Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Bob Hicok’s "American Studies" is a satirical commentary on academia, consumer culture, and the commodification of the body in American media. Through a mock-classroom discussion, Hicok critiques both the superficiality of popular culture and the intellectual posturing of those who analyze it, presenting a collision of the high-minded and the absurd. The poem operates as a meta-critique of both media obsession and academic discourse, using humor to expose the often ridiculous ways in which bodies, particularly female bodies, become sites of ideological debate and consumption.

The poem’s opening immediately establishes its ironic tone: "Pamela Anderson’s breasts are examined by 21 mouths." The phrasing equates intellectual discussion with a kind of devouring, reinforcing the theme that analysis is often indistinguishable from voyeurism. The verb "examined" suggests an academic setting, but "21 mouths" undercuts this formality, replacing the expected "21 minds" with something more visceral and animalistic. This choice signals that despite the guise of academic discourse, what follows is driven as much by base desire as by intellectual curiosity.

Tony, the first student to speak, approaches the discussion with a mechanical understanding of desire: "silicone lures a demographic taught by Erector Sets and Legos the limits of desire are primarily structural." His perspective, linking childhood toys to adult attraction, humorously suggests that men are conditioned to view bodies in terms of engineering rather than emotion or meaning. This framing turns Pamela Anderson into a construction project, reducing attraction to the logic of assembly rather than an emotional or human response.

Gwendolyn offers a counterpoint that introduces feminist critique: "the cannibalistic nature of male erotics, the need to destroy the subject of arousal in the machine of profit." Her phrasing is deliberately dense, parodying the kind of language found in critical theory. The idea of "cannibalistic male erotics" suggests that men’s desire is inherently destructive, consuming women both physically and commercially. Yet, Hicok’s framing—placing this analysis within a classroom debate on Baywatch—invites skepticism. The lofty critique exists in tension with the absurdity of the subject matter, implying that academia’s dissection of popular culture often becomes an intellectualized extension of the same voyeurism it claims to critique.

Professor "Call me Bill" Morrison is depicted as both authoritative and self-consciously casual, reinforcing the often-awkward dynamics of power in academic spaces. His contribution—asking about "the true man"—shifts attention to David Hasselhoff’s body, exposing the gendered imbalance in the scrutiny of physical appearance. While Pamela Anderson’s breasts are the focal point of extended debate, Hasselhoff’s trunks are mentioned only in passing, with the implied question: why does male sexuality escape the same relentless analysis? Warren’s response, "men don’t like to face each other’s packages," introduces homophobia as a limiting force, subtly critiquing how male desire is often framed in opposition to vulnerability or introspection.

Lilly, "sneaking physics," represents disengagement from the spectacle, her attention drawn instead to "beryllium." Her detachment highlights another layer of critique—how academia sometimes forces students into conversations they find trivial or unrelated to their interests. That she "makes a note never to discover what Baywatch is" suggests a resistance to cultural saturation, a refusal to participate in the cycle of consumption and critique.

Then comes Duane’s non sequitur: "Why’d she take them out?" His interjection disrupts the flow of analysis, momentarily confusing the class before sending them into another speculative frenzy. The phrasing implies that Duane exists outside the intellectualized conversation, voicing what many others might be wondering but are too self-conscious to say. His question, simple and direct, deflates the theoretical discussion and redirects attention to the personal decision behind Anderson’s surgery.

Tony, ever the mechanic, assumes that Tommy Lee influenced the decision: "he was tired of lifting all that weight." This reduction of a woman’s choice to a man’s convenience is both darkly humorous and indicative of a persistent cultural assumption—female bodies as objects shaped for male pleasure. Meanwhile, Mary turns to Entertainment Tonight as a "primary text for the class," further emphasizing the blurred lines between serious study and pop culture gossip. The idea that Pamela Anderson’s decision was "a matter of conscience, a role model’s remodeling," plays into the performative nature of celebrity, where even personal choices become public statements.

The poem concludes with Professor Bill redirecting the question back to Duane, whose final response, "I don’t know, I liked them, they bounced," reduces all the theorizing, the ideological posturing, and the cultural dissection to a simple, physical observation. His comment, both crude and dismissive, reveals the futility of trying to impose grand narratives on something as fundamentally ephemeral as desire. It suggests that, despite all the attempts to intellectualize and politicize the issue, a significant portion of the audience engages with it on the most superficial level possible.

Hicok’s "American Studies" functions as both parody and critique, exposing the absurdity of academic discussions that attempt to assign deep meaning to pop culture phenomena while simultaneously acknowledging the ways in which media consumption shapes ideology. The classroom setting, with its blend of serious theory and casual speculation, mirrors the way contemporary culture oscillates between critical discourse and entertainment, between self-aware deconstruction and passive consumption. The poem ultimately suggests that while intellectual engagement with popular culture is valuable, it often risks becoming another form of spectacle—another way of looking without really seeing.

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