I've been at my parents' house for the last three days, and due to a combination of suffering from work fatigue and wanting to shut my body and brain down, and being stuck in suburbia (although a beautiful corner of suburbia) and bored, I've watched a couple of hours of VH1's "Why I Love the 80s" programs. One segment visited the phenomenon of Max Headroom, which I remember quite clearly from my TV-addicted youth, and was a reminder of what a strange phenomenon it was.
Nothing was congruous about the character, nothing quite fit, from the too-blond, too-white, L.A. borderline-Nazi sheen of the character's physical appearance, the hyper-glitchy cadence of his speech, his altogether spectral appearance and back-story, and his weird commitment, in references and commercial engagements, to pop and consumer culture. I remember when he first came out, being struck at how thoroughly odd and slightly scary Max Headroom was, but finding a great appeal in that, particularly as a pop and commercial phenomenon. At second glance, the appeal still holds, and I'd go so far as to say that I prefer the disconcerting freakiness of Max Headroom as an aesthetic to they bored irony pervasive in so much contemporary popular culture.
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