Friendly capitalism

Capitalism, the ultimate body without organs. It feeds of everything. It accomodates and commodifies all subcultures. This, we assume, is what makes it so threatening. But this morphability – isn’t this the best thing about capitalism?

In contrast to, say, some religious systems, capitalism has no set values besides profit. Sometimes this leads to exploitation but it also means that all social change is within the realm of possibility provided it is marketable.

We discussed this in class with the example of Xena. In the beginning of the series, there was no explicit relationship between Xena and Gabriel. After a proliferation of slash literature, Xena and Gabriel on screen became more explicit in their queerness. Great article at Salon on the issue here:

Right now, apparent trademark violation and copyright infringement are rampant in the Xenaverse, but so far, Universal isn’t cracking down on anyone. The Universal approach is in sharp contrast to that taken by its media-titan brethren, Fox Television and Viacom, both of whom have stirred up considerable Net ire with harsh cease-and-desist stances against unauthorized Web site creations by fans of such shows as “The X-Files,” “Millennium” and “Star Trek.”

But what is Universal’s policy? It’s not easy to find out. In response to repeated inquiries, a spokesperson for Universal (who insisted that she be referred to only by that label) finally issued the following statement:

“We do monitor Internet sites for many of our characters and properties and sometimes certain Web sites are also called to our attention, and in such cases we will analyze on a case-to-case basis when it might be appropriate to take action. But we recognize that most of these unauthorized sites are created by fans, and we find that flattering and supportive of our shows and properties.

The queerness depicted in Xena is quite radical considering the general absence of queer characters or sterotyping of queer characters on television. Universal was happy to do something radical on television because they realised there was a fanbase/market to support it.

As fans see it, their online creativity has helped propel “Xena’s” huge popularity to its spot today as the No. 1 syndicated action-adventure television show in the world.

“It appears that MCA/Universal has realized the value of a few dedicated Webmasters who spend ungodly hours creating monstrous Web pages that only serve to help advertise their product more,” says Simpson.