Page 69 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 69
a distant view in michelle pfeiffer‘s smiling eyes
lar products, which were considered too politically provocative. General-
ly, the ruling ideology and media censorship in socialist societies helped to
preserve a kind of conservative culture. However, on a scholarly level mod-
ernist and postmodernist differences between highbrow and lowbrow cul-
ture, as well as controversies between theoreticians concerning artistic val-
ues were not so different on the both sides of the Iron Curtain.
Transition Over the Barriers of Identity
In the realm of mass culture, socialism favoured traditional folk art, al-
though as it was producers and authors who created some productions of
entertainment in music and in cinema that tried to compete with Holly-
wood and Western pop music. However, in 1960s, the system in most so-
cialist countries, especially in the central European ones, could not pre-
vent urban youth from listening to rock music nor from forming some very
provocative rock bands4 as well as matching worldviews. Still, such phe-
nomena – no matter how visible and aggravating they were – tended to be
more or less sub-cultural exceptions. Hence, Giddens noted: “Paradoxical-
ly, state socialism, which saw itself as the prime revolutionary force in his-
tory, proved much more accommodating towards tradition than capital-
ism has been” (Giddens, 1996: p. 51). Considering all these aspects, I may
remark that the above-mentioned shooting of the spy movie in the Soviet
Union, pointed towards an opening of the already collapsing socialist so-
ciety to the process of modernisation. However, this pretty obvious point
should not be taken too far. A “Western” modernisation from a cultural
point of view – including also so-called consumerism – seemed interesting
to socialist citizens as long as it was unattainable, but the question of how
much had this imported culture influenced deeper structures of the East-
ern cultures, remains quite open. Of course, it should be noted that as long
as we discuss European societies, the most basic cultural traits were more
or less common in all societies both in the East and in the West. The social-
ist experiment caused a difference in consumer culture by creating a socie-
ty without free private property and – to a lesser or greater degree in differ-
ent countries – without a free market in their economies. Apart from this, I
can assert that the collapse of the socialist system in a final psychoanalysis
actually heftily contributed much more to a renaissance of diverse aspects
4 One of the rare and very instructive books about the role of some radical movements
in rock music is a collection of texts, newspaper articles and other documents,
published in 1985 in Ljubljana under the title Punk pod Slovenci (Punk under
Slovenians – Mastnak, Malečkar, 1985).
67
lar products, which were considered too politically provocative. General-
ly, the ruling ideology and media censorship in socialist societies helped to
preserve a kind of conservative culture. However, on a scholarly level mod-
ernist and postmodernist differences between highbrow and lowbrow cul-
ture, as well as controversies between theoreticians concerning artistic val-
ues were not so different on the both sides of the Iron Curtain.
Transition Over the Barriers of Identity
In the realm of mass culture, socialism favoured traditional folk art, al-
though as it was producers and authors who created some productions of
entertainment in music and in cinema that tried to compete with Holly-
wood and Western pop music. However, in 1960s, the system in most so-
cialist countries, especially in the central European ones, could not pre-
vent urban youth from listening to rock music nor from forming some very
provocative rock bands4 as well as matching worldviews. Still, such phe-
nomena – no matter how visible and aggravating they were – tended to be
more or less sub-cultural exceptions. Hence, Giddens noted: “Paradoxical-
ly, state socialism, which saw itself as the prime revolutionary force in his-
tory, proved much more accommodating towards tradition than capital-
ism has been” (Giddens, 1996: p. 51). Considering all these aspects, I may
remark that the above-mentioned shooting of the spy movie in the Soviet
Union, pointed towards an opening of the already collapsing socialist so-
ciety to the process of modernisation. However, this pretty obvious point
should not be taken too far. A “Western” modernisation from a cultural
point of view – including also so-called consumerism – seemed interesting
to socialist citizens as long as it was unattainable, but the question of how
much had this imported culture influenced deeper structures of the East-
ern cultures, remains quite open. Of course, it should be noted that as long
as we discuss European societies, the most basic cultural traits were more
or less common in all societies both in the East and in the West. The social-
ist experiment caused a difference in consumer culture by creating a socie-
ty without free private property and – to a lesser or greater degree in differ-
ent countries – without a free market in their economies. Apart from this, I
can assert that the collapse of the socialist system in a final psychoanalysis
actually heftily contributed much more to a renaissance of diverse aspects
4 One of the rare and very instructive books about the role of some radical movements
in rock music is a collection of texts, newspaper articles and other documents,
published in 1985 in Ljubljana under the title Punk pod Slovenci (Punk under
Slovenians – Mastnak, Malečkar, 1985).
67
