Reference no: EM133341190

We will explore the relationship between cultural consumption and social class in America. In particular, we will describe the blurring of class boundaries in American Popular Culture.

At the foundations of the definition of popular culture is the notion that there is culture of "everyday" people who stand in contrast to the culture of people who did not live in "everyday" circumstances and experience "every day" existence. Typically, the division highlighted here is between the middle and lower-class "commoners" and upper-class elites who do not live everyday lives and share commoner experiences that inform the culture they consume.

Some authors, such as Grazian (2010), use the terms "high brow" and "low brow" culture.

High brow culture refers to arts (classical music, ballet, etc.) that are consumed by the affluent classes and represent the most intellectual and civilizing of leisurely pursuits.

Low brow refers to mass/common culture associated with the working class (rap, blues, country music, rodeos, and mainstream sports).

The distinctions between high and low brow culture are fluid and change over time; for example, jazz was considered low-brow in the 1920s and accused of ruining the culture of elites, but then the music was considered high art in the 1940s and 1950s.

What are the "high art" and "low art" forms of today? Consider Marvel-style superhero films. Famous directors such as Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott, and Francis Ford Coppola have all said that these superhero movies are ruining film in some way or another. They consider some films "high art" and others, like the Marvel films, as "low art" because they are popular and, some argue, formulaic. However, other people defend the Marvel films, noting that they carry classical themes (much like the myths of the Greek gods), and that film as an art was not always "high art." In fact, the film was considered silly and low-brow for many decades, and some detractors thought that there was no future in it. (Television, too, was considered the "small screen" and less prestigious than film, until the last several decades demonstrated that high-quality shows could also gain mainstream popularity.)

In his book, Mix it Up, Grazian (2010) looks beyond consumer preferences to assess how people attribute significance and meaning to popular culture, and discusses how cultural meaning is a product of human engagement and interpretation. Unlike traditional models of culture, which imagined texts, dramatic plays, sound recordings, film, and visual art as "walnuts" to be cracked open to reveal and consume the interiors, contemporary social scientists recognize that cultural meanings are active created-in socially patterned ways-by audiences themselves. Looking at how audiences make meaning with the media they consume is often referred to as "reception studies."

According to Grazian, audiences are generally on a quest to make sense of popular culture. Cultural meaning is a product of human engagement and interpretation, and it draws from personal memories and social circumstances such as identity and cultural background. When these identities inform understandings of culture in patterned ways, they are called interpretive communities. Interpretive communities share a specific intellectual, religious or political worldview within a larger institutional context; for instance, fans of the show Supernatural may share a worldview that allows them to embrace a show that others with a different worldview may see as sacrilegious.

Culture wars are cultural conflicts fought among representatives of particular ideologies in the public arena. Cultural meaning is not fixed and shifts over time, as the interpreters do. For example, as mentioned earlier, movies were once considered the lowest denominator of entertainment, inferior to more "legitimate" live theater, but this has changed over time. Right now, in American society, we are debating what genres of film (superhero, comedy, drama, sci-fi) are worthy of awards and accolades, and which ones are considered unworthy.

1. What are the main arguments made in the course materials assigned for this week about the relationship between social class and cultural consumption?

2. Do you think there are value differences today between popular culture and high culture? Why/why not? Include specific examples to support your argument.