In this thread the baffling stardom of Sienna Miller is discussed. It is mentioned that she is playing someone named “Edie Sedgwick” in an upcoming film. I asked “Who the hell is Edie Sedgwick” and lissener comes back with:
Holy shit! I didn’t know who Edie Sedgwick was! I mean, EDIE SEDGWICK! You know, the socialite and heiress who died of a drug overdose in 1971 and appeared in a few Andy Warhol short filks before she really got into the pills and the booze!
Everyone knows who Edie Sedgwick is! I mean, it’s like not knowing who Clark Gable or Katharine Hepburn are! (By “Everyone” I mean “Very few people.”)
I mean, really, lissener, is not knowing who Edie Sedgwick was quite the same as, say, not knowing that the Earth revolves around the Sun, or not being able to locate China on a map? Does it really depress you that much that someone would not know the name of a 60’s smack monkey who was briefly a semi-successful model and artsy groupie? In the grand scheme of things, Edie Sedgwick didn’t matter. So get over it. I didn’t even know the Cult song was about her and I’ll bet the same can be said for nineteen out of twenty people who’ve bought that album.
It’s too bad that you can’t do like that new commercial where the dude can’t find China on the map and pretends to fall and tears the map off the wall, except you would have to just fake trip and clothesline Edie Sedgwick.
I think the comment was in reference to how old some of us feel because this all happened before many of you were born. The comment wasn’t made to make you feel stupid or out of touch.
I’m sorry, the thread that really depressed me around here - and I won’t name names - is the one about the sun setting in the same place in the west every day. That was like 8th grade science and I wonder what they’re teaching in schools that people don’t know that.
Some obscure bit of pop culture? I probably don’t even want to know it, right?
Hell, I just watched that PBS documentary about Andy Warhol a few weeks ago and I didn’t place the name. But, see, when I see a Cafe Society thread (or any other) and names, places, or other terms are being thrown about that I don’t understand, I find it’s a lot easier – not to mention less disruptive and less embarassing - to pull up Google or Wikipedia and edumacate myself.
There’s no shame in not knowing something, but there’s a shame in being willfully ignorant. Just sayin’.
[ol]
[li]That I was implying that something is important just because I, lissener, am aware of it; that I am arbitrarily holding myself up as the standard for what is or is not culturally important.[/li][li]. . . and second, that the *real *demarcation line between what is or is not of cultural importance is whether *RickJay *has heard of it or not.[/li][/ol] Catch the internal contradiction in that line of reasoning, bub? Just cuz you ain’t heard of it don’t mean it’s not culturally significant.
And everything everyone subsequently says about Edie Sedgwick in that thread is correct: Paris Hilton of her day, yadda yadda. The point is that ES is culturally significant as an icon of the era of the manufactured celebrity. You seem to be arguing only from the perspective that ES didn’t really do anything to deserve fame. Well duh. THat’s kind of like pointing out that Paris Hilton hasn’t earned her fame either. Again with the duh. You’re conflating the person with the fame. The point of the post-ES cultural landscape is that they are now two different things: a person, since ES’s day, can be famous simply for being famous; their actual accomplishments are irrelevant.
No one could argue that Paris Hilton is not culturally significant nowadays. Lament it, rail to the heavens about it, but you can’t deny it. That’s no reflection on her talents or her accomplishments–which, zero–it’s only a reflection on the phenomenon of her empty fame. Which, thank you Edie.
And my post in that thread was not meant to say “RickJay is stoopid.” It was only meant to lament the sweeping cultural illiteracy of “kids these days,” or something like that. It was a senior moment, like being dumbfounded when a clever aside about Fatty Arbuckle goes unappreciated.
RickJay, didn’t you get the memo? “Ignore lissener’s condescendence in Cafe Soceity. We are not worthy of his genius, never can be, and should resign ourselves to being nobodies in his eyes.”
All due respect, D, it was exactly RickJay’s adherence to such bullshit that made him assume my post was condescending to him personally, when, as correctly interpreted by Kalhoun above, it was nothing of the sort. You’re just spreading self-fulfilling prophecy. You read anyone’s posts through this-is-gonna-be-condescending-colored lenses, and you’re gonna find a high perecentage of those posts to be condescending, no matter what the actual truth is.
Not only that, but even if you never paid attention in school and never picked up a book in your life, how could you not notice that the sunset moves around just by observation? Chrissake, it shines in different rooms in my house in summer and winter.
However, with respect to Edie Sedgwick . . .
Not only did I not know who Edie Sedgwick is, and not only did I not know there was a song about her . . . but until now, I never knew that there was a band called The Cult.
So, basically, she’s famous for being a pioneer in the field of useless, disposable, and ultimatly forgettable celebrities? Sounds like people who remember who Edie Sedgwick was are missing the point of her being famous in the first place.
She’s “famous”–to the extent that she’s still famous, which I never said; I only said she was significant–as a symbol of the modern era of empty fame.
Aren’t you arguing, still, that since she did nothing to earn her fame, she should be lost to the mists of obscurity? And isn’t that exactly the point? See, not following.
I never said her fame was a good thing. In fact, I think I made it clear that I felt the opposite. I only suggested that whether her fame–or Hilton’s, or whoever’s–was earned or deserved, is a totally different question from whether their fame is is real. You can argue the value of Hilton’s fame, but you can’t argue the fact of her fame.
Edie Sedgwick is significant as the poster child for Warhol’s “fifteen minutes” aphorism. We agree, Miller, that her fame reflects no further value in Miss Sedgwick at all.
So . . . you seem to be suggesting that the intelligent thing to do would be to pretend that Sedgwick or Hilton were never, in fact, famous? That it would a measure of one’s intelligence if one were able to black out that fact from your memory? See, not following.
Actually, I read posts before I read usernames (often, I won’t even read the usernames), so I don’t have any preconceived notions. Then, it takes a long time before I start to notice a thread with a certain poster. I can’t be arsed to do a lissener search in CS, but yours is one of two names that stick out as frequently condescending to other posters (no, I can’t be arsed to do a search to get your interpretations of my interpretations of your comments). I’m just as guilty as you of making the same statement to those younger than me, but (hopefully) I don’t have the same history.
I don’t think I said anything about intelligence. I was just struck by the irony that she’s memorable pretty much specifically because she never did anything memorable, that’s all.