Text 4171, 96 rader
Skriven 2006-07-18 11:16:00 av Robert E Starr JR (4644.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: Only Two Shopping Day
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* * * This message was from Paul Harper to rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.m * * *
         * * * and has been forwarded to you by Lord Time * * *         
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@MSGID: <ictob2pmn64qd9i4vfu9f44upujhfn7b3k@4ax.com>
@REPLY: <1152981747.564652.36130@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>
On Tue, 18 Jul 2006 02:41:42 GMT, Amy Guskin <aisling@fjordstone.com>
wrote:

>>>On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 16:03:11 -0400, Paul Harper wrote
>(in article <ffqnb219ssbk8noucfinatuiin77qdqila@4ax.com>):
>
>> On 17 Jul 2006 11:03:24 -0700, "Dan Dassow" <dan_dassow@yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> I agree. I see inclusion of JMS's name more an indication of him
>>> becoming a cultural icon than an indication of belief on astrology.
>> 
>> I think I am going to be sick.
>> 
>> John Lennon was a cultural icon. JFK was a cultural icon. The Dali
>> Lama is a cultural icon. Mother Theresa was a cultural icon. Chairman
>> Mao was a cultural icon. Ghengis Khan was a cultural icon. Joan of Arc
>> was a cultural icon. The Prophet Mohammed was a cultural icon.
>> 
>> At an absolute and slightly desperate stretch, Walter Cronkite is a
>> cultural icon.
>> 
>> JMS is a writer. One of many tens of thousands. He currently seems to
>> be comfortably successful in his chosen field, but not stellar.
>> 
>> By no definition of the term is JMS a cultural icon. <<
>
>Gotta say, Paul, you're using this term differently than I usually see/hear 
>it used.  When we say "cultural icon" here, we just mean someone who is 
>somehow in the pop culture stream, no matter how big or small.  Heck, David 
>Hasselhoff is a cultural icon of a sort.

Hmm... "pop culture"... Bit of an oxymoron there... <grin>

But I see what you mean. You're using culture to mean "fungus" or
"mould" rather than "heritage" or "standing the test of time". ;-}

And David Hasselhoff?!!  If he's a cultural icon of *any* sort then
you are dead-on right: we're talking massively different things here. 

Perhaps he's not the object of derision over there that he is here
(and has been since his mad-mullet pretty-boy days of Knight Rider) -
he is, I understand, huge in Germany for some unknown reason. Perhaps
they *do* have a sense of humour after all?

>Everyone's local town children's tv 
>show host is a cultural icon (Captain Kangaroo, Officer Joe Bolton, and Miss 
>Barbara of Romper Room, for us children of the Big Apple).
>
>I'd hardly say Officer Joe Bolton should even be _mentioned_ in the same 
>breath as John Lennon, but I'd consider them both cultural icons of a sort.

Perhaps the difference is between "popular" and "iconic". Many, many
people are "popular" - it's the throw-away nature of media these days
where people do something and it works fairly well and they get their
few years of "fame" and then... nothing. Fade to grey.

But very very few are iconic.

Also, perhaps, it's about how narrowly you define "culture". If you
just take New York, then local celebrities may well be iconic to a few
million people there, but utter strangers to the rest of the planet.
Same as writing teevee sci-fi. Well known to a few thousand fans, but
not to anyone else. Hardly iconic, really!

Personally iconic, yes. Culturally iconic, no.

>I think the point here - as I made it myself in my reply - is that at least a 
>few of us were kind of amazed that something as banal as a newspaper 
>horoscope would make reference to someone so culty, so genre-specific as a 
>JMS.

I would be interested to find out what minuscule percentage of the
newspapers readership had any idea who or what they were talking
about!

Paul (who doesn't really do icons at all - these people have misplaced
ego enough without any more encouragement from me, as witnessed at the
Superman Returns pre-premiere party in Heaven night club in London
last Wednesday night. I've never been in a room so full of nobodies so
staggered at their own importance...)
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