Thursday, October 21, 2010

Robert Smith from the Cure vs. Barbara Streisand



     During our class discussion of Dick Hedbidge and subcultures, someone brought up Robert Smith and the Cure. It reminded me of the episode of South Park where Robert Smith came to rescue the city from certain destruction by an evil, giant Barbara Streisand robot.

    At face value this could appear to be an opportunity for some cool fight scenes between celebrity robot parodies. Barbara Streisand is probably a metaphor for the worst things about commercial and mainstream and Robert Smith is an example of alternative (i.e. the subculture). In the episode Barbara Streisand manages to steal this powerful triangle that turns her into this all-powerful, evil robot. She's mean and she's picking off the little guys trying to go up against her, but they're no match for her powers. That is until Robert Smith, who himself becomes a giant robot is able to take her out with a robot punch to the nose.

    We've learned that the best way to battle the dangerous, uncreative, often untalented, formulaic mainstream is for it to be met with some resistance from a subculture. In this instance its pop music versus alternative rock. The subculture was able to defeat the mainstream, but only after it in a sense took on elements of the mainstream. Robert Smith had to himself become an evil giant robot in order to beat the evil Streisand robot. This is particularly interesting for several reasons. Particularly The Cure went from being this subculture alternative until it gained some commercial success and ultimately defined a genre of music that would itself become mainstream through its popularity.

   What makes the Cure an interesting example for this case is the fact that the band is a subculture of a subculture.  If rock is a subculture to some, alternative rock is the subculture of that subculture. Even deeper is the fact that The Cure's musical style has been described as Gothic rock (Smith decries this label). That's an even deeper a subculture. Despite that the band has enjoyed great success and its been through becoming a giant evil robot (the mainstream) in a sense.

 Ok, now here's a cool, animated fight scene.     

  

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