What does this all mean to me?

6.1

As you might have surmised, this blog has been part of a class on Pop Culture.  The posts were either assigned short blog posts or summaries of other longer assignments.

I feel that I understand the concept of pop culture a great deal more now than before I took this class.  I had a vague idea of the implications of theories like rituals, myths and heroes, but not a clear enough understanding to apply it to my daily life.  I think it was more that I took these things for granted and didn't really recognize how these could affect me and my understanding of things.  I believe that I will be more conscience of pop culture as I encounter it.

I have enjoyed exploring the field of politics and political humor more though our topic papers.  This is a field that is very interesting to me.  Believe it or not I would someday like to do stand up comedy.  I have done some amateur stuff but I am still working on material and timing.  My own approach is very satirical and sarcastic, so this research has helped me to understand the success of those in the field.

I would like to think that I am not affected by stereotypes, and I don't personally consider any to be universally true—for race, for gender, for orientation, for any difference.  I have never understood the concept of casting a net over any group of people and considering them all the same catch.  I do, however, strongly believe that stereotypes play a large role in our career success.  I have chosen a more technical field in IT, so being female has been a challenge, and being older might be an issue for me should I try to change careers or move to a new company. 

Look around places of business and sometimes you notice that the staff is not diverse at all, and, in fact, they might be a carbon copy of the boss.  Sometimes people like to hire folks who are very close to their own personality and values.  I don't even think it's a conscience choice most times.  Some people are just more comfortable being around other people just like them.  That situation, providing a single line of thought, can be a death sentence for ideas and innovation.

During the class I have found the joy of writing again.  I have been technical writing for so long in my job I almost forgot how to craft an essay.  Through our research and reading I have identified a number of pop culture artifacts that I want to explore further.  I have also read essay pieces in our books that were outside of our reading assignments that speak to pop culture in preserving the past responsibly and to creating a good self-image.

I am a member of my company’s Diversity and Inclusion Council and work to make sure that all of our employees are an equal part of our team.  Concepts that we learned about stereotypes will help me to understand thinking patterns by some of our less diversity-acclimated staff.

I also want to find a way to be a better role model for my daughter and to monitor who she idolizes to make sure they are worthy of hero status.  I want her to find positive and enriching heroes that inspire her to follow on a path of great deeds.  I will extend this to work as well and work harder to lead by example.  I work in the industry that provides the world with celebrities and faux heroes, so I want to help my fellow employees to recognize the difference between celebrity and hero. 

Who has the formula for success?

1.4.5

Over the years television has crafted its own formula for success.  A formula is like a recipe—what ingredients does one need to use to make things happen, and to make them successful.  While TV dawned in the mid-20^th century it invented itself and became a conventional tool for information and entertainment in American society.  With each new programming genre, the television industry steps out of convention to create a new viewing formula.

Television news has hewn out its formula following trends in public opinion and pop culture.  In the early years, the news was staunch and unbiased, but has become affected by the gleam of celebrity.  TV anchors and those they report about—politicians, the famous, and the infamous—all become stars in their own right.  Political news in general has become more about campaign strategy and creating celebrity than the issues themselves.

Television comedy’s formula had previously been to satirize the news, either by creating caricatures of stories, or developing fake stories that mimicked reality.  Recently, however, political satire comedy and news has melded in to a new formula invention that reports politics in an overt yet accurate way.  Shows like “The Daily Show” and  “Colbert Report” have redefined how America gets their news.  Even shows like “Saturday Night Live” and “The Simpsons” have treated the ridiculousness of things like Dick Chaney’s machismo or Sarah Palin’s naiveté in such a way that they helped to steer public opinion.

I hope that the current convention of reality TV does somehow lose its stability and a new framework emerges in prime time.  I believe that we will see a reduction in the amount of programming in the coming years, as the cable industry changes to a more a-la-carte model and we lose some of the fringe cable channels.  Will this mean an increase in the quality of what programming is left?  Let's hope so.

Do we need another hero?

1.4.4

Heroes are somehow better than us.  They exist, or more correctly we create them, in order to show the rest of us the way to greatness.  Heroes can tie us to our past and give our traditions meaning, or they can fill our current needs for a role model.

Often their greatness is simply myth but their reputation and the outcome of their deeds spreads in to legend.  In today’s electronically connected society a hero’s shelf life can be much shorter and those heroes created simply by virtue of celebrity are quickly replaced.  Celebrities shouldn't really qualify as heroes anyway, as they haven’t contributed any real great action, but apparently our society has a need to create role models of fame and excess.

In the political arena heroes are even more subjective than celebrities, aligning to parties or causes.  Even if a political hero is widely revered, there are those of the opposite philosophy who will not agree.

The 2008 presidential election was a very interesting one for hero watchers.  On the right, John McCain brought his war hero status with him, being a former prisoner of war, and then a long-term political public servant.  On the left, Barack Obama’s hero status was quickly created, representing the hopes and dreams of the civil rights movement, and providing a role model not only for the African American population but young voters of all races who wanted a president more closely related to their American dream.  President Obama’s future heroic story will certainly include his rise past adversity but the rest, that based on his deeds, will be told in time.

Some might say that President Obama already possesses a heroic status akin to a cult of personality.  Dictionary.com defines “cult of personality” as an intense devotion to a particular person.  It would also refer to the person who is arousing such devotion. 

During that 2008 election that seemingly lasted forever, Barack Obama emerged as a larger than life figure.  He won the resolute of the African American community and used the media to ingratiate himself as a man of the people, though critics claim he was cultivating celebrity instead.  The currently divided political landscape helps to create more controversy and inflate his presence even more, polarizing his unwavering fans to his defense against his vehement opponents.  Books are written to broadcast his greatness.  Pundits and critics compare him to the power or charisma of Stalin, Hitler, or Kim Jong-Il.  Some churches call him the anti-Christ, while school children make venerating videos for You Tube.  Selwyn Duke examines his phenomenon in “Beyond the Idea of an Icon”, written for New American in 2009, but ends with an ominous thought.  What if this is less about who Barack Obama is, who comprises his legions of fans, and what his presidency means, and more about the need for the American people to find a deity for a leader?

I am not sure if the adulation for President Obama is as strong as it once was.  I expect to see a great deal more media coverage as we get closer to the November election in order to renew his cultish stature.  I do not see Mitt Romney garnering the same kind of fame and that may seal his fate—to be beaten by Obama’s celebrity and not his record.

Welcome to the 45th iteration of the presidential election ritual.

1.4.3

     Few non-religious social process contain as much ritualized activity as the political process. It would seem as soon as one election ends we are already moving in to the next by way of the same cycle of events. Here too, in the political process and in the media surrounding it, a myriad of stereotypes emerge about the participants, the process, and the media themselves.

    Steven Lukes, in an article titled “Political Ritual and Social Integration”, posted in the Journal of Sociology, links rituals with set rules and symbolism. He suggests that these rituals are what hold a society together. In studying the history of political and social mores; from the official ceremonies like an inauguration, the campaign speeches, parades, and even the way a society reacts and mourns after an assassination, that these rituals draw the public attention and drives public loyalties – even if those loyalties polarize biases held against differing beliefs. Consider the differences between the political parties and how this divide might be more visible during certain rituals, like the party conventions.

     So many of the steps in our political process are ritualized, from the formal statement of eligibility based on our Constitution, the way candidates campaign, to how the winner will do his or her job. On the campaign trail we are used to the visits and speeches, with candidates kissing babies and making promises. Each state has a different ritual to decide its primary elections, whether a vote or caucus, and the conventions cap the primary season by celebrating the values of each party. Our citizens proudly visit the polls on Tuesday after the first Monday in November for the general election and the presidential winner stars planning the elaborate Inauguration parties for January. Each year too, we have the State of the Union Address, and similar events in the states and cities across America.

      Stereotypes can be defined as focus on obvious characteristics of a group, whether real or imagined but certainly don’t generally apply to the whole group, that can be good or bad, but most often are used to detract. In American politics the most frequently used stereotype is the assignment of political parties – either the socialist-leaning, tree-hugging, baby-killing liberal Democratic left, or the heartless, gun-loving, religious nut capitalistic conservative Republican right.

     Many stereotypes can relate to the voters and to the media that report and comment on the political process. Younger voters, who typically do not read newspapers or watch mainstream news are seen as uninformed and naive, while the mainstream news media is characterized as displaying elections more like sports contests such as a horse race, and that they focus more on the campaign strategies more than the actual issues the candidates represent, in effect parroting the campaign promises without an real substance creating a general public ignorance of the political process.

     Those folks who aren’t watching the news networks are shown to be watching comedy and political satire shows like Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show”, or NBC’s “Saturday Night Live”. These shows are stereotyped as fake and unreal, but studies show that they can provide quality political information, oftentimes more detailed and focused than the mainstream news, and that viewers can be more likely to be aware of the political issues and the candidates’ stands.

     There are many facets to the political process in this country—those we ritually participate in or celebrate and those we create generalities about. I personally try to keep an open mind and not fall in the bias and polarization of the parties but view both sides as completely as I can to make an informed decision. I do enjoy the rules and symbolism of casting my vote, and of the formal ceremonies.

     So many others rely on the media to provide the context of the rites we share, and to help them decide between the alternatives. With this type of apathy, at least there are outlets that combine satire and commentary and provide the viewers with the real issues, even if they aren’t aware they are learning while they laugh, against the stereotype of being fake.

The yellow brick road to heroism...

4.1

In the Wizard of Oz Dorothy Gale may be America's most endearing female hero.  The movie was released in 1939, so the treatment of a female hero is somewhat different from the book, where Frank L. Baum wrote about several very strong female characters, but in 1939 young women were much more gentle and naive.  She was not a heroine, who would have helped a male hero on his journey, but takes her own hero's journey instead.

First Dorothy saves her dog Toto from the evil Miss Gulch by running away.  Dorothy had opined to find a place to be happier “Over the Rainbow” anyway, but when she is convinced that her Aunt Em is ill she hurries to return to the farm.  She is fearful in the tornado but does what she needs to do to shield herself and Toto.

Her trip in the tornado results in her accidental killing of an evil witch.  She is rewarded for this, but has made an enemy and must go on a quest to find her way home.  Along the way she gathers companions, all of which lack something that Dorothy has, and she reassures them and becomes their guide.  The Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion listen to Dorothy’s suggestions and follow her lead to find their own reward as well. 

Once they reach the Emerald City Dorothy faces fear of the Wizard and is given a test to return the witch’s broomstick.  She takes the challenge but is captured.  Saved by her friends, once again she uses her courage to accidentally defeat the witch, mostly to save her friends rather than to complete the test.

Once the test is completed she must stand up to the Wizard who turns out to be a fake, but her suggestions save the day once more.

The Wizard of Oz is America’s first and greatest fairy tale.  In the book a much younger Dorothy purposefully defeats the witches, but in the movie version she is made to be much more tentative and like a “damsel in distress”.  It is through her courage, and her heart, and her brain that she leads and succeeds.

Rituals

3.1

A ritual is a set of actions performed that follow a traditional or symbolic pattern.  These apply to things like religion, family, politics, even in everyday life.

I perform a number of rituals regularly in society.  First I go to work Monday through Friday, basically 9-5 (really more like 9-9).  Church is attended at certain times, like Sunday and Wednesday, and following traditional activities during the services (Catholic folks have certain words they say back during the service, and we kneel a lot).  We vote in prearranged elections, and follow the traditional observance of American holidays.

In my family we have some traditions, such as my daughter and I playing trivia  on Thursdays when she is away at school, and my family travels to visit relatives once a year.  My mom and I have recently started a tradition of watching the ten o’clock news together.  We always open one gift on Christmas Eve, and we have a certain ornament that has to be on the tree every year.  For birthdays, we give “experiences” rather than tangible gifts, like going to the zoo, or learning how to skydive.

There are a great many rituals that are prevalent in today’s society.  We sing the national anthem before games, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance to our flag at schools and government meetings.  There are a huge amount of ceremonial rituals performed by every religion.  Right now it is Ramadan in the Islamic faith, and observers cannot eat or drink during daylight hours.  Revelers dress up at Halloween, or for Mardi Gras, and observers of Christmas give gifts.  We swear in a witness at a trial, or have visitors sign in at offices.  We send our resume in search of a job, and greet our business cohorts with a handshake.  It goes all the way down to saying hello, and goodbye, in conversations or when meeting others.

A ritual I would like to develop with my family is to spend time together once per week, maybe just have dinner out, and each person tell a story—to share our past with the younger members so that our traditions and history is not lost.

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day...

3.2

The band is just fantastic, that is really what I think. 
Oh, by the way, which one’s Pink?

My very favorite band of all time is Pink Floyd. I am a fan because they create music that is outside the mainstream. I enjoy their experimentation into combinations of rock, blues, jazz and electronica music formats, as well as their story-telling lyrics. I even named my daughter Emily after an early song, "See Emily Play". I find their earlier albums to be exciting, if a bit weird, and their later lyrics to be very intelligent and sometimes sarcastic views of life. My favorite set would be Wish You Were Here, which mocks the music industry, relationships and even the band itself. I like the dystopian story of The Wall, but do not identify with the main character like some fans do. My favorite song, "Time”, reminds me that we only have so much time and to make the most of it.

Especially in the late 1960s, this band was associated with the drug counterculture.  The stereotype was that you could check out on drugs and this “psychedelic” music would aid your trip.  Perhaps that was an early goal of the band, whose members were known to partake themselves, and one of the founding members, Syd Barrett, ended up in a mental institution due to illness exacerbated by drug use.

Syd Barrett

Many fans dislike the “stoner” label, and tend to fall closer to intellectual, academia, or hipster circles, finding philosophy in the lyrics more than escape in the musical style. Certainly there were those fans that preferred to trip out to kaleidoscope-style plasma screens with ‘Floyd’s distinct sound, but I didn’t actually know any of those folks.

Following Syd Barrett’s exit, the band’s stereotype changed somewhat in the 1970s as they achieved great success both in sales and in critical acclaim for their tightly engineered concept albums.  1973’s Dark Side of the Moon remained in the Billboard charts for 741 weeks, longer than any other in history, and is one of the best-selling albums worldwide.  Roger Waters is completing a mega-tour of the late 1970s The Wall this month, having given it new meaning with the current worldwide economic climate and events in the Middle East. This all from a band that got relatively little radio airplay and was seen as simply psychedelic pop music.

Having moved in to the “serious artist” category, and also due to disputes and egos of the songwriters, they were sometimes seen as prima donna art rock.  Roger Waters and David Gilmour were regarded as “difficult artist types”.  Also, since they were British, there were a number of stereotypes assigned by the American audience.

Britons are seen as less attractive, generally pale, lanky and gaunt with bad teeth, and arrogant though quiet and reserved. The band itself plays on many of the perceived British traits in their music, as seen in a line from my favorite song “Time”, “Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way…”.  British rock stars are seen as sexually gregarious, drunkard or drug users, and less refined than their countrymen.

Though their infighting and egos destroyed the unity of the band, the result has been the extraordinary continuation of the band’s legacy through Roger Water’s and David Gilmour’s solo efforts and a number of Pink Floyd albums without Waters.  If you checked my car’s CD player right now you would find Gilmour’s recent On an Island, which is every bit as haunting and beautiful as 1971’s Meddle. Last year, I took my daughter to see a phenomenal show when Roger performed The Wall live in Cleveland. While the recent death of keyboardist Richard Wright ended fans’ dreams of seeing the band reunite, the music still continues.

Satire and Irony in the age of TV

1.3.2 This post is a review based on an article in the Journal of Pop Culture entitled Political Satire and Postmodern Irony in the Age of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart.  You would need an OhioLink signin to view the article as linked.

             In Political Satire and Postmodern Irony in the Age of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, Lisa Colletta, Associate Professor of English at the American University in Rome, examines the concepts of satire, irony and their effects in the television age.  Has entertainment and political satire changed the political arena, or have changes in the process of politics and news changed the business of satirizing it?

What is satire, she asks, and how does it use irony?  Both of these terms are much misused these days and widely misunderstood due to poor references in literature and entertainment media.  Both terms indicate mockery, and the author clarifies that today’s political satire is cynical and bases reality on the viewer’s interpretation of reality rather than what is really behind the curtain.  She calls the type of political satire done on television “pastiche” which she defines as a “neutral form of mimicry.”  TV mocks itself, she explains, but entertains us while doing so.

While the satirists have entertained us about TV, the politicians and news anchors, due to the nature of TV, have themselves become performers and the focus of the story rather than reporting the political ideology.  Ms. Colletta muses that the staged antics of the politicians and the news reporters make it less important who is in power since all of the players on both sides are seen as fake and in the end it doesn’t appear that anything we can do would change things.  The satirists then further mimicking the folly of the politicians makes the idea of change seem impossible.

The question then becomes does the form of mimicry and de-evolution of the news turn viewers off of politics or create a stronger understanding of political processes.  As cited in the article, a 1946 entry from LIFE magazine suggests that what is needed is an engagement on the part of the viewer and his belief that this engagement can exact a change, and without this belief then satire does nothing but remove the viewer’s faith in the political institutions and news services.  The author examines the history of satire and its origins to find its purpose has always been to support hope and progress through shock and insult.  She uses Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” about using babies to feed the hungry, as an example of satire gone sadly wrong when readers took the writing seriously.

Ms. Colletta then turns to specific examples of the differences of today’s televised political discourse by comparing Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly’s commentaries with Stephen Colbert’s satirical take on the conservative viewpoint and find they use many of the same devices creating confusion and perhaps dangerous perceptions since one is considered authoritative and the other comedy.  The perceptions also depend on the viewer himself—either by finding agreement and seeing the humor, or through disagreement and possible anger.  The viewer is emotionally invested in one side or another and once they find themselves as part of the butt of the joke, they are no longer laughing.

In summary, the author compares the satire of old to television’s new “pastiche” style, and sees the comedy shows satirizing the process of the televisionization of politics rather than the politics.  Everything in the news, political and satirical formats rests solely on the presenters and the viewers’ opinions rather than facts.  As it has turned out, shows like Colbert Report and The Daily Show use more facts in their criticism of the news and politician opinions and to point out how fake these institutions are becoming when they should be the reality.  In the end it appears that this is what is most effectively causing political change.

The politicians have become the performers and the performers have become the most reliable sources.  It remains to be seen if this is the death of satire or simply an evolution to a more open-minded public through satire.

References

Colletta, L. (2009). Political Satire and Postmodern Irony in the Age of Stephen Colbert and Jon
Stewart. The Journal of Popular Culture, 42(5), 856-874.

Society and Culture – The Internet just got here, why is it so important?

1.5 Society and Culture -  1980s to the present:  The Internet

There is an excellent online resource about what the Internet is and where it came from called Hobbes’ Internet Timeline (http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/).  Here, Robert Zakon lays out the events that led to this tool in painstaking detail.  The Global Internet Society also offers great insight on the history and future of the Internet (http://www.internetsociety.org/).  Even though most people have only been aware of the Internet since sometime in the mid-1990s-not even twenty years yet- there are already people in the profession of “Internet Historian”, seeking to make sense of this phenomenon (http://www.nethistory.info/index.html).

The problem with Internet history is that it reads like a can of alphabet soup—The DOD started ARPANET with MIT and AT&T founded USENET and UUCP, and TCP and IEEE split in to TCP/IP to form a better communication network, and then CERN and CERF and CERT and EARN and even FIDO and a Gopher got involved.  This was long before WWW, or AOL, or NAPSTER, or EBAY, or FB. 

My recollection isn’t quite as formal.  I was a big nerd in the 70s and 80s…well, I still am.  My dad was what advertising agencies refer to as an “Early Adopter”, meaning he was always ready to consume the newest technology and so I was able to coattail on his computer curiosity.

I know we had boxes of flashing lights that we could program to flash on command, etc., as early as when I was in grade school in the 70s, but it was when I was just out of high school in the mid to late 80s that things starting taking off in the computer world.  At the time there were no Internet service providers, no world wide web, no high speed….you had to dial in on a phone line to the computer you wanted to interact with.  You could find the numbers in a mega magazine called Computer Shopper, which was the size of a newspaper and thick as a phone book.  You could also access certain wider area services by dialing in to a local access line, such as one at the University of Akron, and use their server to access files on other educational and governmental servers.

Consider this, high speed Internet travels at about 10 megabits per second today, but back then we were talking 1400-14000 bits per second…SLOWWWWW.  I got an array of modems, so I could host my own billboard service and shared code I wrote to modify games like DOOM and Wolfenstein.  We nerds also had “conventions” were we all got together and played games and shared code.

The media ignored the Internet; it was just a bunch of kids to them.  Industry and commerce ignored it since they hadn’t yet figured out how to sell stuff yet.  Politics ignored it since it wasn’t mainstream and they didn’t realize the type of opinion and information that could be shared on USENET Newsgroups, which was really the beginning of the way the Internet has been used to form and foster subversion in the Arab world recently, and in other parts of the world.

Then Tim Berners-Lee at MIT perfected hypertext markup and invented the World Wide Web.  Suddenly everyone in the world wanted to be on it and be seen, and make money.  Once commercialized, the Internet became the most important communication tool ever—connecting not only person to person but person to world, and world to person. 

As things fell in to place in the 2000s—ways to identify places, ways to find places, ways to search for info, ways to present info, etc.—now we had an unregulated playground where anyone could be a big company and show or sell whatever they wanted.  No wonder that some of the biggest businesses online have come from pornography, gambling and the theft of others intellectual property.  Good has also flourished – eBay lets you have a yard sale to the world, LinkedIn permits global personal networking, and Facebook and YouTube make everyone a star.  I can do all of my holiday shopping without ever leaving the house (I did that last year), and I can talk to and see my daughter on a picture phone from Paris (Skype is wonderful).

My job wouldn’t exist without the Internet.  Not only do I work for one of the biggest Internet Service Providers in the country, but my own position is writing copy for web delivered databases and building intranet sites. 

As much as my position and other related jobs were created by this tool, I have to wonder how many other jobs are now defunct because of it.  Think about bank tellers, brick and mortar store clerks, long distance companies, librarians, even educators…what is the future in those industries?  And how many writers, artists, entertainers, and musicians aren’t able to continue their craft due to not being able to secure their product from theft online?  Is this at least partially responsible for our current economic issues and unemployment?

I believe that one of the biggest hurdles for the future of the Internet will be how to regulate it and still foster creativity, without damaging the freedom of expression that needs to remain.  Otherwise, the future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades.  :)

Political Satire: Duty or Distraction?

1.4.2

In this presidential election year we are bombarded with commentary and analysis from any number of press pundits, but we are also subjected to an ongoing barrage of late night monologues, satirical stand-up routines, sitcom plots, animated farces and targeted print ads and comics. 



David Letterman


 

Conan O'Brien

 

This less serious treatment of the issues and candidates is an important part of the campaign process, giving us ways to laugh at ourselves and at the ridiculousness of this serious and emotionally charged material that may greatly affect the course of our lives.  It also allows us to treat the candidates as human and fallible.  The candidates themselves hopefully recognize the power of a strong pop culture base and their place in that arena.  By blocking the flow of pop culture they can jeopardize the very existence of the government, such as happened when Rome ignored it and when Hitler frowned upon such frivolity and both cultures saw a premature decline.            

From the early days of radio and vaudeville, to today’s vast cable landscape, political jokesters not only build icons of the famous and infamous in the political arena, but also of themselves. 



Will Rogers Commentary Promo



Bob Hope and Will Rogers were endearing and witty but also sparked protests, and 50s performer Lenny Bruce sparked lawsuits.  Also in the 50s many performers of color, such as Dick Gregory or Redd Foxx found themselves involved in the political process as much as those they satirized, in the civil rights and other movements.  

Dick Gregory

Lenny Bruce

 

The Capital Steps Comedy Troupe



 Today, the lines between entertainment and news, between comedy, satire and commentary have all been blurred.  The “Capital Steps” troupe adds humorous undertones for current news stories, while many more Americans are watching Comedy Central’s Daily Show and Colbert Report for a new take on the daily news.  News about these shows on the Colbert News Hub reveal a list of high profile events, from a huge Washington, DC rally, the establishment of a Super PAC fund, to a run for the presidency by Stephen Colbert himself.   Mr. Colbert and Jon Stewart were named by Time magazine in their list of the county’s most influential people, and they have definitely risen to the rank of pop culture icons in a very real sense, not only the celebrity effect, but also the hero effect for being on the public side on the political stage.  

Myths also abound.  The Daily Show and Colbert Report not only critique news at a time when politics so divided and political discourse is so important, but also the whole fabric of television tends to suffer from a bias that its content is all entertainment and not serious anyway.  Neil Postman, in his book “Amusing Ourselves to Death” considers the popularity of the blurred combination of TV news and comedy from the Daily Show and Colbert Report when real news may be too complicated or dry to be the same type of distraction as the comforting soma of Aldous Huxley’s alternate society in “Brave New World”.

I myself believe that there is a desire for a distraction in the current political climate.  Never before have the parties and ideologies been so far divided and never before has real news been so clearly slanted one way or another.  I think it's the right time for responsible satirists and comedians to be our pop culture icons and give America a new way to understand all the complicated issues facing us today.

We need to build totems and shrines and icons, but nobody's sure in honor of what.---Robyn Hitchcock, Musician

2.1

Certain symbols or images in pop culture have the ability to make us immediately have the same collective recognition.  These icons convey a time and place, or a feeling to which we can all relate—though not always in the same way, and some more polarizing than others.

Andy Griffith died the other day and I was reminded of his enduring popularity, and the symbolism of the Andy Griffith Show, the endearing sitcom that went off the air in 1968 but has run in syndication ever since.  Andy’s sensibility, Aunt Bee’s fidgety voice, Opie’s innocence and Barney’s bumbling have charmed generation after generation of the TV age.  By solving the problems of everyone in Mayberry with good old-fashioned humor and common sense, Sheriff Andy Taylor became the dad and protector the viewers all believed in.  Andy’s ear-to-ear grin brings us all back to the uncomplicated world of the early sixties in rural North Carolina.

In contrast, the current version of TV’s family values is embodied in Family Guy.  Dad Peter Griffin offers an inept role model for his outcast daughter, ne’er do well older son, and Stewie, a diabolical super villain baby aided by his martini-sipping sidekick dog, Brian.  The conservative watchdog group, The Parents Television Council, has listed the show on its “Worst Prime-Time Shows for Family Viewing”, and the FCC has received numerous complaints about the show’s vulgarity.   Will Family Guy have the same longevity as Andy Griffith?  Only time will tell.

As we approach a new presidential election I am reminded of an image that was everywhere four years ago.  Shepard Fairey’s Obama “Hope” poster became the defacto symbol of Barack Obama’s campaign, with interchangeable tag lines—Hope, Change, and Progress.  The simple, pop art design was appealing to the young voter market that Obama wanted to reach.  The image was highly visible in poster form or in online form—and the online venue is where Obama changed the format of the political campaign forever by earning more in online contributions and using social media networks to effectively campaign to technology users, while his aging opponent, John McCain, had little comprehension of the connected world.

To further solidify the iconic status of Fairey’s image, it has been parodied and turned in to a common online meme format, both in negative commentary toward the president and for other, less serious purposes.

 

 

POP CULTURE: Is it Popular or Cultural?

1.2

What is Pop Culture?  We have all seen Andy Warhol's repetitive prints, reflecting common images back at us in cotton candy colors, but what does it mean?

By most accounts, the term "Pop Culture" is hard to define.  It varies between groups of people and is itself very transient and subject to trends and fads.  I would define it simply as the common consciousness of a cultural group... meaning that "American Pop Culture" would be what most or all Americans are aware of and are subjected to in daily life.  It is the collective assortment of people, things, technologies, media, etc., that we become familiar with on a mass scale.

To identify popular culture is easier.  Consider the names of the famous or infamous that would be recognized at any gathering.  Think of the many TV shows, songs, video games, cartoons, politicians, political or social groups, memes, images, and other knowledge that is common among your peers, even if you don't have direct experience with those people or things.

In today's society we are inundated with information from a wider variety of sources than ever before. In the past, an icon might have taken a much longer time to become well-known or a protest to be organized with only word of mouth or early print resources, and even in to the days of radio, but popular culture has always be a factor in any given demographic group of people.

I believe that being familiar with popular culture can be beneficial to a person in business, giving one common ground for conversation and camaraderie with a wider spectrum of other people.  In my industry its required.  I work in telecommunications, for a company that supplies subscribers with television programming, internet services and programming, telephone services and other data services.  It is my industry that brings people like Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber to the world.  For me, knowing popular culture is simply product knowledge at work.

 

As a pop culture artifact, I submit the cable box.  I believe that cable television might be the largest source and influencer of popular culture over the last thirty years.  Through cable, America has become the most informed and also the most distracted society in the world.  Cable took us from only being able to view the news at 6 and 11 to a variety of 24-hour news and analysis channels-- and created stars or villains out of the presenters and the subjects of the stories.  

Cable offers immediate stock information, up to the minute weather information, channels dedicated to teaching us how to cook or how to decorate, others that educate us on the past, or nature, or technology, even about the latest cars, or music, or video game releases.  Most every religion is represented on cable TV.  

But cable also gives ample bandwidth to provide dalliances about celebrities and to create pseudo-celebrities, along with a window to lifestyles we never imagined existed.  We have shows about UFOs, bigfoot, sexual deviance, and living dangerously.  We can see slices of life from all corners of the world and all sorts of activities, from the most respected to the least savory.

I hear lots of complaints about reality television.  Most say these shows are so over the top and no one really lives like that.  Often I hear that some of these shows are degrading us, pulling us down and destroying society.  I say that it is really a natural progression of the past popular culture.

Why wouldn't ladies who grew up with Barbie and her vast empire, and with TV soap operas and prime time dramas where everyone wore black tie and evening gowns to the grocery store, appreciate the Real Housewives of whatever city they're in this time?  It seems easy to expect that those grew up in the 1970s "Me Generation", and their children who were given unprecedented attention, would be fascinated with shows where the average Joe is the star, or with venues like You Tube where they can shine as well.  Why not find respect in the Daily Show or the Colbert Report, or even the faintly-masked political humor of South Park and the Simpsons, after the proliferation of late night talk show monologues and satirical comics like George Carlin or Dave Barry.  

While some might find it drivel, I still see great value in cable television including it's lowest common denominators.  The world is in the box, and you can travel it with your remote.