xmca@weber.ucsd.edu writes:
>diane, i am vewy afwaid, ( also your message made me blow tea out of
>my
>nose)
wish i'd been there, really,
>
>all this to say - given the chance I think most kids are consumer
>traitors -- they get the stuff - but they know how to re-shape the tool
>- not necessarity in the ways that are intended. In fact we used to
>love to mock/mimic the flood of mattell / hasbro/ etc. christmas
>commercials - wierd children doing silly play - even though we lusted
>for
>the goods.
...lusted for the goods - ack, doesn't that disturb? that the lust for the
goods is increasing to such maniacal proportions?
>
>i think we would have died with delight to have so many characters as
>Pokemon available for our evil and naughty scenarios -- and I think
>that
>kids naturally know how to torque social scripts - isn't that why we
>send them to school - to make them learn how to obey, buy and
>behave????
>.
maybe i'm weird (maybe??) but i never "got" the merchandising thing as a
kid,
but then i was a salvage-kid, so accustomed to getting what "came in
damaged" that the idea
of "buying" stuff still bewilders me -
>
>
>our parents,older east end working class depression survivors who had
>found themselves in the burbs during the 50's did not allow ( well
>actually even didn't detect the desperate necessity for such objects as)
>barbies, kens, GI Joes etc. in the house -
ah. here, see? my folks were totally "here" - and they worked absurdly
hard to create a mythology
in place of there lives, where (again) damaged goods were as good as any
goods - dented cans of peaches
are a staple in my memories,
today, at christmas, we all anticipate receiving "gifts" of what has been
received by the family business
as "damaged" - oh! giving "damaged goods" a whole other perspective, eh?
>
>but we acquired the consumer scenarios nevertheless - via tv,
>neighbourhood play, school yard genres and we remained hopelessly
>ambivalent because we risked parental disaproval for our consumer desires
>(
>don't be a sheep - the motto "to your own self be true" went to school
>along with our geeky plaid lunch boxes - and we were hopelessly out of
>the
>loop of boomer playground social hierarchies because we lacked the
>material capital to "play" like every one else. Oh well, the 70's cured
>that I guess.
gads, again, i was such a freak. my mother made our clothers, i wore the
first nehru jacket in the
neighborhood, and the first pair of "elephant pants" which were red
corduroy (bolts of corduroy being
rec'd in salvage, of couse) and being the freak for my clothes - i think
consumerism
plays well for a certain class of folks, and for us psuedo=middle class
types,
the "play" of childhood was very differently constructed and evaluated -
the 70s - come on - destroyed any cultural integrity the West may have
held on to - oiy!!
>
>having particpated in the raising of now 20 year old step-kid - who
>rejected her collective of counter culture extended parents at age 7
>and demanded INSIDE mainstream tv,kid consumer crazes - I think that she
>ended up with a cool repertoire of scripts, desires, ambivalences and
>knowledges - she can still scoff at The GAP "everyone in vests /
>corsets,
>etc" AND yet she feels no guilt at purchasing desire - she can blur her
>genres quite effectively - reading culture in quite sophisticated ways
again, there is a girlie thing that i never "got" - the combination of
salvage knowledge and
queerness alienated me completely from girlie consumer culture - "let's go
shopping!" still
fills me with such perplexity and dulldom - i can't say i was a huge 'hit'
with the girls my age
as a kid -
my best friend and i used to hide in her bedroom and read her brother's
Playboy mags,
actually, heh heh.
>
>thanks for that... back to evaluating papers.
>
hey sorry ya blew tea out of your nose, but glad ya liked the vernacular.
cheers dear,
diane
>
>kathryn ( who never got a stinking Barbie after all).
>
>>referring to mike's question on age,
>>and jay's anthem on the dimensions of something that adults cannot
>>understand
>>from the perspective of kids,
>>
>>it is hard to know where this 'phenomenon' fits in the sociopolitical and
>>sociohistorical registers,
>>since all of us played with particular toys that we can look at now
>>and identify as complex social activities - my ken & ricki dolls, for
>>instance, were homos,
>>they went "camping" often,
>>and my sister and best friend and i were irrestibly drawn to lesbo-erotic
>>scenarios
>>when dressing barbie and midge, (midge actually became "Fifi" as in
>"Fifi!
>>What are you _doing_?!" - which
>>embarassed and delighted us, really) -
>>
>>the ways academics read children's activities of course tells us little
>>about what kids are doing
>>in their play - nevertheless, i think pwgraham's political read is a good
>>one - the times are different
>>and the corporate investment in childhood has changed.
>>anytime everyone is doing the same thing, i worry.
>>be vewy afrwaid.
>>
>>what kinds of value are embedded in "play" that is so dependent upon
>media
>>marketing?
>>it is easy to manipulate desire.
>>
>>diane
>>
>> ' 'We have destroyed something by our presence,' said Bernard, 'a
>>world perhaps.'
>> (Virginia Woolf, "The Waves")
>>
>>+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
>>diane celia hodges
>>university of british columbia, vancouver / university of colorado,
>denver
>>
>>Diane_Hodges@ceo.cudenver.edu
>
>
>
' 'We have destroyed something by our presence,' said Bernard, 'a
world perhaps.'
(Virginia Woolf, "The Waves")
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
diane celia hodges
university of british columbia, vancouver / university of colorado, denver
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