I like Congressman Kinzinger and I'm on his side, but I'm baffled by the soundtrack. I'm not carping about something trivial here. The soundtrack is an aspect of a certain flattened emotional sensibility that's part of the larger problem:
https://twitter.com/EvanMcMullin/status/1454107332372156422
It involves the loss of a sense of what's emotionally appropriate. It involves the rendering of what should be the most serious of oratory into an emotionally homogeneous goo. The soundtrack is perhaps suitable for selling something plant-based.
It has no business as the soundtrack to a serious speech, and indeed a serious speech should not have a soundtrack, and if this isn't a serious speech, what is it?
How can we take the message--that there's a grave threat to American democracy--as seriously as he asks us to take it if we've got the "Introducing Twee, a Plant-Based Edible Product" soundtrack running in the background?
It's the sound of shopping while your soul is anesthetized, and it had better be anesthetized or that music would drive you berserk. It's deadening. But without access to the full register of human emotions, why would you care what happens to American democracy?
It suggests democracy is a commercial product just like any other--albeit a low-rent processed food, not Ossetra caviar--and you can safely ignore it.
When you've stripped away all the emotional tones in the palette like this, what's left?
When you've stripped away all the emotional tones in the palette like this, what's left?
A profound mood of boredom waiting to be relieved by the entertainment of a shouting buffoon.
Sorry, @RepKinzinger, I don't mean to pick on you, you're hardly alone in this. But I notice this strange, flattened affect across the board in American culture now--
Sorry, @RepKinzinger, I don't mean to pick on you, you're hardly alone in this. But I notice this strange, flattened affect across the board in American culture now--
--and I think it's *meaningful.* Figuring this out is important to solve the problems you're concerned about. (I am, too.) The only authentic emotion we seem to be comfortable displaying is rage.
Everything else is sentimentalism, kitsch, and some gooey emulsified product made with Natural Emotional Flavor.
A severe threat to the American experiment should evoke *passionate* emotions. And you're damned right about the threat. So this spot shouldn't be numbingly boring. But it is.
My advice: Ditch the soundtrack and re-record. Aim for Henry V at Agincourt. If that idea makes you laugh--why?
Isn't American democracy worth real oratory?
Isn't American democracy worth real oratory?
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