(SoCI: I'm at college! It's awesome! I don't have tons of time to write/edit right now so here's a shorter, rougher essay with too many underdeveloped theses and no focus. To my old readers: I miss you guys! Write me! To my new readers: hope you like this. My goofy IB stories can be found in the archives, if that's what you're here for.)
I know, I know - getting down on Hot Topic for being culturally tone-deaf and generally moronic is about as obnoxiously bottom-of-the-barrel as the rape jokes in Do's&Don'ts. I ought to be going after a more interesting, fresh target - like computational linguistics. But, and I'm sorry guys, the thing that's gotten me angriest this week has yet again been brought to you by everyone's favorite sell-outs.
They're selling t-shirts and magnets with the phrase "hold on, I'm on my hamburger phone," from the movie Juno; described on their site as "the newest pop-culture must-have" (I'm glad I have them to tell me what I must have, otherwise I'd be completely lost.)
The big issue here is the proliferation of "pop-culture references" that are just repeated catchphrases with barely any significance to the topic at hand. It used to be that a piece full of "pop-culture references" meant that it was smart, sharp, and self-aware almost to the point of parody or satire. You had to have background knowledge, and the references had relevance and comedic value on their own (rather than just recalling a funny moment by someone else.) Now, we've got scripts that almost seem written around the idea of potent quotables (sorry, I'm talking about quoting pop culture here, have to do a bit of my own.) I can tell, while watching a movie, which lines are going to end up being repeated constantly - Hollywood knows this, and they're going for it. There have even been instances where the popularity of the catchphrases preceded the opening of the show (Borat, Napoleon Dynamite). I concede that this is a form of brilliant viral marketing and it takes some serious skill to write comedy in such a way that it's appealing even in previews like that - but when every preview and every movie is going for the effect, it gets old.
The narrower issue here is the specific phrase from the movie. It's NOT a comedic moment at all, and it's in fact the most brilliantly poignant moment of the movie. That scene and that line within the scene encapsulate the main theme of the movie, which is Juno's juxtaposition of very adult choices and situations and her youth and continuing innocence. She calls to make an appointment for an abortion, and must tell the woman from the clinic to "hold on, I'm on my hamburger phone" while she shakes the phone to make it work again. Juno deadpans that line to an adult, not realizing that there is a world outside her young world where it's not just taken for granted that people have barely-working "hamburger phones." The contrast of her acceptance of both situations (the phone and the pregnancy) perfectly, sadly, beautifully sums up the conflict of the movie.
Hot Topic either doesn't have a clue and just sees the shallow slapstick element of the silly phone; or thinks its consumers don't have a clue or are willing to overlook a serious thematic device if the HT head honchos tell them to find it funny and buy it. It's pathetic and sad - we've got such brilliance out there in mainstream media and instead of raising up the people to its level, they're doing their best to drag it down. It's like reading Heart of Darkness as a supermarket horror thriller - sure, the elements are there, but it denies or ignores the true accomplishments of the work.
