• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, June 15, 2007

In a review of Andrew Keen's "The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture"--yet another book I have absolutely no interest in reading--Glenn Harlan Reynolds (the Beauchamp Brogan Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee and Instapundit.com blogger) writes: "The Golden Age of mass culture didn't end just because the Internet let people do their own thing. It ended because people looked at the low--and steadily declining--quality of mass-marketed television, radio, news, films, and music and concluded that they could do better. And they are often right, not necessarily because the amateur productions are so terrific (though sometimes they are), but because the big media productions are so often dreadful."

Beauchamp Brogan, you will recall from your Knoxville civics lessons, is the UT General Counsel who defended the absence of a sexual orientation clause in UT's nondiscrimination policy by saying, "I don't know why it's so important. UT doesn't discriminate against gay people." One would expect a little more sensitivity from a kid who grew up with a name like Beauchamp. But we digress.

G. Harlan Reynolds, who appears to have little to do as the Beauchamp Brogan Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee since he posts to his blog about every three to five minutes on subjects so diverse, one wonders if his ADD is acting up again, appears to believe that social media is on the rise because traditional mass media is so crappy.

Loyal readers of this space know that Over the Line has little kindness in its heart for network TV, artists whose milieu is scatological, or people who say they can take things "to the next level"--but in this case, I have to take issue with G. Harlan and, as painful and difficult as it may be for Over the Line, defend big media.

I go to a lot of movies, I watch a lot of TV, I read a lot of books (mostly about armies in various places, times and costumes killing each other), I read three deadtree newspapers a day (even more online), I live close enough to New York to see most worthwhile Broadway plays, and I listen to the radio online or in the car almost all day long (okay, I have no life). And while I am the very first to admit that much of this content is successful at hitting its intended 8th grade intellectual level, some of it is indisputably first-class.

It is a chronic condition of old age to dismiss popular culture as crap. It wasn't so long ago that our parents were saying that products of "The Golden Age of mass culture" like "Stairway to Heaven" or The Beatles or works by Andy Warhol or Chuck Close or David Mamet were "crap." And that art was, well, a dying art. As we age we think that what WE like should be the standard by which all else is measured, but we forget that each generation seeks its own voice, its own vision of reality and fantasy, the true value of which may not be known for decades.

Look no further than last weekend's oh-my-god-the-cable-went-out moment when the nation was polarized by David Chase's way to end eight years of "The Sopranos." Strong arguments were made from both sides of the aisle on whether we'd seen a great moment in TV history or one of the biggest artistic cop-outs of all time. Putting aside the controversial ending, who is to say that the series will be remembered as breakthrough TV that nudged the quality of the TV industry up several notches, or if it was just a "fuck you"-filled mobster soap opera?

Personally, I think most movies have become an ear-shattering cacophony of special effects that to some may signal the end of the brilliant screenwriting that produced films like "Lawrence of Arabia," "Bridge on the River Kwai," "Women in Love" or "Dr. Strangelove." But I remember seeing the first "Lord of the Rings" movie in absolute wonderment, saying to my wife that, thanks to advanced special effects, "It is now possible to believe anything and everything you see in a movie!" I guess G. Harlan misses those cheesy metal Frisbees in "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers."

Times change. "Entourage" isn't "I Love Lucy." "24" isn't "Hill Street Blues." "The LoomingTower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11" isn't "Catch-22." The Wall Street Journal isn't, uh, The Fox Street Journal (at least not yet). But they are brilliant examples of first-class "big-media productions." Furthermore, there is no correlation between the pap that is being produced online by bloggers and would-be Martin Scorseses. I am certain that--just like the endless number of monkeys, one of which by mathematical certainty will reproduce Shakespeare--sooner or later something of enduring artistic value will emerge from the morass of online social media that will be better than "big-media productions."

But I'm not holding my breath waiting.