Charles R Acland - Youth, Murder, Spectacle: The Cultural Politics Of Youth In Crisis

Youth, Murder, Spectacle

Series Editors

Janice Radway, Duke University

Richard Johnson, University of Birmingham

Youth, Murder, Spectacle: The Cultural Politics of "Youth in Crisis" Charles R. Acland

Viewing, Reading, Listening: Audiences and Cultural Reception edited by Jon Cruz and Justin Lewis

The Madonna Connection: Representational Politics, Subcultural Identities, and Cultural Theory edited by Cathy Schwichtenberg

Dreaming Identities: Class, Gender, and Generation in 1980s Hollywood Movies Elizabeth G. Traube

Enlightened Racism: The Cosby Show, Audiences, and the Myth of the American Dream Sut Jhally and Justin Lewis

FORTHCOMING

The Audience and Its Landscape edited by James Hay, Lawrence Grossberg, and Ellen Wartella

Art and the Committed Eye: Culture, Society, and the Functions of Imagery Richard Leppert

Girls: The Representation of Femininity in Popular Culture edited by Elizabeth Ann Kaplan

Boys: The Representation of Masculinity in Popular Culture edited by Paul Smith

Being Indian and the Politics of Indianness Gail Valaskakis

Frameworks of Culture and Power: Complexity and Politics in Cultural Studies Richard Johnson

The Cultural Politics of Youth in Crisis

Charles R. Acland

Cultural Studies

First published 1995 by Westview Press

Published 2018 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Acland, Charles R., 1963
Youth, murder, spectacle: the cultural politics of youth in
crisis / Charles R. Acland
p. cm. (Cultural studies)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-8133-2286-3 (hc). ISBN 0-8133-2287-1 (pbk.)
1. Youth in mass mediaUnited States. 2. Violence in mass media
United States. 3. United StatesPopular cultureHistory20th
century. I. Series.
P94.5.Y72A25 1995
303.69083dc20 94-16491
CIP

ISBN 13: 978-0-8133-2287-2 (pbk)

Any comprehensive attempt to trace out the development of one's own thought is ultimately doomed to failure and frustration. Many factors intervene, for better or worse, to prod and guide the formation of an argument, a critical stance, or simply an opinion, and all deserve some form of acknowledgment. However, I do not want this to look like one of those CD liner notes in which everything from breakfast cereals to Mary Tyler Moore is given credit for "adding to the groove," though I must admit that the impulse to do so is strong. I have been fortunate to have had outstanding encouragement and assistance from a number of people. The following are but a few of them.

To begin with, James Carey, James Hay, and Paula Treichler all provided insightful and generous advice on this project. I am particularly indebted to Larry Grossberg, who continues to be a significant influence in my intellectual life. His contribution was not only one of debate and recommendation; he was also most consistent in providing me with tactics to organize and develop my thinking. I owe much to Frank Burke, Kevin Dowler, and Kathleen Fleming, all of whom, in various capacities as friends and colleagues, were crucial to my own ability to successfully undertake and complete this project; they even went further by reading drafts! And along this line, immeasurable thanks go to Beth Seaton, who provided support and perceptive commentary when they were most needed.

Sheri Zernentsch, fact checker extraordinaire, contributed a generous amount of energy when this work was in its final stages. Her efficiency and humor helped with the book as well as my sanity. And the people at Westview Press, particularly Gordon Massman, Michelle Asakawa, and Jan Kristiansson, deserve credit for expert editorial advice and overall professionalism,

Many others played multiple roles as dear friends and comrades by offering ideas, examples, counterarguments, and much more; they make for an enviable community, one that I am always grateful to be a part of. In the end, they are the reason for going on. They include Will Straw, Julian Samuel, Jody Berland, Bill Burns, Martin Allor, William Buxton, Blaine Allan, the Department of Film Studies (staff and students) at Queen's University, Barri Cohen, Greg Reid, Cheryl Simon, Nancy Frohlick, Julian Halliday, Mark Fenster, Holly Kruse, Philip Gordon, Keya Ganguly, and Keir Keightley. Much appreciation goes to my parents, Derek and Joan Acland. In so many ways, they have been able to supply a perfect mix of professional assistance and familial support. I am deeply grateful to them, well beyond what is possible to represent here. And finally, Victoria Mallett continues to be a profound personal and intellectual inspiration for me. Her ability to cut through layers of critical cloudiness straight to the quick is a skill worth envying, and I do.

Charles R. Acland

On the occasion of International Youth Year 1980, the General Conference of UNESCO in Belgrade produced a comprehensive report entitled Youth in the 1980s. Comparisons with the first UNESCO report on youth, in 1968, are interesting. As the authors point out, the key words of the 1968 report were "confrontation-contestation," "marginalization," "counter-culture," "counter-power," and "youth culture." In contrast, the 1981 report suggests that "the key words in the experience of young people in the coming decade are going to be: 'scarcity,' 'unemployment,' 'underemployment,' 'ill-employment,' 'anxiety,' 'defensiveness,' 'pragmatism' and even 'subsistence' and 'survival'" (UNESCO 1981, 17). The assertive terms of the first report depict an instance of vitality, possibility, and ambition. At that time, a significant population of young people, most pronounced in Europe and North America, had attained a privileged social position economically, politically, demographically, and intellectually. Youths were set to begin deploying those powers for confrontation; this was their arrival on the political scene, making demands of representation and becoming a mobilized social energy. However wary mainstream politics remained, youth was indisputably a significant force to be reckoned with. That moment has passed. The terms chosen by UNESCO to characterize the youth of the then-approaching decade of the 1980s demonstrate a striking prescience. UNESCO predicted correctly that "if the 1960s challenged certain categories of youth in certain parts of the world with a crisis of culture, ideas and institutions, the 1980s will confront a new generation with a concrete, structural crisis of chronic economic uncertainty and even deprivation" (p. 17).