Fwd: Re: [SEELANGS] Equivalent to "corny"? Any suggestions?

[J F Levin]

At 09:58 AM 7/26/2010, you wrote:
>Melissa Smith wrote:
>
>>  I think "corny" doesn't have as negative 
>> overtones as the options here suggest.  It is 
>> closer to клише, 
>> провиннциальный - I think of 
>> someone with cornsilk in their hair, a "hayseed."
>>As Nellie Forbush sings in "South Pacific": 
>>"I'm as corny as Kansas in August" - there must 
>>be a Russian pop-culture equivalent!


"corny" says a lot more about American popcult 
than any Russian equivalent.  I think we can understand
it best by its opposite.  Corny got its current 
connotations from the spread of a universal tone of irony with
which everything must be viewed.   Corny is the 
antithesis of that ironic tone.  What is corny is just what it
is, no joke.  Having just seen the reprise of 
South Pacific in Los Angeles, I understand the significance of
  Forbush's being corny.   Corny has not changed 
its denotation, only its connotation.
We see a similar thing with "square".  When 
George M. Cohan sang "And there is something there /
That sounds so square / It's a grand old name", 
he had the same thing in mind as Buddy Holly singing "you're so
square baby/I don't care".  Only the connotation has changed.
Does Russian culture have anything like this?
Jules Levin
Los Angeles

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