January 14, 2009

• -[PoP] CULTURE-

  {I've been reading the text for my class on Religion/Pop Culture in America and the smearing of my pencil peeeeves me.  O_O}

  "Popular culture is like a mirror, reflecting who we are.  Yet when we look into the mirror, the images are somewhat altered or distorted, because only portions of our realities, interests, values, and desires are reflected back to us [...].  As a result, Nachbar and Lause and others refer to popular culture as a funhouse mirror."

  "Popular culture both reflects us and shapes us."

  I think popular culture of the past was probably much richer and meaningful then the pop culture of our generation.  I guess I cannot be completely sure of that statement based on the fact that the only things I know about the pop culture of other generations has been from anything I've gathered from history or that has some how trickled into my hands/eyes.

  Ours seems to have become brain-fried television/internet and silly drama and mass hysterics over the things that we ALL MUST HAVE MUST KNOW ABOUT MUST LIVEANDBREATHE.  (Gosh Yahoo!_®!  Why do Brangelina show up on front page every other day?  I didn't know Yahoo!_® was a tabloid too.  If I wasn't too lazy to change my mail carrier...).  I think when I was a kid (not all that long ago) mass culture was less monolithic and I had more freedom to be interested in things other than the Spice Girls or Pokemon cards (though as third of fourth grader I found those fascinating).   Seeing that I also do not spend much time with kids, the only sorts of things I hear that they like is OH HANNAH MONTANA! High School Musical! Jonas Brothers!  Where's the individuality?  Being washed out by mass-culture.  Or so it might seem, to me, an outsider.  Maybe they aren't really all bad.  [I guess individuals just hide in the shadows?] IDK.When I was a kid I admired people like Bill Nye the Science Guy.  At least that had substance (and a lot of it!).

  There's a dream in my brain that just won't go away.
  

  ---

  According to this book (random facts/stats/quotes):

  "Ninety-five percent of Americans indicate that they believe in some sort of God or Higher Power."
  [Though I stopped trusting statistics to some extent, I still pretending statistics are true.  Who knows.]

  Nationalism, materialism, athletic competition. <--things often treated almost religiously. 
  (Think about it!  Not just in the context of the United States, since nationalism hasn't been all that high with Bush in office .)

  "How does religion appear in expressions of popular culture?" The book points out E.T.--"a special being with healing powers who came to earth, was loved by many, was misunderstood and feared by authorities, and finally experienced death and resurrection."  (I don't really remember if I watched E.T. or anything really about it, but I'm not sure if I would've even noticed the connection if I wasn't prompted or trying to analyze it. XD

  "Superhuman abilities reflect a hope of divine, redemptive powers that science has never eradicated from the popular mind." 
  True? (Religion-Jesus; Pop culture-Shrek, Harry Potter, apparently E.T., Superman, my brother suggested the character from I Am Legend; I haven't seen that so I don't know)

  "[Neil] Postman argues that American culture has moved from a print-dominated age to the Age of Television. [...] Print culture (the Age of Typography, of Exposition), by the very nature of its mode of communication, encouraged coherent, orderly, serious, rational discourse with propositional content.  Television, he says shifts us to an image-based culture that features explosions of images, fragmented rather than coherent, emphasizing sensation and feeling rather than rationality.  Postman calls the television era the Age of Show Business."
  Too true; but at the same time I think it isn't all bad adding emphasis to sensation and feeling.  A happy medium.  I love moderation.

  Postman's ideas also raises the question "When religion is presented as entertainment, does the basic content and character of religion change?" Televangelists etc.

  "So sports or television provide public rituals, private rites, myths and symbol systems through which their followers interpret the world, just as religions do?" The author notes Trekkies and their reenactments as an example.

  11 pages to read, and I haven't answered my questions yet!  Ah! Homeworkblah!  But at least es interesante!
  

  ---

  Sometimes it is scary to reflect upon mortality, since generally we don't know when the day will come.

  I just hope I don't regret what I didn't say.
  Or do.

  • 12:08 am
  • 6 Comments