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Performance - The semiotics of self. (O'Sullivan et al. 222)
I AM SITTING AT MY COMPUTER MULLING OVER THE THREE OR FOUR acceptable conventions for beginning a scholarly article under the watchful eye of my Bart Simpson doll perched amid my media theory books on the shelf just above me. I carefully reach for the bright yellow and blue plastic toy-a gift from an old friend, former colleague, and fellow Simpson fanatic several years ago-and gently tug at the tiny white cord protruding from its back. Without hesitation, Bart comes alive, impertinently inquiring, "I'm Bart Simpson, who the hell are you?" At the request of this great cultural icon and postmodern philosopher, I pause to consider who the hell I am, and what, if anything, it has to do with the doll I now hold in my hands.
We are frequently, of course, told in a media-laden landscape that identity is closely tied to the active consumption of products offered by the media and leisure industries (Kellner 231-62; Featherstone). That I proudly display the Bart doll in my office, along with a host of other Simpson-related merchandise, does seem to suggest that I desire others to read and mark me as a Simpson fan. Continuing to reflect on my sense of self, I decide that the form of Bart's question, like the doll itself, is also instructive, as it alludes to a fundamental feature of identity construction and maintenance: difference. Explain Morley and Robins, "identity must be defined, not by its positive content, but always by its relation to, and differentiation from, other [identities]" ("Spaces" 10), and thus "difference is constitutive of identity" (Spaces 45). "I'm Bart Simpson, who the hell are you?" functions rhetorically to delimit Bart's identity through reference to a non-Bart. But just how are these differences-these boundaries-established? Media scholars argue that the sociocultural factors and forces, which structure difference and subsequently create the boundaries essential to identity, have changed dramatically in recent decades (Kellner 231-62; Rosenau 42-61; van Poecke 183-84). Historian Mark Poster claims, "a postmodern society is emerging which nurtures forms of identity different from, even opposite to those of modernity" (24).
Fordist modernism-with its "stable, standardized, and homogenous markets, [its] . . . . easily identifiable authority and metatheories,...