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English Language Popular Culture Midterm Exam Summary
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This is a summary of all the lectures and readings of the first part of the semester of the course English Language Popular Culture at Leiden University
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ENGLISH LANGUAGE POPULAR CULTUREWhat is popular culture? John Storey
WEEK 1
Culture
1. A general process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development -> Describing something
solely in terms of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic factors -> great philosophers, great artists
and great poets
2. A particular way of life, whether of a people, a period or a group -> Describing something in
terms of intellectual and aesthetic factors, as well as the development of e.g. literacy, holidays,
sport, religious festivals in relation to popular culture -> lived cultures or practices
3. The works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity -> Describing something
in terms of the texts and practices whose principal function is to signify, to produce or to be the
occasion for the production of meaning -> poetry, novel, ballet, opera and fine art -> texts
Five meanings of popular culture
1. Culture that is widely favoured or well-liked by many people
- Problem -> this is too broad, too much information
2. Culture that is left over after we have decided what is high culture
- As a residual and inferior culture. A mass-produced commercial culture, whereas high
culture is the result of an individual act of creation
- Problem -> not always clear where the line is between high culture and popular culture
3. A ‘Mass culture’
- A hopelessly commercial culture; inauthentic
- The audience is a mass of non-discriminating consumers
- The culture is formulaic, manipulative and consumes with brain-numbed passivity
- An important American culture -> Americanisation; for many young people in Britain,
American culture was a force of liberation
- Popular culture as a collective dream world: The benign version of mass culture
perspective. Benign because if popular culture has taken our dreams and sold them back
to us, then it is also an achievement that is has brought us more varies dreams than we
could otherwise ever have known
4. Culture that originates from ‘the people’
- Popular culture as folk culture: a culture of the people for the people
- Problem -> who qualifies for inclusion in the category ‘people'?
- Problem -> it evades the ‘commercial’ nature of much of the resources from which
popular culture is made
5. Hegemony
- A site of struggle between the ‘resistance’ of subordinate groups and the forces of
‘incorporation’ operating in the interest of dominant groups
- Gramsci: Hegemony is the way in which dominant groups in society, through a process
of intellectual and moral leadership seek to win the consent of subordinate groups in
society
- Gramsci: texts and practices of popular culture move within a ‘compromise equilibrium;
a balance that is mostly weighted in the interests of the powerful
6. Postmoderism
1
, - Postmoderm culture is a culture that no longer recognises the distinction between high
and popular culture
Popular culture
To speak of popular culture usually means to mobilise the 2 nd and 3rd meaning of the word culture.
Ideology
The concept of ideology is often used interchangeably with culture itself. There are five meanings of
ideology:
1. Can refer to a systematic body of ideas articulated by a particular group of people
-> for example, ‘professional ideology’ refers to the ideas that inform the practices or particular
professional groups
2. Can suggest a certain masking distortion or concealment -> Ideology is used here to indicate
how some texts and practices present distorted images of reality -> produce a ‘false
consciousness’
-> capitalist ideology: the powerful can conceal certain things from the powerless
3. Can refer to ‘ideological forms’ -> draw attention to the way in which texts always present a
particular image of the world; all texts are ultimately political, they offer competing ideological
significations of the way the world is or should be
4. Operates mainly at the level of connotations -> the attempt to make universal and legitimate
what is, in fact, partial and particular. An attempt to pass of which is cultural as something which
is natural.
5. Not just a body of ideas, but a material practice -> ideology is encountered in the practices of
everyday life and not simply in certain ideas about everyday life, e.g. rituals and customs
Ideology suggests that relations of power and politics inescapably mark the culture/ideology landscape
GREEN DAY – AMERICAN IDIOT
- Responds to the ideology of the media/America by washing the flag (taking out the red/white
and making it green) -> they are appropriating it to make it their own.
- The song is about the media -> It is a video about being filmed and being broadcasted.
- The monitor shows symbol of a fist with a heart grenade -> Their symbol of resistance.
- They’re a punkband who can make fun of the American flag and is critical of the media.
However, they can’t swear -> otherwise it won’t sell
- It is a song of protest, against the mainstream, but simultaneously a big band selling millions of
copies -> a rebellion packaged and sold to you
The significance of socio-political context in the process of meaning making
THE SPECIALS – GHOST TOWN
- Ordinary people not doing very well, not a bright future, people leaving big cities because there
was no work, a lot of strikes (like a lot of people in Britain at that time). They stood for the
culture by the people for the people. Clubs were closing down, there was police brutality against
South-Asian and West-African citizens and there were riots throughout the country -> racism.
- 2-tone style -> mix of 2 types of music (black and white united). Wherever the Specials went,
fights broke out.
- There were more bands showing their disapproval of the situation: reggae, punk, metal, etc.
have the same outlook
- ‘Conjoined alienation’ -> they realised they all lives the same lives
- Checkered patch -> black and white need to come together. The specials were about coming
together (everyone)
2
, - Simple message in such direct images
- The lyrics of the songs engage with the socio-political context in that time. The culture is dying, it
looks like a ghost town. The buildings in the video are all deserted.
Subculture: The Meaning of Style Dick Hebdige
WEEK 2
Popular culture is meant to be transient. Subcultures as a transitional state
Edwardian style
- 1901 -> Edwardian
1945 Post-war election -> labour victory -> new classless world (fear or other party).
- Upper class -> People started wearing Edwardian (classy stylish) clothes. These clothes meant: I
wish it were 1901, that the labour party wasn’t in power -> desire.
- Gay men (parody) -> The style was then taken over by gay men. Edwardians dropped it.
- Working class men -> It got picked up by working class men -> The rich had privatized beauty.
They showed that they could also have beauty (in their style). Edwardians became teddy boys.
- Working class women -> Teddy girls; space for androgyny
- Middle class art students
All of these groups (except Edwardians) are appropriating. Appropriation is central in pop culture. By
altering your appearance, you’re altering yourself.
Frank Sinatra
Image change He was beloved by adolescence, so, straight with man/others hate him -> adolescence
grow out of it -> he changed his look -> now straight men love him
Bob Dylan
Image change Someone calls him Judas, because he is constantly changing his image -> he is
disregarding the past.
David Bowie
- Like Bob Dylan, he had a lot of image changes. He turned Rock music into a theatre by briefly
having a new image and changing it before people got bored.
- Image becomes a way of escape for both Bowie himself and his fans.
- He is miming and acting out the song, but so are the fans. Using Bowie to explore/ figure
out/look for themselves
Few people have a new style -> underground spreading -> becomes popular -> media catches on -> style
disintegrates -> becomes accepted/normal
Living an ideal version of yourself (quite romantic)
Mods (suits)
- Looked conformist but the suits were always just a bit off (too tight etc.)
- Adults couldn’t quite grasp it -> it was a sneer towards adults
- Product of teenage affluence about money and how you spend it
- Mods were all about leisure. They took drugs to live the weekend (no sleep). They work for
leisure instead of paying bills (like their parents)
3
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