If you’ve been ambling around the Media Arts Center and/or the Mason Library as of late, there’s a chance you might have encountered a rather unusual image.
Scattered amongst the nooks and crevices of each building is a poster posing the question “Have you seen this man?” Beneath these words is a grizzled, long-haired visage with dark, piercing eyes. Perceptive viewers may even pick up on an exhortation to “notify Sheriff Harry S. Truman” as to the subject’s whereabouts.
One could be forgiven for assuming this has something to do with the Great Pumpkin Fest Conspiracy of 2010, wherein an ancient cabal known only as the Whathaveyous funneled an indeterminate amount of moolah from the city’s coffers for the continued funding of their sordid, Steve Buscemi-related erotic rituals.
The truth, if you can believe it, is a great deal stranger: the hobo-looking dude in question hails from “Twin Peaks,” a TV serial that proved to be a surprise cult phenomenon some twenty-odd years ago.
The primary creative involvement of auteur David Lynch ensured that there’d be plenty of dancing dwarves, psychosexual strangeness and gonzo surrealism-cum-disarming schmaltziness to go around.
Indeed, it was Lynch’s eventual receding into the background that spurred the conditions for an all too common phenomenon in commercial art. Somewhere in the middle of its second season, “Twin Peaks” officially jumped the shark.
It seems to be an almost inevitable turn of events in American TV. No matter how apparently durable the concept, a program can only sustain so much mileage before the wear and tear begins to show, and you can count on network execs (let’s imagine they’ve got big fat dollar signs where their ocular cavities should be) to push things to this point and far beyond.
We’re seeing it now with “The Office.” What began as a remarkably nuanced, character-driven comedy/drama has devolved into a run-of-the-mill sitcom with a mockumentary gimmick, its now one-dimensional characters serving as vehicles for cheap gags (as opposed to humor which generates organically from situations/character interactions).
Had it followed the example of the UK original and bowed out gracefully before losing its soul, it might have ranked among the best shows in American network history.
The U.S. team, however, were placed under far more rigorous oversight than Ricky Gervais and Stephan Merchant (Gervais only agreed to a second season in the face of popular demand), and so quantity-over-quality became the MO.
To a certain degree, this is just a natural consequence of TV being such a financially high-powered medium. With the stakes so high, it’s tough to hold it against the suits for merely doing their jobs and keeping the cash flow steady.
In fact, you could observe that dynamic in just about any form, from nigh-endless/progressively worsening movie sequels to burned-out musical performers who probably should have thrown in the towel a good ways back.
In a perfect world, creative types would universally be in a position to subvert commercial constraints and mold them to their advantage.
Indeed, “Twin Peaks” in its prime could be cited as a potent example of “avant-garde infiltrates/reshapes mainstream,” as Lynch and co. managed to meld soap opera/detective fiction trappings with a heady dose of the un(de)familiar and the bizarre.
It’s a safe bet that this unpredictable concoction didn’t sit well with ABC, driving them to swoop in and neuter what they perceived to be an unmanageable beast.
By occupying a slot on primetime network TV, after all, Peaks proved a fish out of water amongst the kind of profit-driven, easily rehashable formula fare constituting the norm.
There’s a reason why a lot of the more interesting film art tends to be found in the indie sector: conglomerate patronage demands a reasonable guarantee of commercial success, and that means you damn well better color inside the lines and shoot for that lowest common denominator.
You’d guess that the suits’ appraisal of audiences as familiarity-craving automatons is a callous underestimation. (Being someone who’d like to make a living in some creative vein or another, I certainly have to hope so.)
Yes, there’s considerable demand in popular culture for easy, pandering escapism, but that may well only be because those holding the keys to the castle have set the terms as such.
Gooey sentimentality and penis jokes (not knocking ‘em – made some good ones in my time), after all, are much easier to churn out on a constant basis than that which might actually challenge or provoke people.
I know it may seem like there are more pressing issues at hand, but the state of our culture exerts a pivotal influence on the health of our inner lives.
So next time you cast a vote with your dollar, ask yourself this: do I really want to suffer through another one of that self-righteous dipstick’s bloated diatribes? Thought not. Go get ‘em, champ.
Justin Levesque can be contacted at
jlevesque@ksc.mailcrusier.com