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Pop Goes the Culture Joshua Rothkopf's summary of director Paul Verhoeven's career is a perfect example of what is horribly wrong with In These Times' coverage of pop culture ("Vanishing Act," September 4). Rothkopf mocks ArtForum for pronouncing the high-budget Verhoeven a "secret satirist," comparing this to declaring the "urinal in the gallery" authentic simply because the elite doesn't get it. In Verhoeven's RoboCop, a supercorporation grows so oppressive that its flagship soldier is moved to turn against his masters; along the way, the moral corruptness of the corporate class is treated with biting parody as their system of automated population control goes awry and applies repressive police tactics to the wrong people--the elite. It is incredible that Rothkopf could watch such a film and come away thinking it was just a straight presentation of "corporate-sponsored brutality," cheering material for "closet fascists." But Rothkopf's chronic refusal to take pop art seriously is typical of this magazine's culture pages. It is time we realized that The Simpsons, South Park and Married ... with Children have delivered social commentary on a scale our academic journals could never achieve. We should be evaluating the effects of popular media on the world, not wasting our efforts trying to prove that it is safe for the left to ignore the public. Benjamin Wheeler Slang Harangue Recently, I've been collecting examples of supposedly expert writing by foreigners who make fools of themselves by misunderstanding the locals. John Ghazvinian's free-associating review of In Search of England, much of it about the English expression "something that fell off the back of a lorry," is one of the best ("England's Dreaming," September 4). Despite Ghazvinian's Oxford address, he never bothered to find out what the saying means; he just says that it "presumably" has "something to do with quick-witted scavengers with a knack for making personal capital out of someone else's flotsam." But any local could have told him that the expression is a common euphemism for stolen goods. The Oxford English Dictionary provides this example: "If it fell off the back of a lorry ... Americans might describe it in CB English as a five finger discount (stolen merchandise)." Next time you review a book on English history and culture, find someone who knows what they're talking about. David G. Stern Learn from History The argument in support of Ralph Nader's presidential candidacy maintains that Al Gore is a bland centrist beholden to most of the same powerful interests as any GOP aspirant. However, the same could be said of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932. FDR was no principled liberal or progressive. He was a middle-of-the-road former New York governor. The Great Depression's overwhelming problems, along with all of the era's mass organizing fomented by the economic crisis, forced him to move to the left. Likewise, in 1992, Bill Clinton was no principled progressive. He was a centrist politician who had flirted with liberalism early in his political career only to find that it led to defeat in Arkansas. Clinton, like FDR, would have responded to pressure from the left, he just didn't receive much. Had tens of thousands descended on Washington over an issue, Clinton would have been moved. Instead, Clinton stayed in the middle, for the simple reason that most Americans moored themselves there. When Clinton tried to move to the left early in his administration on issues such as gay rights in the military, public pressure forced him to pull back. I think that progressives would do best to stick with the middle-of-the-road Democratic candidate, however soporific Gore may be. Although all presidents respond to big business and powerful interests, it must be remembered that Democratic administrations also react to mass pressure from the left, while Republican administrations are influenced by mass pressure from the right. The Christian right and the economic conservatives learned from the Newt Gingrich debacle to keep their agenda under their hats and sing the centrist song. They are lying low, patiently waiting for the chance to control Congress and the White House so they finally can enact their agenda. Al Gore is about as progressive as a large American constituency will permit. Let's all succumb to realism and vote Democratic in November. William J. Volonte Correction Due to a technical glitch, an error appeared in Paul Krassner's review of Steal This Movie in the October 2 issue. A passage on casting the movie should have read: "At first Downey accepted the role, the story goes, but he demanded that Abbie's drug arrest be shot with actual cocaine. But it's not a true story. He simply turned down the part."
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