remix politics

further to the post on Nicki Minaj's versatility and the big spat over "Starships"

"There is something increasingly chilling about this shape-shifter, isnt there? He views himself as a product to be marketed to different audiences at different times. And the actual content of that product is completely malleable."





That's actually Andrew Sullivan on Romney. But it shows how the notion of integrity and consistency has traction in the political realm (or let's hope so, come November) 

If "realness" counts still in politics--the belief that even given that it's "the art of the possible" and involves negotiation and compromise,  there are these core principles about which you'll never bend and thus there limits to one's flexibility when it comes to terms of ideology and policy, and that these principles are grounded in and arisen organically from the pol's life experience and character--then why are we so certain that the apparatus of authenticity is to be dispensed with in culture and the arts?

 What Sullivan describes here--adaptability, mutability, endless reinvention of the self: all virtues in pop, supposedly--are negatives in politics, or should be. "The actual content of that product is completely malleable.  It can change as swiftly as Mormon doctrine, when market share is at stake. To predict Romney, in other words, you simply have to merely examine the market he's selling to." That's a bit like how pop singles come in multiple mixes targeted at different dance scenes and club styles.