"Revenge of the Friend"- New York Times' Modern Love

The following is an example of a sample Blog Project Facilitator Group entry. Hope it's helpful!

Source text: Revenge of the Friend by Christi Clancy

I first encountered this source while reading the New York Times in print this Sunday. I enjoyed the article, so when I came from from the coffee shop where I was reading the newspaper, I went online to the NYT website to read more. This is one of my favorite sections of the Times, and I generally look out for it each week. I also saw several of my friends tweet or Facebook post about it, so I know that this column is something my peers were talking about recently.

In this article, I was drawn in especially by the authors' references to pop culture. Clancy, a spinning instructor who unexpectedly encounters a former-friend who cheated on his wife in her class (with his new partner, no less), uses pop songs to enact part of her "revenge"--

I turned away and cued the music. I like making themed playlists for my classes: Irish music for St. Patrick’s Day, songs about food for Thanksgiving. I’ve got playlists for rain, snow, summer, peace and revolution.

For this occasion, I created a new playlist: music for cheaters. I had spent the week going through my iTunes library and settled on songs like Rihanna’s “Unfaithful,” Jewel’s “Till It Feels Like Cheating,” and some classics: “Heard It Through the Grapevine,” “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover,” and “Tempted.”

For me, this really reinforced the way that the rhetoric of love-- even lost, or betrayed love-- can be used as a tool. It has arguments that are meant to have effects, even if (as in the case of Clancy's former friend and his new lover), these are largely ignored. The humor of this piece rests on the author's point-of-view: she assumes that the new lovers will have certain reactions to her attempts at sadistic "punishment"-- the punchline occurs when their reactions are surprisingly opposite.

I'd like for the class to think about the ways that even pop culture--something that is supposedly "easy" to get or "obvious" assumes a level of literacy, or the ability to interpret it correctly. Do you think that "reading" pop culture is something you have to learn, in the same way you might learn to read music, or a foreign language?

Secondly, what happens when your "definition" of a pop culture source is different than someone else's?

And last, what other factors might help determine this understanding, and how? I always think of age as one-- for instance, my love of contemporary music is a total mystery to my parents, so even though I thought certain bands or songs were TOTALLY deep as a teenager, they just couldn't resonate with an audience that was older than me by almost thirty years.

I look forward to hearing what you think!