4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Honestly California - Sadly American, June 5, 2007
This review is from: The Schwarzenegger Syndrome: Politics and Celebrity in the Age of Contempt (Hardcover)
I have an anarchist friend who was born in Russia and grew up in an immigrant community in Chicago. He recently criticized me and another person for speaking too derisively of average Americans. I replied that I was born and raised in the Appalachians - in a small village once labeled "the quintessential American town" in a PBS series - where an unhealthy percentage (not all) of the people were vigorously proud of their own ignorance, spiteful toward outsiders, somewhat lazy and had a narcissistic sense of very personal entitlement. I was ready to admit that the economic system, media propaganda, as well as the garbage-entertainment these people were spoon fed from infancy, had all certainly helped mold them. But neither explanation nor history can change the fact of their malevolence. (To put it into American spiritual terms, until we decide to do something about it, we must all lay where Jesus flung us.)
With pointed accuracy, Gary describes many of the characters and low-life reptiles that make up the political picture of California (and America). He apparently speaks as an intelligent observer rather than a recognized "expert" (and one must always ask who recognizes so-called experts and for what purpose), commenting on social and moral implications, carefully identifying some of the mutant freaks that are part and parcel of our toxic system, from the members of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, to Schwarzenegger himself, to many others.
Picking up this book in 2007 (only a few short years after the events it describes) is to read nearly lost history. Simple facts thrillingly puncture the amnesia of media culture. The experience is similar to watching Norman Solomon's collection of video clips from TV "news" (sneer quotes not strong enough) cheering the US invasion of Iraq. Add Gary's appropriately vulgar metaphors and intelligent language and you have a fine piece of work. The times and the evidence demand more, not less, emotionally charged imagery, in addition to critical analysis. I would go so far as to say that apollonian disengagement by the very people who ought to be raving mad plays directly into the hands of those who would continue to sell out all vestiges of constructive social cooperation to the violent abuses of top-down power government.
Like anyone writing about social issues should, Gary Indiana allows himself to take some moments to examine his own personal morality, apart from the dictates and approved systems of church, state, and the philosophies that support those structures (and presumably invites the reader to do the same).
I think that Gary does seem to occasionally expect too much of the truth. That is, he may discern some things clearly, and I'm grateful he's passed those observations along, however their effect on outcomes is questionable. He searches for specific reasons why exposure of Schwarzenegger's past actions apparently did not affect the election, and while those reasons may be technically correct, I suspect cultural-media amnesia is more responsible. Any information that gets in the way of power is carefully disseminated in the overall scheme of things. Guy DeBord identified the process of how news and events are parsed to the consumer in a culture which denies past and future "where fashion itself, from clothes to music, has come to a halt" and described the "ceaseless circular passage of information, always returning to the same short list of trivialities, passionately proclaimed as major discoveries...news of what is genuinely important, of what is actually changing, comes rarely, and then in fits and starts."
Gary has watched the movies I could not bear to see and paid attention to the politics I've only begrudgingly followed. He seems to have taken good notes.
I always respected Gary Indiana's prose, but frankly, some of his previous subjects didn't much interest me. It is a sign of the times that people seem to come from far and wide to bear witness to the same ugly truths about our society and government, and I'm happy to meet this writer again right now.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You must read this brilliant and important book., May 7, 2005
This review is from: The Schwarzenegger Syndrome: Politics and Celebrity in the Age of Contempt (Hardcover)
It's a mystery that Gary Indiana is not spoken of as easily as any living man or woman of letters, not a comforting writer, he does not fill his pages with nostalgia for comic book heroes or suffering wise children, but perhaps this book will finally win him his deserved attention. The book helps point the way to the direction of political history, openly biased and fastidiously attentive to research. This is a primer in California politics, media mendacity, entertainment biography, and is also obituary for America, without giving up on a remote chance for resurrection.
After reading this book, go back and read his novels.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Too Many Linguistic Fireworks Distract Important Topic, July 26, 2005
This review is from: The Schwarzenegger Syndrome: Politics and Celebrity in the Age of Contempt (Hardcover)
Gary Indiana's enormous literary gifts are apparent throughout this diatribe of corruption, fakery, and the dumbing down of America and how our struggling populace embraces movie stars and subthinking politicians as our leaders. Unfortunately, Indiana's language, his strength, is also his weakness. He is so excessive in his verbiage, his obscene sexual metaphors, his overreaching anger, that the prose takes on a redundant quality and worse his ornate fire-breathing language becomes a distraction from his very compelling and insightful polemic. With such great insight and such a profound content, he didn't need to go overboard and razzle-dazzle us with his fireworks language display, which becomes in this book an unfortunate side circus and makes the important issues of fraud, self-promotion, and a gullible voting populace seem at times flippant. It's okay to be maddenned and outraged by our degraded political discourse, but show some discipline and tell the story of Arnold's disturbing political ascent without showing off your literary powers at such an excessive and obsessive degree.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
