Intercultural Pop Culture

I have never been one to enjoy subtitles on my video screen, but on a whim at the beginning of 2020 with my abundance of free time, I decided to check out some Korean and Chinese dramas. I became hooked on this new style of entertainment in which I 100% relied on the subtitles.

After the third series, I was able to identify a number of things that happened over and over again in these shows.

A young woman of low class or limited power would suffer unfortunate loss. She would struggle for a little while, find a way to overcome, and slowly gain power through charm and intelligence. She will typically become connected with the royal palace and rise through the treacherous and deadly game of royal favor.

She would catch undesirable attention from treacherous men, but she would also captivate two handsome acceptable men who admire her will and poise. A love triangle would play out for 60% of the narrative until finally, she chooses the one that can finally secure her attention and advance her on the rise to the highest position of power in the land. Usually, this position would be queen or empress.

The tension and curiosity of what could have been with the man who loved and lost will continue for the duration of the show, sparking the smoldering flame of passionate jealousy in both male members of the established love triangle.

The lady protagonist would always outsmart her palace rivals eventually, and there would be many shipped off to meet their maker via poison after a scene or two involving torture of some kind.

And I loved every second of it! (Minus the torture scenes, of course)

Here are two compilations from the first two dramas of this kind that I binged in March 2020. You will easily notice references to the thing I mentioned above.

Empress Ki  

Legend of Hao Lan

When reading through The Culture Industry by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, the following reminded me of the observations I had quickly been able to make about the third Korean drama I watched:

“Not only are the hit songs, stars, and soap operas cyclically recurrent ad rigidly invariable types, but the specific content of the entertainment itself is derived from them and only appears to change. The details are interchangeable. (P. 8)”

The business of leisure entertainment content pays close attention to what sells to their masses. It’s only good business to hit that sweet spot again in a “new way” resulting in,  as the writers say later, “Constant reproduction of the same thing. (Adorno, p. 8)”

This seems to extend across many cultures, with their own style of repetition contained in their popular culture. 

If the themes of sameness in popular culture come from the influence of the superstructure of a society, what can we derive from these themes in K-dramas and C-dramas? Is it easier to spot areas of recurring sameness in popular culture we are immersed in or the popular culture in which we are guests?

Escape the mundane, with some more mundane

 Let's just say the readings from this week really gave me a run for my money. I found the ideas and thoughts to be a little difficult to wrap my mind around. If anything just the sheer volume of it all was overwhelming. One aspect that stood out to me though, was Frankfurt school's idea that 'work and leisure under capitalism form a compelling relationship". I would have never thought of the relationship between work and pop culture before, but they explain how, basically, the mundane, capitalistic work life leads us to want an escape from it all, and we find that escape in mundane, easy to digest, don't have to exercise the senses pop culture. Things that don't truly spark our senses or challenge us like authentic culture can. They view it as, we spend all day at work, acting and working like a drone, and as soon as we get home we just clock into a different type of activity (pop culture) to watch and absorb like a drone. They say, "The escape from everyday drudgery which the whole culture industry promises...[is a] paradise...[of] the same old drudgery...escape...[is] predesigned to lead back to the starting point. Pleasure promotes the resignation which it ought to help to forget." (Adorno and Horkheimer). Rather than our consumption of pop culture acting as an escape from the real world, it actually just acts as a bridge right back to the real world. With this cycle we're never really checking out of this cycle of drudgery, we're just going from one mundane to the next and back again. They go on to say that "only 'authentic' culture operating outside the confines of the culture industry could ever hope to break the cycle." 

My question for the class is, if you felt like you were breaking away from the day to day mundane with pop culture 'escapes' before, what type of 'authentic' culture could you now partake in to truly get a break from this cycle?

Abundance...….Culture, or Popular?

 

    In this day and age with the abundance we have. I find it difficult to make decision every day, and it’s usually the small decisions I get hung up on. Such as what movie to watch, what song I want to listen to. Scroll through scroll of Netflix, amazon prim, or what song to listen to, and on what platform to listen on. Spotify, slacker radio, Pandora…….having access to so many options and so many genres of movies and music. I find it very easy to get sidetracked. I find it amusing that these insignificant decisions take up a lot of time during my day. Furthermore, I find it interesting at how influential this modern day “art” has on my life.  Benjamin’s “Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” brings up and interesting point how art is lacking in value due to mass production. What is an “artist” this day and age? Is it a pretty face that has a great voice that sings songs that someone else wrote? Or, is a thousand prints of an original painting valued as high as the original? Why, or why not? What’s even more intriguing is how influential this form of mass production appeals and associates to the “Masses”. How easy it is this day and age that a three minute Pop Song gathers more masses that only world churches wish they could amass. Are we dehumanized by this abundance? Missed informed? Or are we more in tune to our humanity? Or, just going along with what is popular right now?

The Lego Movie - Unlocking Mass Culture's Prison?

Wow, who knew we would be taking a philosophy class disguised as a pop-culture class! Module 3’s readings gave my brain a workout, and it took me some time to wrap my mind around it’s concepts. Especially the teachings of the Frankfurt school, which seemed to conclude we are all just bags of meat and chemical reactions, mindlessly executing the whims of evil big business and politics. The Frankfurt School make some very valid points, but I prefer Stuart Hall’s musings in his Notes on Deconstructing the Popular. Like him I believe instead that “there is a continuous and necessarily uneven and unequal struggle, by the dominant culture, constantly to disorganize and reorganize popular culture…There are points of resistance; there are also moments of supersession.” Although it may not be obvious in most of popular culture, there are moments of resistance to pop-culture clichés and hegemony. I cannot think of a better pop culture example than “The Lego Movie” released in 2014. 

What was expected to be a ninety-minute commercial for plastic toy blocks, instead is a funny play on many of the Frankfurt and Birmingham schools of thought. Inside of a world built from Legos, the hero of this story is a dopey Lego “every man” Emmet who has so little free thought, he needs an instruction manual to get ready for work. See hilarious video below:

Emmet accidently finds himself involved in a plot by supervillain “Lord Business” to superglue everything and everyone on Legoland together into “perfect” uniformity forever.  The Lego movie later takes Lord Businesses character (voiced by Will Farrel) one step further by revealing that Lord Business and all of Lego land are in fact imagined by real-life boy, who created the character of Lord Business to represent his strict father (also known as “The Man Upstairs”) who only follows Lego instructions, and glues together his Lego blocks vs. inventing and playing with them as a kid would.  See Will Farrel’s take on both characters and the movie here. It's pretty great. 

Another part of the Lego movie that cleverly points out how pop-culture can be a tool to sublimate the masses into submission is theme song and ear worm “Everything is Awesome” by Tegan and Sara. 

Eric Brown’s review of the song in the International Business Times put it well when he said “What the words are really saying is: Don’t focus on your problems because everything is great. Stay in line with other people just like you. Nothing is more special than anything else. Most importantly, always be a “team player.” The lyrics aren’t just a generic call for teamwork and positive thinking, they’re Lord Business’ call for conformity and consumerism.” You can read Brown’s full article here: https://www.ibtimes.com/how-lego-movie-everything-awesome-parody-creeping-everyday-fascism-1555165

Emmet joins forces with a group of “master builders” to foil the evil plot, while also mashing live action shots with animations – giving the illusion of breaking the Fourth Wall into the viewers reality. The Lego movie is incredibly clever, sweetly subversive and gives lots of food for thought in a fun way. I recommend everyone watch it again after Module 3’s readings!

Last of all, I would be failing a key part of Module 3’s teachings if I also didn’t scrutinize the Lego Movies message with a critical and analytical eye (as both the Frankfurt and Birmingham Schools of thought would want me to do…) I see the irony of a (hugely lucrative, big business) toy company telling me to be creative – by watching their movie, buying their products, and laughing at their parodies, voice by big Hollywood actors, voicing copyrighted characters…  

 

So my question is, do you think the Lego Movie represents “authentic culture” better than most animated films? Or is it just another manipulation by the "man upstairs"?

Hold Up, I've Seen this Before..

Funny thing about films these days is how predictable they sometimes are. Stories about love at first sight, or a haunted house, or even a story about an underdog in a team or company , can often be very predictable to those who have watched similar shows. According to Adornos & Horkheimer's text “ The Culture Industry: Enlightenment and Mass Deception”  details are often interchangeable when it comes to movies and TV shows these days (Adorno& Horkheimer, 1994). Notable examples of short interval sequences that often way to much in films would be the suspenseful music playing in the background before a jump scare in a horror film.Another example would be about two lovers who found themselves in some sort of forbidden love like the countless Cinderella re-writes , the 20th century has produced over the years.The amount of predictability that movies these days have are astonishing . Oftentimes once we see or hear the first part of a movie we already know what is coming next. Homogeneity is somewhat identical to this due to mass culture being identical all throughout. 

Cliches in Movies

According to Adorno & Horkheighmers culture of industry  there are “ ready made cliches to be slotted in anywhere”(Adorno& Horkheimer, pg.3) meaning sequences of movies are often  created with a cliche ending. Another interesting thing I was able to identify in Adorno & Horkeimers article was their claim to too much stimuli in films these days. Real life things are becoming indistinguishable .  Audiences are left with no room for imagination due to the realistic effects that films often have these days. One remarkable type of pop culture that has been affecting today's generation a lot would be video games. Video games and simulation equipment like VR are making things 3-D and realistic more than ever. This causes boredom way easily due to the nature of it being rendered effortless.  One example would be how unrealistic women are portrayed in video games. One of the things that I was able to notice was the progression that films from the early 2000s had compared to those being released in the recent years. In essence our minds have progressively been brainwashed into thinking that all these major advancements are normal . But in reality when a comparison is done between films from before compared to now, it's almost unrecognizable. 

My question to my fellow classmates is what are some cliches you almost expect in films these days? Name a few. 

How do you feel about new technology that is somewhat almost confusing to real life, due to its progressive advancement and realistic effects. 

When will we become bored of TV and Movies?

 We all know the movie cliches that happen and it’s almost predictable to tell what will happen within 10 minutes of watching a movie or TV show. We know that most likely in love story movies and TV shows that the guy that should end up with the girl will get the girl in the end. We can guess that in a superhero movie the superhero will win in the end most likely before we even start watching the movie. We can guess that the funny guy in the comedy will end up doing the right thing even though he’s a screw up in the beginning. 

If we know all these cliches then why do we keep watching movies and TV shows even though they have been ending the same way for the past 80+ years? From the piece Popular Culture: A Reader, Guins and Cruz mention that “in principle a work of art has always been reproducible.” When something works and you can replicate it and reproduce it and people will still come and watch it, why not remake it? How many times has Superman, Batman, and 007 been recreated now? However many times they have been recreated they continue to work and people show up to buy tickets and watch it. A wise man I once worked for said something along the lines of “if something works and you can recreate it, recreate it till it stops working and profit off of it.”

So if movies don’t come up with something new for their storylines how long are people just going to continue watching them even though they know exactly what is coming? I suppose it’s been this long and we keep watching movies and setting box office records for movies even though we most likely know that the superhero comes out on top in the end or the guy gets the girl after their big fight. 

Because of all this I want to know your personal opinion on how you feel about continuing to watch movies that are new even though you can most likely guess what is going to happen just from seeing the title and the cover photo. Do you think movies need to come up with new storylines in order to keep viewers coming back in the future or do you think if they stay the same people will continue to see new movies?

P.S. I thought Scary Movie was funny to add in here because it makes fun of scary movie cliches 😂

Video from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIWh28WPyxQ

Predictability Changed By #MeToo Movement

I found this module very interesting. As I went through the module what my mind kept being drawn back to is predictability that once we see or hear the first part of something we already know what comes next. My first thought was how when watching the live action Mulan I as excited to watch it, but almost didn't want to because the cute little Dragon Mushu wasn't apart of it. As the movie continued I started noticing differences.

When I saw the commander that was Mulans' love interest in the original movie I felt disappointed. I was so confused why he was so old, and looked nothing like the cartoon character I had a crushed on when I was a kid.  I was disappointed that she did not have the original love interest and that there wasn't going to be a happily ever after with her and the commander. I was so caught up in that I completely looked past how the live-action seemed to be more women empowering (the live-action introduces powerful female villan that ended up helped Mulan in the end)

After I looked more into the difference between the two movies I found comments on how Disney might possibly be hinting at the character being bi-sexual, her equal Honghui, that seemed to be attracted her before she revealed she was a woman. I then found a quote from producer Jason Reed that stated, "I think particularly in the time of the #MeToo movement, having a commanding officer that is also the sexual love interest was very uncomfortable and we didn't think it was appropriate." That quote made me think about how about the topic of mass culture. The cartoon version was fine with the commander officer being the love interest, but in 2020 with the #MeToo movement going on they felt is wasn't appropriate anymore. 

This made me question the following: Is mass culture depicting whats normal for society? Are we changing how pop culture produces? If you seen the movie do you think Honghui is meant to be a bi-sexual character? 

Contradiction from the Inside Out

Once upon a time, there was a famous city in an ancient land. This city was famous for its skill in building strong armies that struck terror in all of the neighboring cities. This kept the city’s citizens safe from any threat from its surroundings. The key to their might was their strength, so weakness was eliminated as soon as it was found. Infants that were deemed weak in their inspection after birth were promptly brought outside the city and eliminated. The name of the city was Sparta.

This practice of abandoning weak infants to their death was an acceptable part of Spartan society. It was viewed as normal, possibly even dutiful for the good of the society, but acceptable doesn’t always equal optimal.

I have only ever experienced a capitalist society, and (setting COVID-19 details aside) I am pretty content with the normal that I know. I have been trained through many years of US history classes that the American capitalist way is the best, perhaps even the best way, for society to function. How would a competing line of thought ever reach me as I move about in the established, acceptable way of my society?

Like the expeditions of Morpheus to Neo in the Matrix, the best way for a competing idea to reach me is by jumping disgusted into the very society in which I am dwelling. A message of any kind must be brought to where the audience is already to be heard. 

When considering the special irony of James Cameron’s films which contain messaging of Marxist ideas wrapped within a very capitalist medium, critics could liken it to serving organic asparagus wrapped in candied bacon. It’s a package of contracting motives: Marxist ideas served encased within a product of capitalist entertainment business.

Can the message medium alter the potency of the message’s reception? 

Mean Girls and Marxism

The Marxist themes present in pop culture today many times show the oppressed groups in a society rising up to finally gain their equality against the oppressive groups. They look to the oppressive group as the ones guilty of their poor life and revolt. It's how the story goes, they revolt, they overcome and they seemingly live happily ever after. But the question that kept getting to me from these readings is what happens after the oppressed group 'lives happily ever after'? Animal Farm by George Orwell serves as a very anecdotal insight into what may happen after the oppressed group revolts and tries to fix the inequality present in their society. In Animal Farm the animals that originally lead the revolt go on to lead the others, and eventually morph right back into the animals that once caused all of the problems and oppressed them in the first place. It's a consistent cycle of the oppressed rising up, finding equality, then the power getting to them and before you know it they are now the oppressors. 

An example in pop culture of this cycle of the 'lower class' wanting to defeat the 'higher class' in the name of equality only to turn into the 'higher class' themselves comes from the movie Mean Girls. In this movie the main character, Kady, moves to an all American high school after being raised in Africa. She is befriended by a group of girls called the Plastics, and after realizing how terrible they are and how they make life harder for the others in their high school, and her friend specifically, she decides she is going to infiltrate from within and take them down. As the movie goes on we see Kady slowly morphing into a Plastic herself and unable to remember the reason she wanted to take them down in the first place, instead she becomes all the things she didn't like about them in the first time. 

These marxist themes always talk of the lower class defeating the higher class, but what do you think happens after the lower defeats the higher? Is it possible for true equality to exist or will the once lower class just become the new high class?

xoxo, marxism.

 The popular Netflix series "Gossip Girl" was the first thing I thought of after reading about Marxism and watching the videos. Gossip Girl is follows the lives of the "Upper East Siders." The main character is a privileged beautiful socialite. Throughout the show it shows the very glamorous and not so glamorous lives of these teens. With all drama being exposed by an anonymous blogger that spills the drama and personal lives of these teens with the famous sign off of "xoxo, gossip girl." 

These teens are looked at as the "elite" they are above everyone and hold a power over the other characters that are not as fortunate. As the seasons go on it shows characters try to get their way to the top and put on a facade of having money to become like the popular rich girls, and others find out that with money does not buy everything. There are characters that learn that money fix problems especially from this anonymous Gossip Girl spreading their secrets. 

When I watched the video of the rich man trying to buy his life while the ship was sinking and the man throwing his money back at him basically saying his money is worthless there and throwing money at a problem won't make it go away (probably for the first time ever in his life). While watching this when I was younger made me want to live on the upper east side because I viewed a happy life as a glamorous one, like I saw these teens living. I wanted to go to galas and have a butler. It is interesting that most of these characters were not happy. Most of them were a lot more unhappy than the average teens, but I still longed to be rich because of the status it seemed to give them. 

My questions are: Does having money make you more elite than the average person? Does having more money cause you to have more problems? 

                                         

Marxism, Conflict, and Popculture

 

Within Marxist theory, modern warfare is described as existing as result of capitalism. Marxist theory states that all modern wars are caused by competition for resources and markets between great and imperialist powers, claiming these wars are a natural result of the free market and a class system (O'Callaghan, Einde (25 October 2007). "The Marxist Theory of Imperialism and its Critics". Marxists Internet Archive. Retrieved 24 April 2011).

  

 

 The theory of Marxism is at best…..a theory. When a theory or a portion of that theory comes to fruition the theorist is vindicated in the correctness of the theory. Glorified in the righteous utopia of a perceived reality of “only if”. “If” we all lived within the confines of a theory then peace and harmony will prevail. No more class, no more inequality. However, Marxist theory doesn’t take into account human nature. As much as much as we like to think people are trust worthy, it is not so in reality.  Furthermore, the Marxist theory as depicted in popular culture (in my opinion) is theory vindication in a fictional setting.  

We are now on the eve of the 20^th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the world trade center. The first video is of the air traffic controllers the morning of the attack as it was unfolding. The second is how the attacks affected the popular culture of the time. One could argue that a theory predicated on the ideology of “utopia” would entice, elicit, and encourage behavior in pursuit of “perfection in the eye of the beholder.” While the devastation rained down on the streets of Manhattan, a radical few celebrated a step forward towards their utopia, which was accomplished by obliterating the “only if” in question, i.e thousands of innocent people. All in attempt to bring down the U.S. Financial System.

While often confused with communism, Marxism has more of an impact on pop culture today than most are aware. Refuting communism due to the failures of Russia (more commonly known) people have muted their thoughts on utopia, and adopted a more “unified as one” approach to equality that limits traditional beliefs, and forces the hand of human interaction.

Masks are a prime example.

What do you think of the Marxist theory and how it seems appealing to society through pop culture media?

Do you think capitalism is the cause of modern wars?

 

Good Girls - Oppressed or Oppressors?

When going over this week’s readings, a voice in the back of my mind began pondering the neo-Marxist theory, as one asks, what came first, the chicken or the egg? In this context, what came first hegemony or the oppressor? Or to put it even more simply, what came first the ‘haves’ or the ‘have-nots’? First let’s get the definitions for “hegemony” out of the way…

“Hegemony…The everyday practices, events, and texts that are interpreted subtly as natural (by both those in power and those oppressed.) to promote the interests of the empowered group.)” (The Rhetorical Power of Popular Culture, 117)

A pop culture reference that makes me question which comes first is the NBC comedy series “Good Girls.” 

The characters in this show are three very different women who have fallen on hard times. One is a single mom at risk of losing custody for her only child, another has a child sick with cancer and cannot afford her daughters very expensive medication, another's husband cheated on her and ran the family business into the ground. 

These “good girls” are fed up with the world (aka hegemony) keeping them down and decide to take matters into their own hands by robbing a local grocery store. This actually solves their problems but also lands them in the crosshairs of a local gang that, long-story-short they eventually begin working with to launder counterfeit money. The women create a pyramid scheme that recruits other “desperate-housewives” to be “secret-shoppers” while un-wittingly laundering fake cash. Season 1-2 goes on to show these women evolving from the oppressed to oppressors themselves. I love how complex these characters are and find it funny that by analyzing this show with a neo-Marxist lens I have come to see the perspective of the “oppressor” more interesting and even justified  This is especially ironic to me, because at face-value I would tell you I prefer to champion the working class or oppressed. 

Question: What do you think came first? Karl Marx’s oppressors who work to keep the working class down, or the oppressed who failed to think outside of the box and create opportunity for themselves?

The Platform:

     When talking about ideology. we often think of a cultural group's perceptions about the way things are and the assumptions that come with it.  Neo Marxist critic explains ideology, to be “a false set of ideas perpetuated by the dominant political forces.” Interestingly enough, according to Sellnow in Marxist Perspective, oppressed groups often participate in their own oppression by allowing things to happen a certain way. Which brings me to the film on Netflix called: Platform. A little backstory to the film, talks about a man who finds himself in a large tower style building called “Vertical Self-Management Center. This center is something he voluntarily asked to be in, in exchange to getting a degree after 6 months. The tricky thing about the center is that every 30 days, residents are moved from each level and placed at a random level every month. They are fed on a platform that goes down to serve a level for two minutes each day. This system becomes a conflict for the residents since the top levels can eat as much as they can, leaving the leftovers for the bottom levels with little to no food.

    The movie Platform shows an abundant number of examples of how the dominant group (in this case the higher levels) often get to be in charge of the situation within the center. Oftentimes dominant cultural groups can often be defined by socioeconomic status, race or gender. In this case, it depends on what level the characters find themselves in every month. The ironic thing about this is the fact that each person in there gets to be higher or lower than the people above them within a couple of months. This causes a conflict with those who end up above you,  better than everyone else. For example, those residing in level 6 might mess with the food for those living in level 7. Interesting enough, I was able to identify oppositional readings towards the end where there was a character named Goreng and another character named Baharat wanting to change the status quo. Normally, those who are in the upper levels get to eat freely and those in the lower levels get scraps and sometimes nothing to eat. The characters named Goreng and Baharat attempt riding the platform to evenly distribute the food by rationing food to all the 250 levels. This becomes oppositional because of how they challenge the dominant ideology that everyone accepted in the center. Which was: those who were randomly placed on top for the month may eat freely and those who were in the bottom would suffer.In my opinion, Goreng & Baharat's actions resulted in a Marxis Critic view perfectly, resulting with an up-rise from the oppressed.

My question to my fellow Classmates:

1)      Would you challenge the status quo if you were in this situation? What might you do differently if you had a Marxist Perspective?

Marxism in movies and TV shows. Good or bad?

 Marxism is defined by Sellnow as “the notion that material conditions and economic practices shape the dominant ideology about who ought to be and ought not to be empowered.” 

Marxism is present in so many different TV shows and movies that we watch every day and sometimes it is present without us even knowing or realizing it. It happens a lot with romantic comedies where the girl is from an upper class family and the boy comes from a lower class family yet they fall in love over the summer or something like that. It seems as if using that blue collar versus white collar makes for a good story line for viewers. So does this story line make for good or bad viewing for people? Is it good for people to watch marxism happen in a movie so that it is in their mind or is it not the best?

On the side of this being good there is actually a good argument there. When people are aware of an issue like this it can help in fixing the problem. It’s like if we don’t know what the problem is then how can we fix it? On the other side there is also a good argument in that not seeing it keeps it out of our minds so that we don’t make those boundaries. A lot of times we see it and don’t realize so it’s possible we may do that same thing in real life and create those boundaries subconsciously. 

So what side of the argument do you feel like you land on? Do you think it is good for people to see this so that we can fix the issue or do you feel it is better if we don’t see it so that we don’t subconsciously create that boundary?

If you want to see a perfect example give this a watch.

So what is pop culture anyway??

 I’m sure there are loads of people who make references to pop culture but don’t even really know what it is. Since this is the case let’s discuss and figure out exactly what pop culture is for those of us that don’t fully understand it. 

The easiest way to explain pop culture is whatever the current culture is that is accepted by the majority of people. When a song, movie, tv show, or other artifacts is popular by the majority it is considered pop culture. Some current examples are shown below of what would be considered pop culture so that you can make the connection and be able to identify others you might see or have already seen or heard. 

Now that we have an understanding of pop culture, I want to bring up some questions concerning pop culture that can also bring some clarity to the subject.. The first question is how long something can be considered pop culture? Once something is pop culture is it always pop culture or can it only be considered pop culture for so long? Another question is can there be different pop cultures for different groups considering not everyone enjoys the same media? Is there a different pop culture for people who listen to music compared to a pop culture for a group that watches movies or is it all considered pop culture that is connected? 

Pop culture lasts however long people continue to make it the popular thing. It seems now more than ever pop culture changes quicker and quicker. Pop culture seemed as if it used to last and have some steam behind it when something became popular. Nowadays it seems as if it comes and goes faster than you can blink. 

There can be different types of pop culture like tv shows, music, art, and now we have dances on TikTok, memes, and many other forms and articles become pop culture. This means that there can be many forms of articles or types of pop culture but pop culture is whatever the majority of people make popular. This has become quite easier with social media and how fast sharing happens.

So what are your thoughts on the subject? How do you feel the timing of pop culture works? What forms of pop culture are there and are there different types or groupings?

References:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/161496336626400874/

https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/entertainment/a-look-back-at-the-top-5-memes-of-2019/77-e945bfd5-5033-429e-9526-3c19a954a699

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqwsEilhhhs

Military and Popular Culture

 

"I feel the need....the need for speed"! This pop culture phenomenon has been around for decades now. Here we are on the eve of Top Gun sequel that is set to release this summer. Why was this movie such a phenomenon? 

The release of the original Top Gun came at the end of the Cold War era. The movie was a major hit. Quoted for decades..... So "talk to me Goose". One of the most quoted lines from the movie. I still hear people using this quote in many different circumstances, settings, and context. As a young and impressionable adolescent in the late 1980's. This movie had a major impact on me. How cool would it be to become a fighter jet pilot? Well, this movie had the same impact on many young Americans. After the release of the first Top Gun Movie. The U.S. Navy saw a heavy increase of young American adults inquiring the Navy Recruiting Office on how one could become a pilot. A major motion picture became a great recruiting tool. Who knew?

Now, pop culture is in all aspects of our life. In response to this phenomenon, The United States Military realized the effective use of pop culture to spur potential recruits to sign up. Sure, there are also some money incentives that are enticing. However, none is more enticing that the perceived opportunity to fly fast jets and play beach volley ball. Top Gun was a success in the establishing the Military in pop culture in the late 1980's.  

Do you think the Military is part of pop culture or is it in a demographic of it’s own?

Pop Culture Dominates My Communications, Who Knew?!?!

 It had not really occurred to me how much I depend on “Pop Culture” in my everyday way of communicating, until I was trying to describe a man that I had seen in the grocery store to my husband, Mark. I was telling Mark that this man looked like a throw back from a 70’s band. He seemed unimpressed, Mark had a very sheltered teen life and did not understand what could possibly be funny about a clean-cut man in a collared shirt, he was thinking Pat Boone. (That was his point of reference from the 70s.)

This man did not look like that, he had exceptionally long, unusually thick, and curly hair that he wore down his back. He had on a collarless, long sleeved, V-necked sweater, and very tight pants. It was not until I described this stranger as a man that belonged in a “Hair Band” like Hurricane, that my husband understood the reason I thought he looked out of place and comical.

This conversation, along with the reading for this week’s assignment, spurred a real curiosity about how much I reference a rhetorical artifact in conversation in a single day. I was shocked! On Monday, January 11, I referenced either a band, song lyrics, movie, or tv show 79 times, and that is just what I caught. I counted another 62 times by someone who was either talking to me or had sent an email reference the same list of artifacts. (Those were just the references I understood.)

So, the question I am asking myself now is; when I make an ad for someone that wants to brand their product or service, is it better to tie in a significant popular culture artifact, or is it better to try to create an original sign?

Example:

Like a Good Neighbor, State Farm is there. This ad is creating an ideology that neighbors are good, and your insurance should be like that.

Security is a priority, not an option, Smart Choice. This insurance ad is simple rhetoric just to make you think about your insurance as a responsibility.

So, from my point of view, there are many Pop Culture artifacts that can fit any one situation. Choosing the correct one all depends on how you are feeling that day.

What is your feeling about creating an original ad for a new branding, use an artifact that can be easily identified and pull it into the advertising and branding of the product, or create a new and original idea and hope it takes off?

Sign Power

 

According to Brummett, a “sign is something that induces you to think about something other than itself” (2014, p. 45).  In pop culture, we constantly see signs and our mind immediately jumps to another thought, whether that next thought is intentional or not. Individuals prevalent in media and pop culture are subject to near constant scrutiny and any words, action, or event associated with that person could be inextricably linked to them as a sign or symbol forever. Once we have assigned a meaning to that sign, and that meaning is recognized widely, the sign can become an artifact (Brummett, 2014).

Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz was awarded Defensive Player of the Year two consecutive years in 2018 and 2019. Don’t get me wrong; I love Rudy Gobert. But every time I hear his name or see a photo of him, my mind immediately jumps to the video of his outburst during a game when he knocked a cup full of water from the scorer’s table.

Forty-second president of the United States William Jefferson Clinton had a long list of accomplishments while serving in the White House, but whenever I see President Clinton, my mind automatically pops up with his press conference statement: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman…” (Clinton, 1998).

And until Donald Trump was elected president of the United States in 2016, every time I saw him or thought of him, my thoughts went directly to the board room and I could hear him saying “you’re fired”.

Every time I hear a song by “The Chicks”, fka “The Dixie Chicks”, all I can hear is lead singer Natalie Maines telling a British audience in 2003 “just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas”.

Unlike iconic and indexical meanings, symbols can change easily, especially as they are influenced by pop culture. Where the Dixie Chicks may have initially enjoyed symbolical meanings of “country” or “America”, after the statement made in response to the Iraq war, the Dixie Chicks’ symbolic meaning transformed into “traitors” and “treasonous”. Donald Trump was successful but was also a direct and unforgiving boss in his television show “The Apprentice” until he was elected to the highest office in the United States and he symbolized the success of an elected official. And President Clinton was admired by many people in the nation until his statements were proven false and he symbolized dishonesty and disrespect. Rudy Gobert symbolized unsportsmanlike behavior with his momentary tantrum after he’d been praised and honored as one of the NBA’s top players. Even though symbols have the potential to change, sometimes they stick and aren’t easily altered. 

 

Is it fair that we assign symbolic meanings to people who are perpetually in the public eye, oftentimes when they are at their worst? Do the meanings we assign have more to do with us as observers of popular culture than they do with the person/symbol we are assigning the meaning to?

 

 References:

Brummett, B. (2015). Rhetoric in popular culture. Los Angeles: Sage.