, this will either sound extremely pleasing or it will sound like someone just playing on a guitar with no knowledge of what music is. Because the sound itself may be unfamiliar to certain people who do not listen to rock or a wide variety of music. 

Clement Greenberg, “Avant Garde and Kitsch,” 1939