Selling Culture
Silverman, Debora
B of boorish borehunters. J... ) Debora Silverman, whom her publishers identify as a teacher of European cultural history at the University of California in Los Angeles, is one of those unfortunate...
...Hence the "themes and personnel" of this non-movement have no "direct political meaning and significance" whatsoever...
...h, but there is a difference, at least in Miss Silverman's jaundiced eye...
...The purpose of the 1980s aristocratic movement is not, like that of its predecessors [here, Miss Silverman refers to eighteenth-century and Belle Epoque France, ironically both eras notable for their dedication to surface luxury, opulence, and indulgence], to create stability amidst change, but to promote transience, discontinuity, and novelty required by the engines of consumerism...
...to suggest that Bloomingdale's, Diana Vreeland, and Ron and Nancy could make it more so, even if they wanted to, is sophomoric...
...Soon after her arrival . . . Mrs...
...Debora Silverman, whom her publishers identify as a teacher of European cultural history at the University of California in Los Angeles, is one of those unfortunate social critics who, through a mysterious process of osmosis, absorb some of the most objectionable characteristics of their subjects...
...Much related twaddle follows, but I will spare you...
...But that contemporary America is more vulgar, crass, plutocratic, and callous than it was in the past is unlikely...
...For better or worse, a bevy of well-heeled wives—a few of whose husbands happen to hold public office—gaping at chinoiserie in Bloomingdale's or,--for that matter, the Metropolitan Museum, are scarcely handmaidens of the Zeitgeist...
...Thus: In her reign [sic] as First Lady, Mrs...
...But Miss Silverman is more interested in Kennedys than Monroes: "Jackie Kennedy's 'preoccupation with history' sets her apart from the 1980s aristocratizing elite with their powerful impulse to obliterate history...
...Reagan and Mrs...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR MAY 1987 45 into a cultural Fury, all-powerful, all-pervasive, and unleashing a national "flight from reality and the erosion of compassion...
...Kennedy brought to the White House high style, couture fashion, and lavish entertainment that may appear similar to the opulence favored by the Nancy Reagan coterie...
...Here, one pictures James Monroe, possibly in a Chinese silk dressing gown, fingering upholstery swatches and wallpaper samples, his celebrated doctrine cast aside in favor of fashion "coordinating...
...Which, I suppose, is a rather roundabout way of saying give it a miss...
...Miss Silverman's repeated vague, unquantified references to growing hunger, poverty, and callousness in American society at a time when a larger percentage of the population is employed than ever before, and both government and the private sector are spending more on social welfare, are as childish as they are irrelevant...
...Yet Jacqueline Kennedy had a strong and vital commitment to history...
...In her preface, Miss Silverman declares that other instances of aristocratic revival or invented tradition were marked by a heightened attentiveness to the historical record on the part of their participants...
...an "aristocratic revival" where there is none...
...It is true that Mrs...
...And, though some of my best friends are flush, Iwould be the first to admit that a good many of the current generation of the newly-rich are rhinestones—rather than diamonds—in the rough...
...The themes and personnel of the 1980s aristocratic movement have direct political meaning and significance [my italics...
...That many wealthy people, like most poor people, have less than perfect taste goes without saying...
...F iat Glitz...
...Here is a tenuous, muddled conspiracy theory that makes the Grassy Knoll hypothesis seem sweet reason by comparison...
...Year by year, the White House Historical Association has continued to acquirenew heirloom pieces and incorporate them into the Executive Mansion's decor...
...immersion in and reference to the details of the past they were recreating was a prerequisite for the legitimacy of their projects...
...Having constructed this false dichotomy, Miss Silverman unveils a series of shaky proofs, notably asinister triad of events—a Blooming-dale's promotional show, an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum designed by Diana Vreeland, and Nancy Reagan's refurbishing of her White House bedroom—all held together by the slender thread of chinoiserie...
...It is certainly unsupported by the hard facts of voluntary charitable support for the arts, the humanities, and the needy, and unprecedented governmental largesse which, unfortunately, often perpetuates the very cycles of poverty, degradation, and dependence it was meant to cure...
...she confuses marketing with movements and confounds taste, even culture, with fashion...
...To begin with, Miss Silverman sees Aram Bakshian, Jr., currently Vice President for Executive Communications with Merrill Lynch, writes frequently on politics, history, and the arts...
...Thus: "The year 1980 unfolds like a Chinese imperial triptych, beginning with Blooming-dale's, reappearing at Vreeland's Metropolitan Museum, and ending with Nancy Reagan's own project of redecorating the White House, which incorporated chinoiseries and repudiated the Kennedys' historic legacy...
...Onassis's bouffant hairdos and Empire and Directoire fashions were to American civilization in the 1960s...
...Onassis did begin the historical restoration of the public rooms of the White House...
...For them, aristocracies are not a diverse elite, specified by their national and historical locations, but an undifferentiated vision of surface luxury, opulence, and dedication to the "good life...
...They are about as relevant to American civilization in the 1980s as Mrs...
...While she politically approves of the 1960s, she politically disapproves of the 1980s...
...But it is also true that every succeeding First Lady, including Nancy Reagan, has continued that work...
...Under First Lady Pat Nixon, for example, a number of errors in style and authenticity made during the initial Kennedy redecorating were corrected, a fact conveniently overlooked by Miss Silverman...
...The high-society followers of Mrs...
...Indeed, thanks to the generous donations of some of the wealthy Reagan friends so despised by Miss Silverman, it has, if anything, accelerated...
...As to the alleged repudiation of the Kennedy legacy, Nancy Reagan's redecorating of the private family quarters upstairs (probably much in need of first aid after four years of occupation by the Carter clan) had nothing to do with the historical integrity of the White House proper...
...In Miss Silverman's case, the result is an ostentatious, aesthetically affected book which can only be described as a snobbishly pretentious attack on snobbish pretensions...
...Vreeland celebrate aristocracy as posture, as external trappings, and as luxury without responsibility...
...This political prejudice on her part—or a less likely ignorance of fact—leads Miss Silverman to repeated errors and false comparisons...
...About the only person likely to enjoy the book, despite the repeated catty attacks on her, is Diana Vreeland, a talented if superficial designer and stylist who is magnified SELLING CULTURE: BLOOMINGDALE'S, DIANA VREELAND AND THE NEW ARISTOCRACY OF TASTE IN REAGAN'S AMERICA Debora Silverman/Pantheon/$17.95 Aram Bakshian, Jr...
...Kennedy developed a plan to recreate the White House rooms using the original furnishings and decor exactly as they had been under President Monroe...
...The 1980s group, by contrast, pursue a fundamentally antihistorical project...
...The process goes on...
...They are rooted not in a positive, compassionate worldview, but in leftist-elitist pique at a society that will not be bullied into confiscatory statism and which, in its own sweet time, will decide what is art and what is tasteful with a minimum of professorial scolding...
...Certainly, nothing contained in Miss Silverman's labored polemic makes a convincing case to the contrary...
...As the managers and products of a media culture, they elicit aristocratic material . . . as novel images for consumer sales...
...Miss Silverman identifies her targets in her title, a rather long one for a book with only 158 pages of text...
...As she sees it, Bloomingdale's, Diana Vreeland, and a "New Aristocracy," symbolized by some of Ronald and Nancy Reagan's conspicuously affluent personal friends, are all symptoms of a perverse "aristocratic revival" that is "profoundly different" from those in the past...
...It was ever thus...
...Any fool who reads the gossip columns knows as much...
Vol. 20 • May 1987 • No. 5
