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High Art and Popular Culture2^nd year Lecture Notes: Michael Moor

^{Features of Popular Culture}

Easy to understand

Exploitative

Sensationalist

Escapist

…originates from the people...

•      caters for the here and now...

•      well liked by many people…

•      work deliberately setting out to win favor with a mass audience…COMMERCIAL!

•      substandard?

•      what is left over after we have decided what High Culture is…?

However…both opera and ballet were once considered ‘popular entertainment’….as was Shakespeare!

…perhaps one day ‘Eastenders’ will be considered High Art?

New Materials Such As Vinyl and Celluloid Revolutionised the Performing Arts! Drama and Music in Particular. For example in 1903 The First Western Was Made : The Great Train Robbery: Directed by Edwin Porter.

^{FEATURES OF HIGH ART}

Formal Complexity

Moral Worth

Critical Insight

Elitist

….there is a suggestion surrounding the concept of High Art that in order to be worthwhile it has to be difficult to understand….being difficult ensures its exclusivity, status and mystique..

High Art is ‘imposed’.

..and does not tend to invite participation!

West Side Story is a good example of the complex relationship between High Art and Popular culture.

 

Why might we need  definitions?

The  Arts Council!

Funding bodies dealing with the public purse will not generally fund commercial ventures no matter how worthy!

...the distinction between high art and  popular culture is increasingly a distinction between commercial and non commercial...

In this respect High Art can also be seen as a ‘tool’ for cultural propaganda!
 

Some Marxist Cultural theorists see the ‘friction’ between popular culture/high art as a ‘class’ issue….

 ...some other useful perspectives to consider..

Feminist

Semiotic/Structualist

Political

Historical

Recommended!!

•      Antonio Gramsci:                       Marxist

•      Louis Althusser:                         Marxist

•      Roland Barthes:                     Semiotics

•      Michel Foucault:          Philosophical/Historic

•      Claude Levi-Strauss:  Anthropological

•      Laura Mulvey:                         Feminist

Bibliography / further reading for this Lecture:

Storey, J(1993)An Introductory Guide to Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. Harvester Wheatsheaf

Kershaw B.(92) The Politics of Performance: Routledge

Carlson M.(96) Performance: a critical introduction: Routledge

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Last changed: May 03, 2000