Pop culture
CMNS 1221 – Lecture Notes for ‘the Age of Staying Home’
MASS CULTURE ASSIGNMENT: There are FOUR questions in this
document. For EACH question, I want you to type an answer (approx.
250 words MINIMUM for each). Email me your four answers Before
APRIL 12th, please.
The Frankfurt School and Popular Culture
In this ‘lecture’ we’re going to look at a few important theories and theorists
in the study of popular culture.
To begin, we must understand what is meant by ‘popular culture’. When
most people use this term today, they are referring to the cultural texts of
mainstream American culture. TV shows like the Big Bang Theory,
musicians like Beyonce and Kanye West, movies like the Avengers. These
are all cultural texts that are available to large audiences, and that enjoy
widespread popularity. Not all popular culture is well received by critics, but
it is still ‘popular’ because many people like it, or talk about it, or even know
about it (the Kardashians).
No matter how stupid popular culture may seem at times, it’s important to
realize that there is no such thing as ‘pure’ entertainment. No TV show is
simply mindless entertainment – there are always messages and meanings to
be found. Popular culture – from TV shows to music videos – represents the
culture it comes from. It communicates the values and ideas of a culture, and
in this respect it is extremely useful to study popular culture.
Now, before the days of broadcast media (film, radio, TV, Internet) it was
generally assumed that the values and ideas of a society came from the top –
from the powerful people in society. As Marx wrote, “The ideas of the ruling
class are in every epoch the ruling ideas”. The institutions of power
employed art critics and authors and intellectuals, who told people what was
good art, what was bad art, and what culture was trying to communicate.
Think about the remaining forms of ‘high culture’ today. When you go to an
art gallery, you can look at the paintings and sculptures, but you usually end
up reading the signs next to the art, where someone else tells you what the
art is ‘about’. There are still cultural experts who know which opera singers
are ‘best’, and which classical music is most ‘important’.
If you ever want to see this kind of cultural elitism in action, go downtown
to the SFU Harbour Centre campus. Across Hastings Street from the
university, there is a store called Sikora Music. They sell classical music.
Everything about the store is designed to make you feel stupid. THEY know
classical music, and they know what is worth listening to, and what is not.
They even have a sign in their window, written in detailed calligraphy, that
says they have a “beginners bin” inside. Because (as we have all been
taught), Classical Music is very complex and only smart people can ‘get’ it,
and you would need to spend years LEARNING to appreciate it. Right?
…. right?
What else does the Ruling Class like? What do they eat? Have you ever
eaten CAVIAR, or TRUFFLES? Are these really the best foods in the
world? Or are they just expensive, fancy things that rich people like. The
thing is… if powerful people like something, that thing starts to have value
for the rest of us, too. “Caviar looks like salty fish eggs, but it MUST be a
delicacy because it’s so expensive and served in fancy restaurants!”
QUESTION 1: Think about how the ruling classes shape our tastes and
desires. I want you to pick a LUXURY ITEM to write about: an expensive
thing (clothing, car, etc.) that you WANT, but can’t afford. WHY do you
want this thing? Where did you learn about it? Who told you it was a good
thing? Can you think of a movie, or an advertisement that really convinced
you that you want this thing someday?
Now, early in the semester, we briefly talked about the idea of Hegemony.
That is, the process of maintaining power without the use of force – invisible
consent. The institutions of power in a society can preserve order and
stability through everyday, boring activities – School, Church, TV, etc. We
learn about laws, and moral codes, and normal behaviours, not through
military lectures, but through everyday life. This is why Popular Culture is
so interesting – it helps us see hegemony in action. Why do we believe the
things we do, and how do everyday things help to maintain order?
Scholars who look at culture tend to use a variety of terms to describe what
they see, but for our purposes there are three main types of culture for
discussion.
1. Folk Culture. This is literally the culture of the people (Folk comes from
the German word ‘volk’, which means people. Ever seen a Volkswagen?
That means “the people’s car”) Folk Culture is not the culture that the people
enjoy – it is culture OF the people. People make it themselves. Generally,
folk culture refers to the past, when people lived in small villages and
communities, with only limited contact to other cultures.
Think about the songs and dances associated with traditional cultures. Folk
Dances and Folk Songs can’t be attributed to a single writer or creator – they
are the songs and dances that a culture has known for generations. Many
countries around the world celebrate their folk songs, stories, dances, etc.
They are a connection to the past, to what is often seen as a ‘simpler’ time.
In this way, most writing about Folk Culture becomes bogged down in myth
and nostalgia – romantically remembering a past that may or may not have
actually existed.
2. Mass Culture. This is the subject that most interested the Frankfurt
School, as we’ll see later in the lecture. Mass Culture only comes into being
when there is a mass audience, and when culture can be produced for this
mass audience.
Much of what we know as mass culture therefore comes into being when
modern communication technologies are introduced. You can sing a song on
a stage, to a large audience, but the radio allows you to sing that same song
to millions of listeners. As we have seen in the history of radio and TV,
however, the technology required to broadcast that song over the radio is
expensive, and regulated by governments. Therefore, the difference between
singing a song to a small group and singing over the radio is very significant.
The reasons for singing change. The listening experience changes. The
control over who gets to listen changes.
Mass culture is interested in both the mass production of culture and in the
implications of a society defined by mass media. We become part of a mass
audience, undefined by geography, personality, or taste. It doesn’t matter if
you love the Simpsons or hate the Simpsons – you are part of the mass
audience that watches the Simpsons. If you watch, it stays on the air. If you
don’t, it can go off the air. The mob rules.
3. Popular Culture. As I said, this is simply the range of cultural products
popular in the mainstream. On the surface, Popular Culture and Mass
Culture seem to be the same thing. What is important, however, is that Mass
Culture is made by large producers, for a mass audience. Pop Culture can
come from a variety of sources, but is consumed by many people. The
significance will become clearer as we look at the Frankfurt School’s
concerns with Mass Culture, and as we explore the various critiques of their
work.
QUESTION 2: Give me an example of each of these three types of culture,
using either MUSIC or FOOD. For example, you might discuss three
restaurants in Vancouver: one that you feel is producing Folk Culture (for a
small community, because they love making food), one that is Mass Culture,
and one that is Popular Culture (but NOT necessarily Mass Culture… that is,
the example is POPULAR, but it wasn’t designed for a mass audience.)
Briefly describe your three examples. Feel free to look up the terms Folk,
Mass, and Popular Culture on Wikipedia and YouTube for a better
understanding.
The Frankfurt School
As you saw in your readings, the Frankfurt School is a term that refers to
several important scholars in the 20th Century. They started work in
Frankfurt, Germany, but were forced to flee for their own safety.
The Frankfurt School (Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno in particular)
were interested in what they referred to as the Culture Industries. They
looked at the history and development of economic production (coming
from Marxism) in order to understand the changes in culture around them.
The term Culture Industries is meant to suggest a very real connection
between economics (factories, assembly lines, mass production, planned
obsolescence, the need for marketing, etc.) and the world of culture (art,
entertainment, etc).
In studies of economics and the Industrial Revolution, it has been noted that
the development of Mass Production came fairly easily – once the
technology was invented, it was an easy step for industries to mass produce
their products. The trick for capitalism was, and always has been, the
development of a Mass Market: we can make millions of cars/TVs/sweaters,
but now we need millions of people to buy them. Capitalism solves this
problem in two key ways.
First, despite the growth of technology, mass production must continue to
employ the majority of citizens in a country. Wages at the Ford Factory, for
example, (where the first assembly line was built), were kept very high. This
way, the employees of a factory can afford to buy the products they spend
the day making. (It is interesting to see this rule coming apart in various
developing countries today.)
The second solution to the problem of mass production is much more
important – advertising. You can make millions of sweaters at a factory, and
you can pay your employees enough to afford these sweaters. But you need
to make them WANT to buy your sweaters. This is why the Industrial period
is also when we see the rise of modern advertising. Capitalism must create
desire – it must manufacture demand for products that most of us don’t
actually need. How many people in this room want a Mercedes, or a Rolex,
or designer sunglasses? Why on earth do we want these things? They’re
expensive, unnecessary, and rarely well built. But we do want them. This is
because advertising has become one of the most powerful forces on the
planet.
So the central theme in Horkheimer and Adorno’s work is that in the age of
mass media, the Culture Industries are the most powerful hegemonic force
on the planet. The movies we watch, the songs we hear on the radio, and the
stories we read in daily newspapers, taken together, have an incredibly
powerful influence on us. We don’t need governments and the upper classes
to tell us how to act and what to like, because the mass media does it instead.
A handful of companies make billions of dollars selling us ideas and
lifestyles that keep us ignorant, powerless, and poor. We willingly spend all
of our time and money trying to buy products and services we don’t need.
Advertising has convinced us that the good life is what we see on TV, and
that we can buy it at the mall.
Obviously, the Frankfurt School is generally seen as extremely pessimistic.
It’s a depressing thought – TV and movies tell us what to think, and we are
powerless. The Culture Industries – those companies that make TV shows
and CDs and commercials – control us. They trick us into doing what they
want us to do. Most people don’t want to believe this, and that’s a major
reason so many people have criticized the Frankfurt School. That doesn’t
mean they were wrong – in the 1940s, a handful of scholars were warning us
that TV and movies and music are too important to ignore. We need to
understand the culture around us if we want to understand what makes us
who we are.
The readings this week present a number of criticisms of the Frankfurt
School, but I want to focus on two in particular. The first is the work of
Walter Benjamin. Benjamin was connected with the Frankfurt School, but
wasn’t a key member, the way Horkheimer and Adorno were.
“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1936)
In the age of mechanical reproduction, Benjamin argues, something has
gone missing from art. Reproduction, however, is hardly new. From stamps,
to foundries (metal working), to simple transcription, art has always been
reproducible. Mechanical reproduction, on the other hand, changes the rules
greatly. Now we have machines that can make millions of copies of
something. That means we can mass produce cars and clothing and
furniture… but also music and painting and books. MORE people have
access to these things, which is good. But we ONLY have access to copies,
not Originals.
“Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one
element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place
where it happens to be” (Benjamin).
This is what Benjamin calls the ‘Aura’ connected to an original work of art.
No matter how good a copy you make, the copy is never as meaningful as
the original.
Have you ever seen a picture of the Mona Lisa?
Have you been to Paris to see THE Mona Lisa?
What’s the difference? Well, the original painting is special. It is the ONLY
original. It exists in ONE place. And when you stand in front of it, and you
think about this fact, you realize that you are experiencing something
special. Something unique. The Original work of art has an AURA – a
magical quality that cannot be found in any copy.
Benjamin argues that a work of art can be received and valued on two
different levels:
Cult Value, and Exhibition Value.
Cult value is based solely on the existence of the object. Certain statues, for
example, remain hidden in churches for all but one day of the year. If a work
of art has Cult Value, it means that the art is valuable to you because you
have BEEN TOLD that it is valuable. You might never actually see or hear
the art yourself. But because others (experts, scholars, elders) TELL you that
the thing is valuable, it has value to you.
Exhibition Value, on the other hand, means that a work of art is valuable to
you because you EXPERIENCED IT YOURSELF. You saw it, you heard it,
you touched it. You didn’t need experts to tell you this thing is valuable –
you actually experienced the thing firsthand.
In an age of reproduction (of copies), MOST art relies on Exhibition Value.
Why?
Because you and I don’t NEED experts anymore! If I ask you: ‘Who is
better: Mozart, or Beethoven?’ Do you need to study classical music for
several years, and listen to professors tell you their thoughts? No. Just
download both onto your phone, listen to them, and make up your OWN
mind.
Before it was easy to copy things like music, ordinary people didn’t have
access to most art. So they had to trust authorities and experts.
Today, you can make a copy of a film, a song, a book, a painting… on your
phone. And you consume that copy, and come to your own conclusions.
So MOST art you and I consume will only be valuable to us through its
EXHIBITION. NOT its ‘cult’ status.
QUESTION 3: Discuss a work of art that you think is valuable because of
its CULT VALUE. Preferably, a piece of art you’ve never experienced
yourself. Why is this thing valuable to you? Who told you that it has value,
and why do you believe them? Then, discuss a work of art that you find
valuable because of it EXHIBITION VALUE. Preferably, a piece of art that
most critics and experts tell you has NO value. Why don’t you care what the
experts say about this piece of art? Why is it still valuable to you?
Benjamin concludes his essay with the warning that within the logic of
market capitalism, there is the danger in false prophets and solutions.
Fascism, he warned in 1936, seeks to aestheticize destruction, creating
original, wondrous works of art out of human death and decay. The potential
combination of political will, intellectual justification, and cultural creation
could be devastating. [Mankind’s] “self-alienation has reached such a degree
that it can experience its own destruction as an aesthetic pleasure of the first
order.” (Benjamin)
One of the greatest fears of the Mass Culture critics is that a massified
society, entertained by the products of mass production and mass
distribution, is an easy target for the worst instincts of human beings. Their
fears were, at various times, fuelled by, reacting to, and predicting, the Nazi
regime in Germany.
Leni Riefenstahl, 1935: Triumph of the Will.
Think about the role of media and communication in Nazi Germany.
LOTS of angry little men have tried to conquer the world. That’s not new in
history.
But Hitler had his own personal filmmaker, and a weekly radio show.
If Napoleon had these things, we would all be speaking French right now…
Movies take up our attention (think McLuhan here: HOT media…)
They entertain us, they distract us… and they are an incredible tool for
propaganda and manipulation. If a government decided to use movies to
manipulate a public, what might happen…?
So the fear is that Mass Culture uses powerful weapons such as Film and
Radio and Television to brainwash us, and we’re too busy being entertained
to notice. The opening scene in Triumph of the Will was shot from an
airplane. In 1936. Most Germans who saw this movie had never been in a
place. They had literally never seen anything like this before. It’s a special
effects showcase that blew people away. Also, it was teaching them that
Adolf Hitler is a glorious leader sent from Heaven… So yeah, critics need to
pay close attention to this stuff. It matters.
Are the Mass Culture critics right? Are mass-produced cultural products
inherently dangerous?
The argument of mass culture critics is that, in the age of mechanization and
massification, we have become ‘atomised’. That is, we are all individuals in
a mass society, without the small, community-based identities that have
helped to build social cohesion for thousands of years. Without the central
role of the Family, the Neighbourhood, or the Church to keep us together,
we rely on the cultural industries to provide our social, intellectual, and even
moral direction.
Ultimately, however, this is a critique of democracy too: If it appeals to the
masses, it must be good. How can we trust masses of individuals to make
their own decisions? Don’t they need leaders to inspire them? Don’t they
need intellectuals to guide them?
This is where Mass Culture theory begins to stumble over its own
contradictions: Do we blame the rise of Nazism on the elite (who gave
direction to the masses), on the mass-produced cultural products that helped
to sway a population (Triumph), on the failure of democracy (voting for the
wrong party is worse than Not voting for a good king…), or on all of the
above? Would the preservation of German Folk Culture have prevented
Hitler’s rise? Would the existence of a thriving alternative media have
prevented it? Would Television have made it worse, or would it have
pacified the masses to the point where war would be impossible to sustain?
Ultimately, Benjamin was much more optimistic than Horkheimer and
Adorno. The Frankfurt School, in its critique of the culture industries, ends
up being a bit too elitist – they don’t trust the Mass audience, even though
the Mass Audience is us. Benjamin argues that the meaning of Art has
changed in the 20th Century, but he doesn’t see this as an entirely bad thing.
We have access to more art – art is fundamentally more available and
accessible.
QUESTION 4: Spend a little time looking up the term ‘atomisation’, and
learning more about how Mass Media actually leaves us isolated and lonely.
We live in the most connected society ever imagined, and yet we are often
very lonely: how can that be? Atomisation is the result of mass media –
millions of us can watch the same show or the same movie at the same time,
and yet we form no actual connections to one another. We don’t talk to
strangers in a movie theatre. We barely know our neighbours.
In this particular moment where we’re all stuck indoors, literally being told
to ISOLATE from one another… do you think The Internet has the potential
to bring people together in a meaningful way? If Radio and Film and TV
caused Atomisation and isolation and loneliness… could the internet help to
fix this problem?
