As another election season progresses, very few people are talking about what everybody was talking about during the last election season: young voters.

Remember 2004: Michael Moore and the “Vote for Change” tour, among others, were traversing the country predicting a revolution, led by a newly energized college-age electorate. Well, since Kerry lost, the conventional mainstream media said young voters failed to turnout and, thus, the Great Democratic Hope failed them once again. End of story — no need for follow-up.

This reflection emerges as I listen to the response to a recent study on the impact of “The Daily Show” on young viewers. Richard Morin of The Washington Post writes in a column entitled “Jon Stewart, Enemy of Democracy?“:

This is not funny: Jon Stewart and his hit Comedy Central cable show may be poisoning democracy.

Two political scientists found that young people who watch Stewart’s faux news program, “The Daily Show,” develop cynical views about politics and politicians that could lead them to just say no to voting.

Full disclosure here: I’m a big fan of “The Daily Show.” But the dissing of the show is not what really bothers me. I’m an even bigger fan of satire and its role as a popular and political force.

Well, it didn’t take too much research to find out that Morin completely distorts the findings of Jody Baumgartner and Jonathan Morris, the two East Carolina University researchers that conducted the study under question. What the study actually found — according to Jimmy Ryals of The Daily Reflector, a North Carolina newspaper, who interviews the researchers — was that “viewers of ‘The Daily Show’ tend to be cynical about individual candidates, the electoral process and the media” and that “Daily Show viewers, primarily young adults in their late teens and early 20s, tend to trust their own knowledge of politics.”

In my mind, that’s a remarkably positive impact. The cynicism toward candidates, the electoral process and the media is well-deserved — and a healthy skepticism, when not turned into apathy, is the first step to critically engaged thinking. And, for that matter, we should applaud youth that have confidence enough to trust their own political instincts.

The researchers make no claim on whether this will lead to less participation by young voters in future elections. In fact, while they admit a potential negative impact, they see a lot of reason for a positive interpretation:

“There is something going on with regard to how viewers see candidates and how they see the process as a whole … whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, we don’t know,” Morris said. “But ‘The Daily Show’ is not a benign entity out there just entertaining.”

How does cynicism affect “Daily Show” viewers’ political behaviors? Morris and Baumgartner aren’t sure. Alienation could drive the show’s watchers away from polls during election, they said. Discontent could also spawn greater involvement.

Another possibility: As “Daily Show” viewers grow more confident in political knowledge ? a byproduct of “getting” Stewart’s humor ? they could become more active voters, Baumgartner said.

“Participation breeds more participation and informed participation” he said. “So that by itself would be a net positive.”

The study, in this regard, gives us much for which to be hopeful. But the embedded attitudes of Morin and others who want to believe a simple “truth” both about youth and about satirical humor can become self-fulfilling prophesies.

Oh, by the way, all those mainstream media reports about the low turnout among young voters in 2004 were just plain wrong. A Harvard University study completed last year debunked all that conventional wisdom. It was, in fact, a record year for youth electoral participation.

Let’s talk about that.

In the post-election blame game, Hollywood unfairly stood accused of being ?out of touch? with the so-called values of America?s heartland. But a new study proves it is out of touch with creating fictional experiences that reflect people?s lives between the two coasts.

The AP?s David Bauder writes that when it comes to television, ?much of the country outside of Los Angeles and New York City is flyover territory.?

Those two cities account for just under half of the fictional settings for prime-time television shows going back to 1948, according to a new study by a media agency. California and New York state are settings nearly 60 percent of the time — even though those states make up less than 19 percent of the nation’s population. [?]

Of the 1,696 cable and network series where the setting was known (some, like NBC’s “Scrubs,” don’t make clear where they’re from), a whopping 601 called California home and 412 were set in New York state, the study found.

Wind-swept North Dakota has never had a prime-time show of its own, while Alabama, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Delaware and Vermont had one each.

One theory for the coastal concentration is simple: That’s where most TV writers, producers and executives live, so they create what they’re familiar with.

The landmarks and large populations of the big cities are also important, said Nina Tassler, CBS entertainment president.

“Both Los Angeles and New York are rich in diversity, culturally and ethnically, so you have great sources to go to for unique stories,” she said.

Which makes it all the more surprising that so many stories seem the same — or that they?re consistently told from the perspective of affluent white characters.

And sadly there?s no mention of which state is home to The Simpsons? Springfield, perhaps a true ?Anytown, USA? if there ever was one.

The most frightening result of this election is that the Bush administration and conservatives everywhere are interpreting it as a “morality” mandate. The liberal media, I already hear them saying, missed the boat. The silent majority in America are God-fearing, simple folk — who want their culture clean and faith-based.

Progressive cultural critics — and we always hope that we are providing a bastion for them here at PopPolitics — have no time to despair. It’s time to get to work.

We must stand up for nuance, complexity and diversity in all aspects of our culture. I would argue that the foundation for a truly democratic society is a vibrant artistry that continually questions and expands our physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual boundaries.

The conservative cultural vision is about limiting voices — centering voices around a single, predetermined Truth, erasing all difference and shunning change.

We must fight this vision with every tool at our disposal.

Personally, I have been finding inspiration in many interesting cultural corners. Specifically, today I recalled a poem by Emily Dickinson, which I once saw used on a sign at a gay rights protest. The person holding up the sign was Martha Nell Smith, one of our foremost Dickinson scholars (and a never-forgotten mentor of mine in graduate school). Dickinson here, deftly appropriating religious imagery, makes the case for imagination:

I dwell in Possibility–
A fairer House than Prose–
More numerous of Windows–
Superior–for Doors–

Of Chambers as the Cedars–
Impregnable of Eye–
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky–

Of Visitors–the fairest–
For Occupation–This–
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise–

Oh, the Democrats have gotten the message now. Turn on any news channel and turn to any op-ed page and you’ll find it. Everyone is rushing to tell us how the Republicans ran a better campaign, mobilizing their base in record numbers on election day (which used to be the Democrats’ speciality) and appealing to a broader, more moderate audience by cornering the Democrats on every key issue — monopolizing the language of “morality,” “values” and “faith.”

Since the Democrats can’t do much more to mobilize their base (although centralizing their get-out-the-vote operation and relying less on third parties makes some sense), the solutions offered have centered around the different ways Democrats need to redefine themselves and take back the issues — and the language surrounding those issues. For some, it means returning to a clearer, more progressive vision. For others, it means getting religion.

All of these laments, however, miss a crucial point. While much of the Republican base based their vote on “morality,” the moderate voters (hesitant in their support for the President in the face of a stagnant economy and daily reports of death and destruction from Iraq, among other things) more likely based their vote on fear and lies.

From the wolfpack to the Swift Boat ads, from the terror alerts to weapons of mass destruction, the Republican practiced the type of demogogery and deception that we think cannot exist in a democracy. It’s the 21st century, however, and in the era where everything is mediated and media is more corporate than journalistic and can easily be co-opted, fascism is only an embedded reporter or a tightly constructed campaign event away.

In the face of this reality, the Democrats have two options — both of which require much more than simply reappropriating language.

The first option is to lower themselves to Karl Rove’s level and pander to the basest tendencies of the electorate, turning them into animalistic consumers of manufactured news, prey for a paternalistic puppet-master, controlling their anxieties and becoming the only source for relieving those anxieties.

And, of course, that can’t be the option we choose — any short-term gain would be at the price of a long-term loss of individuality and identity.

The real solution is education, teaching everyone how to be a cultural critic, able to dissect quickly what the true motives are behind the message.

Sound crazy? It’s only crazy in a society in which the most progressive and eye-opening cultural critics are trapped (often by their own choosing) in an Ivory Tower. While academic research and theory are the essential foundations of a truly enlightened social activism, an equal amount, if not more, time needs to be spent on translating the skills of criticism to a much wider audience.

I see two areas where this translation can happen. Present cultural critics need to come up with a coordinated media strategy that allows them to break into the talking head rotation on the mainstream news channels and talk radio. Whenever a TV show, a news conference, a debate, an advertisement or any other influential cultural representation is in the news rotation, we should make it shameful for any news organization to ignore the “experts” on those issues.

Also, cultural criticism needs to be a part of our primary and secondary school curriculum — where it will reach people at all levels of society. In the end, we should stop scoffing at the “education gap” and start figuring out how to close it.

If you haven’t heard or seen it yet, it’s best to strap yourself in. Eminem’s new song and video — an in-your-face hip-hop attack on the Bush presidency — brings some much needed fresh energy into the last weekend of the campaign.

Eminem is the master of self-aggrandizement — even in the genre where self-aggrandizement is part of the art form — and he masterfully combines a progressive political statement with the usual ego-trippin’: “Come on, follow me as I lead through the darkness/As I provide just enough spark that we need to proceed.”

What’s most impressive, however, is how he undercuts his audience’s expectations. In the beautifully animated video, a suit-and-tied Eminem is leading the hip-hop nation through the street of Washington and into a monument. We think he is going to overthrow “this weapon of mass destruction we call our president” and assume the mantle. But instead we realize he is simply leading the young and disenfranchised to a voter registration booth.

But enough already of my own analysis. As she usually does, Cynthia Fuchs, English and cultural studies professor at George Mason University, provides all the cultural context we need in her piece on Eminem and hip-hop activism for PopMatters.com. (Full disclosure: We at PopPolitics have long loved Cynthia, having posted many, many articles and reviews by her over the years.)

Echoing Eminem’s call for change, she presents a nuanced argument for taking the hip-hop generation seriously in this and future election cycles.

For another, much less celebratory perspective on the last Eminem phenomenon, though, I’ve been paying close attention the debate on CULTSTUD-L, one of the longest-standing and best listservs on cultural studies (while it’s open to everyone, you need to subscribe).

The skepticism surrounding Eminem’s new song and video center around three critiques. First, for someone whose previous music has espoused misogyny, the militancy of the lyrics and images is difficult to disassociate with a violent hyper-masculinity. Second, the concept of Eminem leading the hooded masses smacks of fascism. Finally, Eminem’s critique of the Bush administration is recycled and trite.

To which I would say, true, true, true.

But I’ll still take it as the soundtrack for the next five days.

We’ve posted a new column today, our first in a while, by David McGrath:

Historically, the presidential election provides higher education with its most bountiful semester. Money, morals, inflation, religion, war, dirty tricks, voting psychology, advertising, ethnic divisions, rhetoric and stem cell research: it?s all there, featured on the menus of courses from sociology to economics to medical science. The daily newspapers offer a smorgasbord of academic meat, served as fresh, authentic texts of excitement and education in the fall term.

So when a professor at College of DuPage (C.O.D.) in Glen Ellyn, Ill., had the good fortune to bag a regional political candidate as a guest speaker for his class, he may have thought he was dishing out an opportunity for his students to develop acumen in critical thinking, to hone their writing skills, beef up their brain power, and tune up their propaganda detectors.

Instead, he may get busted. The charge? Violating C.O.D.?s ethical code by engaging in “political activity.”

Read the rest of “Campus Politics” here.

Are we in the middle of a socio-political revolution? Does the continual merging of popular culture and politics, the rise of the Internet as both a fund-raising and mobilizing force and the sheer ferocity with which everyone from the candidates to “ordinary” Americans are attacking this election signal a shift of power and a new era of political engagement and intensity?

Well, enter the skeptics. Hanna Rosin of The Washington Post and Kara Baskin of The New Republic have both written articles recently that mock and criticize (in Rosin’s case, it is chiefly by implication) the present enthusiasm among a large portion of the left, especially the younger, ever-innovative activists.

Rosin quotes Leon Wieseltier from The New Republic: “They have this strange notion that one can be profoundly alienated and be the main event at the same time … They don’t really have the stomach for marginality … What they practice is not exactly politics. It’s a frenzy of emotion, of self-love, of self-congratulation in which you pay tribute to yourself and all the things you believe and all the people like yourself who believe in all the things that you believe.”

Although Rosin attempts to give voice to the other side — quoting many of the young activists themselves — she adopts Wieseltier’s perspective throughout the piece. The activists come across as naive at best and often just plain stupid. She even makes Eli Pariser of MoveOn.org — by any standards, a smart, politically savvy pioneer of a new political medium — sound like a hack.

Baskin focuses exclusively on the final concert of the Vote for Change tour and laments its lack of energy, anger and relevancy. She continually notes how the most poignant moments occurred when singers — such as Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Keb Mo’, Eddie Vedder and John Fogerty — chose to revive songs from the Vietnam era. Where is the music of our time, she wonders?

Behind these articles — and most media representations of this new political activism — is the implication that the engagement of the 18-24 demographic in this election cycle is, at most, just a fad and, quite possibly, a mirage.

And that’s the catch. In postmodern America, the representation is reality. The revolution will, for better or for worse, be televised — and that’s all that matters.

Unfortunately, the revolution will also be hard to come by in a culture that commodifies everything, including its politics. Rosin’s and Baskin’s critiques are full of language asserting or questioning the “hotness” and “hipness” of the new activism and pointing out that, as Rosin notes, the leaders of these new movements “embrace the advertising industry.”

There is no purity left, it seems. No earnestness or genuine anger. Am I the only one who finds that patronizing?

Anyone who has been to a Bruce Springsteen concert the last few years knows that at some point in the evening Springsteen turns his concerts into a revival meeting. Imitating a born-again preacher, Springsteen bears witness to how he was “saved” by rock n’ roll.

Well, at the Vote for Change concert Saturday night in Cleveland, Bruce, once again in the guise of a preacher, held another revival meeting — but this time to tell us how we can “save” the country:

I have SEEN the Democratic platform. And if John Kerry and John Edwards are elected on November 2nd, pizza will be delivered to everyone promptly at 6 p.m. each evening. Beer will flow freely from the tap …

This moment of humor reflected an awareness that earnestness is an endangered species in this year’s election cycle. If the most poignant political commentary these days comes from The Daily Show and Bill Maher, Bruce seems to be saying, what are you going to do?

Despite this awareness, however, Bruce, R.E.M., John Fogerty and Bright Eyes gave earnestness a shot, at least for one evening. Their concert, though rarely interrupted by straight political commentary, was full of intensity and urgency: John Fogerty (backed by Bruce and the E-Street Band) poking his figure vehemently in the air during a rousing rendition of “Fortunate Son,” as if he were shoving that “silver spoon” right up into the president’s face. R.E.M. playing a haunting edition of their anti-war song, “Final Straw,” which they released during the first days of the Iraq war:

now I don’t believe and I never did
that two wrongs make a right.
if the world were filled with the likes of you
then I’m putting up a fight. I’m putting up a fight.
putting up a fight. make it right. make it right.

now love cannot be called into question.
forgiveness is the only hope I hold.
and love — love will be my strongest weapon.
I do believe that I am not alone.

And Bruce outdueling the ghost of Jimi Hendrix with a passionate, all-consuming solo acoustic guitar version of the “Star-Spangled Banner,” which led into an in-your-face rendition of “Born in the U.S.A.”

One of the most remarkable aspects of the “earnestness” on display here was how it was coupled (Fogerty’s finger-pointing excepted) with a “sweet restraint” and a “tender touch” — to borrow from the final song of Bruce’s initial set, “Lonesome Day.” In an election in which the last thing you want to be is a “girlie man,” the headliners of the show, Bruce Springsteen and Michael Stipe, offer, in different ways, alternative models of masculinity that allow for action and agency while celebrating thoughtfulness, compassion and an open mind.

While Bruce can be considered rock’s rugged individualist (think “Badlands” and “Born to Run,” both highlights of the performance), he is constantly undercutting this image by expressing the vulnerability and pain of being forced to go it alone — personally and socially. For the Ohio audience, he made sure to play “Youngstown,” a first-person lament at the loss of jobs and the culture that accompanied them in one of the country’s earliest industrial centers.

R.E.M., not steeped in the same traditional rock roots as Bruce, has always played from the margins (even if they were mainstream for a little while). They frequently see the world through a looking-glass, imagining irreverently a “truck stop instead of St. Peters” in “Man on the Moon” (a line that may not recover being sung by the Boss last night). So when Michael Stipe gets overtly political, as in “Bad Day,” he intermixes lines from nursery rhymes with more direct pleas (”I’m sick of getting jerked around”), possibly to emphasize the infantilization of America in the dumbed-down age of W.

Ultimately, the most powerful political message of the show emanates from this mix of strength and sensitivity. While much of the press on the show focuses on whether these concerts will help the unregistered get registered and the undecided decide (see, for example, Mark Caro in the Chicago Tribune) or whether it was wise to mix pop and politics (see Colleen McClain Nelson of the Dallas Morning News) — the message in the music went well beyond these immediate concerns.

The musicians, according to Bruce’s brief “public service announcement” near the end of the show, were calling for a “more humane” government. Through their music, they were making it clear that that was a long-term, complex project that required seeing ourselves and the world in a radically different light and being willing to see “change” as more than a political slogan, but part of our everyday, reflective lives.

The preoccupation by the presidential candidates and their surrogates over the candidates? image as both sports fan and participant is at best amusing and at worst disturbing. The notion that the sports preferences and affinities could have anything to do with qualifications to hold the highest office in the land strikes one as ludicrous.

But that hasn?t stopped a new 527 group, Football Fans for Truth, from exploiting it for all its worth. Two Virginia lawyers are out to ?help the American voter and sports fan determine whether John Kerry can be trusted to represent the nation both as president and sports-fan-in-chief.?

According to John Tierney?s Political Points in The New York Times, ?The group intends to publicize, among other gaffes, his praise for the Ohio State Buckeyes while campaigning in Michigan, and his declaration that his favorite player on the Boston Red Sox, his home-town team, was Eddie Yost, who never played for the team.?

Their attempt to emasculate the Democratic presidential candidate via sport is the latest representation of our obsession with masculinity, maleness and machismo in American politics, foreign policy and culture.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s use of the term “girlie man” to describe Kerry, and the Democrats less-successful campaign to show Bush lacked the courage to serve in Vietnam, are just two of the many references to ?manhood? (often spoken of in the sense of the lack thereof) in this campaign. The Republicans have had a field day conjuring up images of softness, effeminacy and lack of toughness in Kerry, identifying him as ?too French? in his style.

And so both candidates seek to develop macho images by associating themselves with sport, the cradle of gender identification. Kerry appears playing hockey, Bush looks oh-so-sporting on the ranch. Both pander to the readers of Field and Stream magazine, and both appear at some point clutching a gun in some type of woodsy setting.

?The candidates are devoting so much time to one magazine because they are aggressively courting the newest niche demographic: the rod-and-gun voter. As the online magazine Slate noted last week, Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have made several visits and even held a town hall at Cabela’s, the gun and sporting goods store with outposts in several swing states,? writes the NYT’s Kate Zernike.

She also notes that ?Sports Illustrated readers overwhelmingly voted Mr. Bush the better athlete and sports fan, a conclusion the magazine’s managing editor, Terry McDonell, finds baffling.?

Sport from its inception as a major cultural institution in the late 19th century sold itself to the public as a device for invigorating the males of the society who had grown soft in an increasingly feminized culture. This was reinforced by the importation of ?Muscular Christianity? from Britain in the form of the boys? book Tom Brown’s Schooldays, and its institutionalization in the YMCA in the late 19th century.

Baseball extolled itself as promoting manliness, college football built character and men, pugilism sharpened the aggressive qualities of the male species. None of these sports were open to women except in a support capacity as fan or team supporter.

As America entered its Imperial Age the language of foreign policy developed a machismo vocabulary of its own. Americans would be told to “stand tall,” display “aggressive” qualities, be “tough,” never show “softness,” never “back down in the face of aggression.” As Teddy Roosevelt, the penultimate sportsman and imperialist, put it, “We must speak softly, but carry a big stick.”

Lyndon Johnson used even more graphic language, describing the bombing of Hanoi as running his “hand up Ho Chi Minh’s leg” — foreign policy as emasculation of the enemy. In deriding those who were soft on foreign policy and wanted to negotiate or stop the bombing, Johnson dismissed them, saying that they “had to squat to piss.”

These are but a few of the images that have floated through the world of American popular culture and politics; the language of today is neither new nor surprising. Turning a snowboarding/kite-surfing/road-biking Kerry into a ?girlie man? is, unfortunately, a pretty easy feat.

Christine Cupaiuolo, the founder of PopPolitics, is planning on joining the blog in the next couple of days (although she has been working long and hard behind the scenes on the technical stuff of bringing the site back).

I thought it was worth mentioning right now, though, the writing she has been doing this week as her alter ego: the author of ms.musings, a daily weblog on women, media and culture, which is part of Ms. Magazine online.

In recent entries she has been providing a unique dissection of the gender relations at the Republican National Convention. In an era where the most assertive female presence in the media are the token conservative talking heads, Christine and all the editors and writers at Ms. are some the few remaining voices that speak uncompromisingly about a feminist politics that can transform women’s lives.

Is that a shameless plug? Maybe, but I’ll let Christine’s insights speak for themselves. First and foremost, check our “Muscles, Myth and Masculinity,” an analysis of what the precisely-crafted image of actor/governor Arnold Schwarzenegger offers Republicans. Also, see her entry on the president’s “manhood.”

She also looks at the construction of Laura Bush, the role of first ladies in American politics, the Republicans’ political exploitation of the struggle of women in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the performance of the Bush twins.

Enjoy.

People are telling jokes to power, and the media is watching. Political humor is hot.

The latest look comes from The New York Times ? and Jason Zengerle does a nice job of talking about the ways in which the left ? MoveOn, ACT, and others ? is using humor to advance its causes ? and maybe more importantly, provide much-needed relief.

Elana Levin, a member of Greene Dragon, a liberal street-theater group, spoke some very wise words: ?The left has a way of frying out its activists with so much negativity and anger. We want to be able to keep people involved in progressive politics, and making it something that’s a source of pleasure and joy is part of that.”

The article would have been worth it, though, just for pointing me to the ad Will Ferrell has done for ACT.

The Boston Globe did a similar, more bi-partisan piece last month that looks at the historical debate within the comedy community over whether getting political is the right ? or more importantly, the funny ? thing to do. And CNN covered ?Campaigns, Conventions and Cartoons,? an exhibit of original work from the nation?s top political cartoonists.

What none of these articles is analyzing very effectively, though, is the why humor is having such a renaissance these days ? especially to a younger generation ? and why the Republicans seem to be humorless.

The greatest political comedians right now are working under a layer of satire ? which, despite the usual cries of an educational crisis and dumbing down of our culture ? is a fairly complex rhetorical act that requires a high level of intellectual engagement from both the speaker and the audience. The Daily Show, in particular, utilizes irony to make its often very salient political points appear, on one level, to be goofy.

The current anti-intellectualism among conservatives and the Republican Party does not allow them to exploit the present state of political humor ? and they are at risk of losing touch with young and future voters.

The straight-shooting regular guy thing that W. has got going might play to a certain Red State public, but if I were Karl Rove, I?d be watching out for the ?humor gap.?

Ah, the backlash has arrived.

Jon Margolis, writing an op-ed for the New York Times, thinks that all this talk about pop culture having an impact on the election is, well, ridiculous:

Let’s face it, the number of times a movie has altered public opinion on any issue can be counted on the fingers of no hands ? In fact, if the world of popular culture ends up influencing this campaign it is likely to be through political activity, not cultural artifice.

Of course, Margolis is missing the point of most of the pieces on popular culture and the election. They are arguing that the distinction between ?political activity? and ?cultural artifice? is virtually non-existent, not that pop culture is some external entity competing with politics.

Margolis, at other times, just seems out of touch:

With talk radio, the 24-hour cable news networks, the Internet and blogging, technology and popular culture have all been offered up as vehicles for revolutionizing presidential politics. This election cycle, the Internet was a useful fund-raising and organizing tool for Howard Dean. Useful but insufficient; even a good tool cannot rescue a poor candidate. Talk radio and cable news are not inconsequential; if nothing else, they help explain the overall decline in the quality of American journalism. But they have not elected anyone.

Uh, I think Kerry has raised a little on the web. How does $10 million a month sound ? for a total of $65 million (far head of Bush?s 8.7 million)? In fact, the Washington Post has recently asserted, ?Fueling Kerry’s money surge have been credit card collections on the Internet, a technique pioneered by his onetime rival Howard Dean in 2003 but used with even greater success this year by the presumptive Democratic nominee.?

Moreover, while I agree with Margolis that commentators and journalists ?have not elected anyone,? last time I checked the only people who have are the voters on the first Tuesday in November. By Margolis? logic, candidates should take it easy, since campaigning has never elected anyone either.

I could continue, but as we read on, we realize Margolis actually has ulterior motives:

Alas, too many political analysts have fallen under the sway of popular culture’s flourishing academia-journalism nexus. Scores of universities teach popular culture, providing a profusion of professors happy to talk to reporters, who enjoy writing stories about pop culture’s political potency.

Yes, this whole pop culture thing is a creation of the Modern Language Association (MLA) and their cronies. Why can?t those academics keep talking about the 18th century and stop trying to be so gosh darn relevant?

Leave it to anti-intellectual conservatives these days to make the ?academia-journalism nexus? sound like the Death Star.

That?s from Star Wars, Jon.

Forget Ohio. Pop culture continues to be the most entrenched battleground in this election cycle.

One of my favorite movies of recent years, Three Kings, will be re-released in theaters this Fall ? just in time for its biting commentary on the hypocrisy of U.S. foreign policy in Iraq during the first Gulf War to remind voters of the cost of four more years of a Bush in the White House.

The director, David O. Russell, has also created a new documentary about the present war in Iraq to be shown ahead of the film in theater and to be packaged with a new DVD.

Russell is clear about his intentions:

Mr. Russell said the documentary had a political purpose, but only in the sense of trying to inform people about a major electoral issue. “I thought I could perhaps make a difference before the election, let people see the situation, how Iraqis wanted to get rid of Saddam, but also show what war does to people,” he said. “When I talk to veterans, they have a chance to cry. It’s traumatic; it tears you up to see people shot, and then you’re supposed to come home and just blend back into the community? The Army doesn’t want to acknowledge the human cost of the war machine.”

Speaking of movies and their ability to provide perspective, Mark Feeney of the Boston Globe, inspired by Jonathan Demme?s remake of The Manchurian Candidate, provides a remarkably insightful look at the history behind the ?paranoid thriller? genre and its continuing ability to tap into our unspoken fears:

Global terrorism, for all its horrors, at least falls within familiar patterns of conflict: a clash of cultures, the struggle between tradition and modernization. The paranoid thriller suggests something much more unsettling. The very things that define the modern world — giant corporations, government bureaucracies, technology itself — also control it. Not only are these entities nameless and faceless, their namelessness and facelessness make them that much more menacing.

Elements of that basic setup can be found everywhere from antiglobalization rallies to “X-Files” reruns to “The Da Vinci Code.” The truth will make you free? No, the truth is just out there, free-floating and ungraspable, a permanent toxic cloud that taunts us with its elusiveness.

The antithesis of anarchy, the paranoid sensibility offers an oddly reassuring worldview. All these institutions may be out to get us, but at least someone’s in control. (What’s truly scary is when the people in control turn out to be incompetents, like Enron.) This uneasy balance between terror and consolation gives the genre a powerful appeal, and nowhere more so than on-screen.

I feel like I went to a movie review and a political treatise broke out. That?s just good writing ? and a very sharp mind at work. It?s very rare a leave even a good cultural analysis with a clearer understanding of my own place in the world.

PopPolitics? very own Christine Cupaiuolo was featured last week in the International Herald Tribune. In Brian Knowlton?s article on the role of humor and the presidential campaign, Christine discusses how edgier TV comedy has made political humor more relevant these days. She also comments on the influence of cable and the stereotyping of candidates.

A little PopPolitics insider bonus: In additional to her multiple quotes in the piece, Christine is also the “one observer” who called The Daily Show a “‘Seinfeldian’ look at politics.”

The article was at least partially inspired by a Pew Center survey from earlier this year that found that one in five young Americans cited comedy shows as their chief source of campaign news.

Christine was interviewed along with Andrew Kohut of Pew, Matthew Felling for the Center for Media and Public Affairs, comedian Mark Katz and others.

If your local public library is anything like mine, you probably think of the place as your destination for free book and media loans, but not necessarily as a hotbed of political activism. This perception may change as the presidential election draws near. While the Bush administration appears to be friendly to libraries (see, for example, Laura Bush?s Recruitment and Education of Librarians for the 21st Century initiative), Bush shouldn?t count on the librarian vote in 2004. In particular, the USA PATRIOT Act (USAPA), which quickly made its way through the legislative process in the wake of 9/11, is a continued source of concern for librarians.

Since its passage, many librarians have recognized that the USAPA poses significant threats to civil liberties, intellectual freedom, and privacy ? and have been among the Act?s most vigilant and vociferous critics (check out the archives on Jessamyn West?s librarian.net and the Library Autonomous Zone blog for a quick overview of key moments in the USAPA-library struggle). In 2003, the American Library Association adopted a resolution in opposition to the Act (it?s worth noting that Attorney General John Ashcroft mocked the ALA and the ACLU for their critiques of the Act).

Given the situation, it shouldn?t come as a big surprise that librarians aren?t necessarily feeling the love for the Bush administration. In fact, some librarians are even ready to take their opposition to the streets at the Republican National Convention in order to help other RNC protesters meet their information needs (thanks librarian.net). According to its web site, Radical Reference is organizing library workers in order to:

[A]ssist demonstrators and activists at the convergence surrounding the Republican National Convention in New York City August 29-September 2, 2004. Library workers will utilize their professional skills and tools to answer information needs from the general public, journalists, and activists. Service will be provided via this web site, blog, e-mail, chat, phone, in the street and Ouija board.

The site is worth a visit ? whether or not you?re planning to attend the RNC in any capacity ? because it?s a demonstration of radical librarianship at its best. So far, the site?s volunteer librarians have answered questions about a variety of topics, including campaign donations, Arab labor history, and military draft legislation, and are ready to handle questions from English- and Spanish-speaking users. The Radical Reference librarians are putting their professional commitment to foster what the ALA describes as the ?free flow and unimpeded distribution of knowledge and information for individuals, institutions, and communities? into action in a particularly innovative, exciting way. And, perhaps best of all, they have us thinking a little differently about the librarians working the reference desk at our local libraries.