“Every piece of pop aesthetic must be seen from the point of view of money,” claims Joshua Clover. “Not just in measuring its success, but in conceiving of what it communicates.” For 30 Rock and other reflexive, reference-laden comedies, what is being communicated is a purposefully obfuscated marketplace of references the show establishes in order to facilitate the exchange of cultural and economic capital, either presently or in the future. Two different databases of 30 Rock—one built by myself to critically explore intertextual dynamics, the other by a client of Hollywood studios to exploit the content for marketing—reveal the scale of this futures market. … As in hip hop, all references are rendered a fungible asset, an interchangeable good that can be leveraged for exchange, then packaged into a security. Intertextuality becomes a repository of value that can be exploited through speculative action, and its obfuscation—through clever wordplay, thematic meaning, irony, and other formal means—allows it to proceed without objection. Disguised with a rhyme or a laugh, our songs and sitcoms are turned into stocks and securities.

SEED: Could become an essay on how reference-laden comedy functions as cultural capital trading, drawing parallels to financial markets and their obfuscation. QUESTION: Worth investigating how this commodification claim applies to newer shows that are more overtly meta-referential.

Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, loc. 396