Metaculture
Tonight South Park returns for a new season. There's the usual furor over the plot--in this case the battle between Scientology and Parker and Stone continues in the plotline, welcoming back the popular character "Chef", voiced by Isaac Hayes. It's widely rumored that Parker and Stone edited Hayes voice from previous episodes as if he'd cooperated. Purportedly this is because Hayes, a Scientologist, announced that he was leaving the show because of religous intolerance; suspiciously right after last year's controversial Scientology episode with the boys begging Scientologist Tom Cruise to "come out of the closet."
What's kind of interesting about this kind of show is that people either get it or they don't. It's not just South Part, either. Family Guy and others fall into this category of hip show that divides the squares from the circles. Most parents, for instance, do not watch these shows.
Why? I think that it's because they're not just pop culture, they're meta popculture. You cannot understand Family Guy, for instance, without having a sense of the innumerable references that they're poking fun at. Watch a family watching one of these shows and you'll see the kid explaining what's going on every 30 seconds, "see Mom, R. Kelly had a video about a closet and lots of people think that Tom Cruise is gay..."
Metaculture is a much higher pinnacle of social awareness than pop culture. It moves faster, too. Thank technology. Now it's not only enough to know references to be cool, you have to be aware of what's going on in the entertainment world...who's quitting shows, who's sleeping with whom, who is publicly feuding. Then you'll understand rap music better, appreciate music video and sit down with your kids and enjoy animated obscenity. Lord knows that I do.
Posted on March 22, 2006
