Outlaw Aesthetics by Fred E. H. Schroeder (review)

OUTLAW AESTHETICS BY FRED E. H. SCHROEDER (Bowling Green University Popular Press: Bowling Green, Ohio, 1977. 178 pages, $4.00.) Almost everyone involved with the burgeoning discipline of popular culture recognizes the need for a comprehensive aesthetics based on something other than the principles used to evaluate the merits ofform and content in the classical arts. While Fred Schroeder's Outlaw Aesthetics offers some interesting insights into various aspects ofpopular culture, these insights are not only not structured around a comprehensive aesthetic, but they are often arrayed in a confused, confusing, or contradictory way. Schroeder's discussions of primary reading textbooks, gardens, wishbooks , and religious icons seem exhaustively researched, and his conclusions generally seem perceptive and carefullyconsidered. "The Genesis ofDick and Jane" is a particularly fine piece of work. However, the basic theoretical sections ofthis volume, particularly "The Aesthetics ofPopular Culture," are convoluted and illogical. Fortunately, the rest of Outlaw Aesthetics goes on to ignore these primary principles of analysis. Schroeder says the essence of popularaesthetics is, "Ifthe product sells, it is good art; if it does not, it is bad art." He moralistically substantiates this premise with an historically and politically naive analogy to Jeffersonian democracy, completely uninhibited by the fact (which he notes himself in a later chapter!) that almost all production for mass consumption involves oligopolistic economies that prevent the public from freely exercising its tastes. Nor does he attempt to mediate the illogical results of his simplemindedness : tenement slums are utilized by more people than are Frank Lloyd Wright's houses, and taste has absolutely nothing to do with the people's choice. Furthermore, Schroeder's logic is frequently circular and often inconsistent . For instance, in his chapter of television, he contradicts his previous statement ofaesthetic value by popularity poll when he declares that most of the greatest art oftelevision has been unappreciated by the masses. We might assume that here he is applying the standards of classical rather than popular aesthetics, but this kind of inconsistency is frequent enough to determine beyond repair the logical structure of his overview of popular aesthetics. MARK SIEGEL* *MARK SIEGELteaches film, popular culture, and contemporaryliterature atthe University of Wyoming and has published in these areas. 92VOL. 33, NO. 2 (SPRING 1979) ...