meta

Whilst quite not an experimental child, raised only by American TV imports and teen soaps, TV has played a fairly big role in my upbringing. I'm all diverse media and self-referential trashiness, me - the internet, videogames, teen television, CD covers...I embrace the disposable media. It is my friend.

As such, I have no problem with the idea that I'm all postmodern. I don't think it's a dirty word. I like it, and I like the idea that people are collages of their experiences, fractured, layered. You do your hair like that because him off the TV does it. You call your child David because of Beckham. Cultural recycling. Life imitating art.

But what's better, though, is when you take that postmodernism and make it work for you. You make art that imitates life that imitates art: three degrees of separation. Perversely, as a result, one of my favourite things is when TV shows reference themselves, go all self-conscious, all winkingly meta at you.

Perversely, as a result, one of my favourite things is when TV shows reference themselves, go all self-conscious, all winkingly meta at you

There's an episode of The O.C I just watched that turned this article from a collection of random brainwaves into something more concrete. It's fairly far through the series, once the show's original impact upon culture had been felt; for those of you with access to such things, it's 1x22, "The L.A." (American viewers may remember it as the one where, well, they go to L.A.) In it, basically, the characters of the show go to a Hollywood party of a trashy, addictive soap, where they meet its (entirely fictional - see, art imitating life imitating art) characters. Seth, The O.C.'s wise-cracking Jewish existential hero, is worried that the character from the show he meets is "just like me, only famous". There's jokes about actors having relationships being a bad idea, about them being involved in "self-indulgent" musical side-projects. Seth goes on to mock the coolness of the fictional actor adlibbing his lines, something that was widely commented upon as the actor's trademark in the media in our real life. Worlds within worlds within worlds.

it becomes hard to know where the original artist ends and the best imitation of themselves starts

Buffy the Vampire Slayer did a similar thing a year or so back, with slightly less success (Season 7's "Storyteller"). But it's not a phenomenon restricted only to genre TV: films do it as well. Eminem regularly makes sniping remarks about his own situation. It becomes hard to know where the original artist ends and the best imitation of themselves starts (which is our obligatory Ben Folds Five reference for today).

But why this pleases me so much is because, increasingly, as individuals within our society we're expected to become hyper-aware, self-reflexive, psychoanalytical. Our popular art doing the same thing broadens the picture, makes it a fun game we can play with each other and build appreciation around. It breaks self-indulgence and, best of all, places all of our culture back within the real cultural universe of which it is increasingly aware that it's part.

Posted by matt at July 14, 2004 12:58 AM