Culture-Jamming in the Carnival

Those who follow a cultural approach to the First Amendment also appreciate that virtually no form of dissent is forbidden in the Carnival; in fact, dissent is typically encouraged. Young and old alike are invited to reveal their rebel stripes by donning a James Dean, 136 John Wesley Harding, 137 or Axl Rose 138 T­shirt. For the more radical, Malcolm X baseball caps are commercially available. 139 Rappers, punks, and Mapplethorpe­types all may, to paraphrase Shakespeare, strut and fret their hour upon the stage of the Carnival and then be heard no more. 140 Skinheads and Manson­ family members, too, are in demand on the TV talk­show circuit. And the big tent certainly has room enough for the likes of the National Federation of Decency, Morality in Media, and the American Family Association, so long as they do not lock arms with Senator Jesse Helms to legislate morality. All messages are created equal since almost all can be adapted to suit the culture, where truth and untruth, morality and immorality tumble together.

What cannot be tolerated by the gatekeepers of the Carnival, however, is dissent that poses a clear and present danger to the amusement culture and its economy. Of course, far­reaching expression on the fringe ­- for example, Andres Serrano's Piss Christ 141 ­- may temporarily be sacrificed in order to appease lawmakers. 142 Culture­jamming, by contrast, is one form of dissent that the Carnival barkers are not likely to countenance. But what kind of dissent is this?

Culture­jamming, the method common to these examples, is a subversive practice designed to expropriate and sabotage the meaning of popular messages. Typically, culture­jamming aims for auto­cannibalization: Commercials or advertisements devour themselves. Just as the entertainment­consumption complex filched America's most cherished images, language, and values, so the culture­jammers now use the same tactics to obstruct the ideology of the Carnival. These pop­culture dissidents "draw upon the given facts of our society, this cacophony of fragmentary media images, to describe things as they are." 146 Professor Stuart Ewen notes that at the core of culture­jamming is "the hope that there could be another kind of world, a world where rather than incoherence there could be coherence, rather than a devaluation of the human in favor of the commodity there could be an understanding of the commodity in the service of the human." 147

Predictably, the corporate captains have moved to squelch such treachery. They recruit the law of business libel, trademark infringements, and copyright violations to suppress this dissent. 148 Similarly, the caretakers of mass expression, the major television networks, have refused to air the culture­ jammers' paid public­interest spots. 149 Ironically, Nike's TV messages of racial harmony, directed by film­maker Spike Lee, are viewed as a form of social criticism; but it is a criticism largely neutralized by commercial television's co­optation. 150 Real radicals, our culture­jammers, would take a different tack. Their "commercial" might depict a group of young, racially mixed basketball players wearing expensive sneakers. As this group shoots hoops, a different group of young, racially mixed kids shoots bullets at them. 151 The "commercial" closes with the murderers stealing the footwear from the bloody bodies. The caption: "Nike. Shoot your best shot." 152

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