Writing - student papers
| Term Paper
for Methodologies Robert W. Standlee 463-08-6639 Can the Middlebrow Evolve above Mass Culture? In this paper I will examine whether people who are born into the middle class and have been conditioned to mass culture ever develop tastes or appreciation for higher culture. What do I mean by mass culture? In John Storey’s An Introduction to Cultural Theory and Popular Culture, Storey cites Raymond Williams’ three broad definitions of the word culture. The first definition is ‘a general process of intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic development.’ In the West, this can best be thought to describe great philosophers, great artists, and great poets. A second definition might be ‘a particular way of life, whether of a people, a period or a group.’ This definition might best be used to describe the development of literacy, holidays, sport and religious festivals. Finally, Williams suggests, that a third definition might be to refer to ‘the works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity.’ It is the third definition, which identifies culture as signifying practices that best defines mass culture, or popular culture. This is also the definition that would allow us to talk about soap opera, pop music, and comics as examples of culture. (Storey,2) Furthermore, this third definition encompasses part of mass culture that is central to my question above. That part of mass culture is kitsch. In the book Mass Culture, The Popular Arts in America by Bernard Rosenberg and David Manning White I find a wonderful description of kitsch in an essay by Clement Greenberg. In the essay, called Avant-Garde and Kitsch, Greenberg gives the ultimate description of kitsch. He states that kitsch is, ‘popular, commercial art and literature with their chromeotypes, magazine covers, illustrations, ads, slick and pulp fiction, comics, Tin Pan Alley music, tap dancing, Hollywood movies, etc., etc.’ He goes on, ‘Kitsch is a product of the industrial revolution….’ When people moved to urban centers from the countryside, kitsch was the culture that they accepted as entertainment and as a distraction from urban life. He also says that kitsch uses for its raw material ‘the debased and academized simulacra of genuine culture.’ That the precondition for kitsch is the availability of a matured cultural tradition from which to exploit and produce itself for its own ends. Kitsch draws its lifeblood from high culture, waters it down, and serves it up to the masses. (Rosenberg/White, 102) I feel all of this information is still relevant today because all the kitsch products Greenberg mentions are still in existence in some form or another today. In the next part of the paper I will discuss how being conditioned to mass culture and its kitsch attributes effects three of my friends and myself. I will attempt to show whether we show any inclination towards an appreciation of higher culture. I have chosen to discuss friends who have a creative talent whether they are musicians, artists, or writers. Part Two: How does Mass Culture affect People? First of all, I will talk about my friends Karl and Ian. They aspire to be rock musicians and they are very talented. They compose their own music, which reflects the influence of the alternative rock and roll they listen to. You could say that they listen to some of the most ‘avant-garde’ bands currently available in the popular music industry today. Karl and Ian both work in the culture industry. Karl is an assistant manager at Blockbuster Video and Ian works at a Tower Records outlet. They are absorbed in mass culture, they constantly watch television, listen to the kind of music I mentioned above, and are very into Hollywood movies of all types. They are not the sorts of people who would want to attend a classical concert or even go to an art museum. In fact, Karl hates his job and never wants to go out in public because he wants to avoid people. He uses products of mass culture (and the subculture as well) to escape the dissatisfaction he has with his life. He even wrote a song about how he feels he is a prisoner of his TV set. Creatively, I would say that Karl and Ian are avantgarde in the creation of their music within the confines of the genre in which they work. But they are motivated to create their music out of the influence of mass culture. They are not concerned with creating music which might be considered ‘high art’, what they really want is commercial success. They want all the wealth and fame promised to them by mass culture that they would receive as ‘rock stars.’ Karl is someone who I see as actually being damaged by mass culture and to some degree the same can be said of Ian. The culture that Karl and Ian enjoy is escape and this causes them to revolve around an endless cycle of consumption of mass culture and its artifacts. Once again in John Storey’s book, he cites Theodor Adorno’s essay ‘ On Popular Music.’ In this essay Adorno points out that life under capitalism is dull and therefore promotes escape. Popular music promotes passive listening and provides this escape through its endless repetitiveness. ( Storey, 111) Not only does this describe Karl and Ian, there is more. The repetitive nature of popular music produces a desire to always hear ‘new’ music. Thus they consume C.D.’s as if they were physically dependent on them. Because, as Adorno points out hearing a recording of popular music burns itself out as an instanter. I know that Karl is unhappy with his situation but he shows no inclination to arrive at something better. The thought of higher culture probably does not enter into his mind, but that is not to say that higher culture could solve all his problems or make him any happier. The next example of a creative friend is Mike who is a writer. Specifically, he writes screenplays, which he hopes to someday make into Hollywood or Independent films. He has exposure to high art films and cites as an influence Kryztopf Kieslowski, the director of the films Red, White, and Blue. He also admires the work of Stanley Kubrick. His major influences however are Hollywood screenwriters like William Goldman and Lawerance Kasdan. Mike has written 22 screenplays and is completing his 23rd, which he hopes to produce independently later this year. His uncle is a screenwriter who has written for the movies Ghost and Deep Impact and Mike is greatly inspired by him. It is this kind of film that Mike wants to write. Most of his screenplays are romantic comedies and ideally Mike would want them to be Hollywood movies. In contrast to Karl and Ian, Mike has been exposed to and appreciates films of high art, but as a writer he is strongly influenced by mass culture and his work shows that. Mike studies movies and tries to write screenplays that reflect the trends or formulas of those movies. When he writes he is not trying to be Hemingway. He writes movies in much the same way that Karl and Ian (or myself) write a song. We all study products of mass culture and then emulate that in our own work. I don’t want to sound as if I am finding fault with this, but I am trying to make the point that what we all create comes from some kind of mass cultural source and not from high culture. For example, I am a musician as well as a painter. I consider myself to be a very good songwriter. But even though I have been exposed to classical training I have always wanted to play and write pop music. I am very good at writing the kinds of songs that Clement Greenberg would probably refer to as the modern day equivalent to Tin Pan Alley music. As an artist and a student of both music and art, I have been exposed to high culture. My tastes, however, tend to lean towards popular culture. At an early age art interested me because I liked comic books. I still like comic books. Having studied higher culture has not improved my tastes for it more. The thing I most enjoy about Art is painting. I believe I have been exposed to the artist I admire as much through mass culture as through the study of higher culture. So, as an admirer of painters which began when I started studying Art seven years ago–one might say that I have developed tastes for higher culture that were formed by mass culture. You might think to say the same thing about Mike because he appreciates and collects art films. What I think is closer to the truth is we appreciate higher culture when it becomes presented to us through mass culture. (An example of this would be the Barnes Collection exhibit at the Kimball Art Museum where high culture and mass media meet in order to form a popular culture event). In conclusion I would like to say that although my analysis of my friends’ tastes do not reflect that mass culture has led them to evolve to higher tastes, I do not think that means their tastes will never change. But if their tastes do change, I do not believe it will be because of the conditioning to mass culture. Kitsch and mass culture stand I our society as an escape to "entertain" or "distract" people from their lives. I only know a few people who actually read literature as a way to improve themselves. Even they enjoy all the attributes of mass culture. As an artist I would really like to be avant-garde. But I like mass culture. I do not want it to be closed down or turned off. What I would really like to do is make something kitsch, wrap it up in a nice avant-garde package, and sell it for lots of money. That is to say, I would like to take mass culture and make it high culture. |