GM, pre-30 October class

I was watching a documentary the other day on cable Shakespeare in Prison and you probably couldn’t have gotten further away from Shakespeare’s original work then if you traveled to the Moon. The plays producer/director stated that it was a “new interpretation” of Hamlet.
In response to the Geek in the Pink’s post, wherein she states that Marx and Benjamin were against capitalism because of its negative effect on works of art, I agree with her position. In the case of Shakespeare, it’s always a new interpretation but it’s an interpretation that’s being played to the public where it may have not been otherwise.
Mass production in the land of the big PX works; just take a look at Wal-Mart. Maybe we are all becoming unified and totalized as I think Lyotard would put it and just maybe we as a societal whole have become so steeped in ideology that we no longer recognize it. It’s that mythology/normalization thing.
I don’t think anyone admits shopping at Wal-Mart, but the other evening I was in my local Super-duper Wal-Mart and the store was absolutely packed with British tourists. This was at 11:00 p m, and they were buying any and everything. Now, I know the pound is at a 26-year high against the dollar, it’s been high against the dollar for years now, but the Brits were having a field day, and it made me think. I’ve been to the UK several times now, and, although it’s relatively easy to travel there, I think, it’s more of an ordeal to travel to the US from the UK, I’ve been on their Tube system and it’s not for the faint-hearted, especially if you’re not use to it. So, why in the world would; say your typical family of four Brits, travel by train for five, six, or eight hours to Heathrow or Gatwick and then fly across the Atlantic for another 9 hours, go through all the routine of entering the US, rent a car, check–in to their hotel, or rental home, then all drive down to the closest Wal-Mart they can find?
Well, maybe this is not the best example of consumers buying dumbed-down, mass-produced art, but I’m sure if there were a blue-light special that night in Wal-Mart; perhaps a mark-down on the collected works of Shakespeare, I’m sure that, at least, some of the British tourists shopping that evening would have been exposed to Shakespeare for the very first time.