The more I read Mumbo-Jumbo the more I feel as if I am reading a critique of western culture. In particular the way America is willing to try and reproduce any aspect of an upcoming culture the find fascinating and often the way we manage to butcher it.
Take the chitterling switch that occurs early on, rent parties being a real part of a cultural movement captivated those that weren't a part of it (White upper-class America) that they decided to try and reproduce. Of course without the nature in which the Rent Parties naturally occurred you get a cruel mockery of what they represent, essentially the black-face of the rent parties.
The other instance in my mind that stands out, of reproduced culture becoming a mockery of the original natural movement is Reed's depiction of a museum being the place art goes to die. Museums often try to capture the past and in the effort to do so restrict the culture they've capture to the past. I can't tell whether Reed's mocking museums inability to capture a whole movement here, or once again the impossibility of one person trying to understand a culture they aren't a part of.
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