Pop. Kitsch. In tagalog, masa, bakya, baduy. And when these words are said, it is always accompanied by a derisive tone, as if talking about something distateful, something offensive. And for some, pop, or popular is something unacceptable. Never mind if the vast majority love it- music, movies, literature. If it is branded as pop, then it tolls its own cultural demise as something insignificant. Popular culture, also known as mass culture or kitsch (German for mass or common), is generally looked down upon as vulgar, shallow, and worthless. Popular culture is often characterized as exploitative and is created solely for profit. Popular culture is described as a cancerous growth on high culture that takes advantage of fully matured cultural tradition, extracting its riches and putting nothing back. Popular culture is proscribed controlling powers onto the passive susceptibility of the ignorant masses, to which decisions lie between consumption or no consumption. Popular culture integrates the masses in a form of debased high culture.*
Popular culture remains an integral part of society, and though suspicion may be justly cast upon it, popular culture as a possible description of society cannot altogether be dismissed. Popular culture becomes the resource available in constructing meaning, identity and habitable space, especially in a consumer society. Through pop culture, we sense the identity of the “faceless, nameless mass,” its soul even. It may not suit the finer tastes of the cultured, perhaps. It may even be a sensory affront to some, but since when has it been the elitists' and the select few's responsibility to dictate the way one thinks, or appreciates art, no matter how pedestrian? Such arrogant imperialism should not only be subverted, or coopted, but radically opposed. The popular culture reflects the identity of the people, and to deny it is to deny their own personhood. No more apologies. No more defensive self-deprecation when one loves pop. Be assertive.
All that to say that today, while browsing in a second hand bookshop, a song came on the radio, and it lifted my spirits. I loved the rhythm, the hypnotic beat, and the totally nonsensical refrain, “Asehere he he he” of that song popular a few years back. Pop. Kitsch. Baduy. Who cares?
*See Roxanne Howdle, Is High Culture Superior to Mass Culture: If So, Why?, internet; available from www.essaybank.co.uk/ search.cgi?LinkOrwne=roxanne_howdle; internet; accessed 28 August 2002. See also Colin MacCabe, The Eloquence of the Vulgar: Cinema and the Politics of Culture (London, England: British Film Institute, 1999); Jean Baudrillard, “A Conjuration of Imbeciles,” internet; available from www.uta.edu/english/apt/collab/texts/conjuration.htm; accessed 20 September 2002.
Popular culture remains an integral part of society, and though suspicion may be justly cast upon it, popular culture as a possible description of society cannot altogether be dismissed. Popular culture becomes the resource available in constructing meaning, identity and habitable space, especially in a consumer society. Through pop culture, we sense the identity of the “faceless, nameless mass,” its soul even. It may not suit the finer tastes of the cultured, perhaps. It may even be a sensory affront to some, but since when has it been the elitists' and the select few's responsibility to dictate the way one thinks, or appreciates art, no matter how pedestrian? Such arrogant imperialism should not only be subverted, or coopted, but radically opposed. The popular culture reflects the identity of the people, and to deny it is to deny their own personhood. No more apologies. No more defensive self-deprecation when one loves pop. Be assertive.
All that to say that today, while browsing in a second hand bookshop, a song came on the radio, and it lifted my spirits. I loved the rhythm, the hypnotic beat, and the totally nonsensical refrain, “Asehere he he he” of that song popular a few years back. Pop. Kitsch. Baduy. Who cares?
*See Roxanne Howdle, Is High Culture Superior to Mass Culture: If So, Why?, internet; available from www.essaybank.co.uk/ search.cgi?LinkOrwne=roxanne_howdle; internet; accessed 28 August 2002. See also Colin MacCabe, The Eloquence of the Vulgar: Cinema and the Politics of Culture (London, England: British Film Institute, 1999); Jean Baudrillard, “A Conjuration of Imbeciles,” internet; available from www.uta.edu/english/apt/collab/texts/conjuration.htm; accessed 20 September 2002.
Comments