viz.

While I don't want to in any way take up the mantle of "resident Dylan expert," I do find that you raise some very compelling observations and critiques regarding the three Dylans' engagements with visual culture.

One of the most interesting and underappreciated aspects of the elder Dylan's artistry is his engagement with visual media, the way in which manipulates and makes use of visual elements and modes of production, oftentimes while simultaneously he seems to categorically reject the value or efficacy of those modes of communication (as the apt apt historical examples that you bring forth so interestingly illustrate).

I also find that you posit a useful taxonomy of the different modes of engagement with the visual, but I would take some issue with your statement, "Where Jesse Dylan's approach to social change winds up being synthetic, his father's succeeded in being organic." I think the jury is perhaps still out on whether or not Jesse Dylan's approach falls into the synthetic or organic category. And I think this has less to do with the specific celebrity appeal of the video than with the response it has created, and the, perhaps unexpected, opportunity for discourse that it opens up Clearly, we should be suspect of the video at the level of "taking your political cues from patrician celebrities," but the mere fact that it has engendered so many responses, has racked up so many millions of views, oftentimes simply at the level of personally being passed on from one person to another-- that in and of itself suggests a kind or quality or attribute that one might label "organic."
Justin Tremel