Not everyone, however, is enthusiastic about the impact of MTV on today's culture. E.Ann Kaplan included. In 1987, she said MTV is a postmodernist phenomenon that is here to stay, and was not happy about it. Director of the Humanities Institute of Stonybrook Institute, Kaplan has mounted a negative campaign against the music clips, which produce a result drastically different from prior organizations of rock. MTV is a commercial, popular institution, and a specifically televisual apparatus (1).

In opposition to Kaplan, postmodernist supporters as Frith claim that beliefs like those by Kaplan and Wollen aid rock's movement toward what Grossberg calls postmodernist "authentic inauthenticity" (224). Frith argues, ignore the resilience of romantic and realist discourses in pop culture-that is, sensibilities that value self-expression, authenticity, historicity, community of fandom, and commitment to an oppositional stance (225). According to Goodwin, the fundamental problem of the postmodernist taking on music television is that it fails to take into account that music television is, quite simply, music television.

In the film, Esmond gazes at Marilyn, Lorelei, and she directs her gaze to the camera where Esmond sits. Thus, the space relationship is simple-the stage and theater audience. Monroe are setting up the action, but that, despite this, the patriarchal world in which they move constrains them and makes only certain opportunities possible. In the video, however, the situation is much more complicated. It is unclear who is speaking, since credits are never given. Is it Madonna as historical star subject? Is it another Madonna, the movie-star protagonist within the "framing' of the film, or diegesis? Is it another Madonna, the person within the musical dance diegesis? Is it the director who has fallen in love with her image and wants to possess her? By focusing on different elements of the video, the answers come back differently.

Overall, Kaplan is concerned with postmodernism and MTV on three different levels: 1) MTV carrying the televisual apparatus to its extreme; 2) the more strictly aesthetic level where the MTV videos are seen to embody postmodernism; and 3) the postmodernist "ideology" or "world view" s it emerges from an in-depth analysis of specific videos (7).

For example, The New World Teen Study found that "despite differing cultures, middle-class youth all over the world seem to live their lives as if in a parallel universe. They get up in the morning, put on their Levi's and Nikes, grab their caps, backpacks, and Sony personal CD players, and head for school" (Walker 47). To be a part of youth culture, to fit in with one's friends, is to stand out in a manner that makes one blend in. By making the right purchases, one will fit in by conforming to what makes him/her seem an authentic individual, but actually makes him/her identical to all consumers of identical products.

In 1987, Kaplan ended her book by saying, "People often ask if I think that rock video and MTV are merely temporary phenomena which will be quickly exhausted." She responded that rock video is here to stay, but perhaps, although unlikely, MTV may be taken over by the competition. Teenagers would have to want something different from their music video channels and TV producers would have to change audience tastes. Apparently, neither of these things have occurred.

In Rocking Around the Clock, Kaplan uses Madonna

Some common words found in the essay are:
Marilyn Lorelei, Jean Baudrillard, Overall Kaplan, Mad Hatter, Institute Kaplan, According Goodwin, Levi's Nikes, Kaplan MTV, Kaplan Wollen, MTV Networks, televisual apparatus, music television, rock video, youth culture, texts mtv, mtv networks, rocking clock kaplan, star subject, postmodern feminist, historical star, cold universe, postmodern feminist heroine, madonna historical star, historical star subject,
Approximate Word count = 1981
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)