Irony is the New Empathy

I'm thrilled at the possibilities for exploration in my latest work on El Vez, The Mexican Elvis.  I've been invited to participate in the 2008 ASTR Seminar "Unsettling Intentions: Activism and the Limits of Empathy." I feel like this paper will not only add an interesting voice to the discussion of this seminar, but will also help me deepen my exploration of the art of El Vez.  Below is the abstract I submitted:

On the “Campaign Trail” with The Mexican Elvis, Irony is the New Empathy: Constructing Alliances through the Distance Between

Mounting a fictional Presidential campaign as El Vez, The Mexican Elvis, the El Vez 4 Prez tour marries rock show bravado to political theatre. Framed as a Town Hall meeting in which candidate El Vez (backed by the Lovely Elvettes and the Memphis Mariachis) fields debate questions from concerned citizens and answers them with song, the performance successfully voices progressive political sentiments precisely because it uses irony and humor – rather than empathy – as its mode of engagement. Though empathy should facilitate a “feeling with” another, it can dangerously slip into a “subject-centered key” (Doris Sommer) wherein solipsism masked as connection simultaneously objectifies the other and erases all inequalities in a wave of universal understanding. This paper will explore how El Vez uses irony to foreground the distance between subject positions in order to prevent such colonizing acts that limit the efficacy of empathy. Rather, by marking the imperfect fit of alterity, El Vez disallows the easy equivalencies of empathy in favor of more productive connections that bridge difference rather than elide it. Because it does not prescribe a “feeling with” each other as either a starting point or an end goal, El Vez’s use of irony expands his message to reach his diverse audience base. Irony in an El Vez concert allows for the revelation of alliances across multiple subject positions to create an ethical community enacted through thought, reflection, and rock and roll.