4. POP CULTURE VS. HIGH
CULTURE
High Culture
Matthew Arnold, 1869, Culture and
Anarchy
Defined culture as "the disinterested
endeavor after man's perfection”
For moral and political good
Much of the definition of culture is
debated
5. HIGH AND LOW
CULTURE
High Culture Low Culture
Elite
Cultured
Refined
“Real” Art
Mass
Entertainment
Not refined
Not cultured
Literature
Classical Music
Sculpture, Paintings
Television
Pop music
But…
Cultural Critic, Walter
Benjamin:
High culture demands
concentration
Walter Benjamin:
Offers distraction
6. POP CULTURE VS. HIGH
CULTURE
High culture includes:
Literature
Not popular best sellers as much as
classics
Philosophy
Paintings
But not decorative arts
Performing Arts
Now would include cinema, at least
some types
7. GENDER AND HIGH
CULTURE
Your projects have focused on pop culture, but
high culture also conveys messages about gender:
Philosophy/ Literature/ Art: “Woman’s place”
Images also:
http://www.youtube.com/user/eggman913#p/u/16/
nUDIoN-_Hxs
8. PROBLEMS WITH
DEFINITIONS
Economic
High culture costs $$
Low culture is affordable
Really? Compare costs for some classical music concerts and
big pop stars.
History
Shakespeare was pop culture once…but now?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ii5PLxnNpk
Geography
In many places, Western Cultural values considered higher
than traditional values (contested terrain)
9. :Definitions of Popular Culture:
1. Popular culture is well-liked or widely
favored
2. Popular culture is not HIGH CULTURE
3. Popular culture is MASS CULTURE
4. Popular culture emerges from the
people
10. 5. Popular culture is a site of
struggle between dominant and
subordinate groups in society
6. Postmodern culture is the
collapse of high/low culture
distinctions
11. CULTURAL STUDIES
Cultural studies refers to the
interdisciplinary analysis of a
phenomenon or phenomena in the
context of its social value, influence
and ideology.
Uses sociology, literary theory,
visual studies, art history, gender,
race, and area studies, political
science, anthropology, etc.
12. LIMITS BETWEEN HIGH AND POP
While the boundaries between
high and popular cultures have
never been completely
delineated, cultural studies has
blurred them even more.
17. SO WHAT DOES THIS HAVE
TO DO
WITH WOMEN’S STUDIES?
To begin with we examine how
women are represented in the
media
Historically
Intertextually (similarities and
differences)
Both as producers and consumers
of the media
18. AND MORE:
How do these representations
affect real people’s lives
How money is spent
What image should be followed
Eating Disorders
Fashion, modesty, behaviors
19. THE GAZE
The gaze: “How an audience
views the people presented”,
who is doing the looking, for
whose pleasure the images are
presented
20. THE MALE GAZE
The male gaze is a concept from film
theory, but it has been used to analyze
many types of visual media, including
photography and advertising.
The basic idea is that images are
framed specifically for a heterosexual
male viewer.
Postulated by Laura Mulvey in 1975
in the essay “Visual Pleasure and
Narrative Cinema”
21. IN OTHER WORDS…
Throughout the history of
cinema, male directors have
historically objectified women by
dint of their 'controlling male
gaze,' presenting Woman as
'image' or 'spectacle' and Man as
'beholder' or 'bearer of the look.'
Men do the looking; women are
there to be looked at.
22. More true in
1975 then now
But it still
applies
Began with
film, but can
be applied to
TV, Ads, etc.
23. HOWTHEGAZE
WORKS
The woman in the advertisement
becomes what’s being bought and
sold: buy the product, get the
girl; or buy the product to get to
be like the girl so you can get
your man” in other words, “‘Buy’
the image, ‘get’ the woman” In
this way, the male gaze enables
women to be a commodity that
helps the products to get sold
(the “sex sells” adage).
The object of the male gaze is
sold to men and women!
25. The previous image, which is a panel taken from the
comic All Star Batman And Robin, the Boy Wonder
juxtaposed with the script written by author Frank
Miller (released in the director’s edition of the comic),
illustrates the way that the male gaze works in a
concrete way. When Miller says, “We can’t take our eyes
off her” he is speaking directly of his presumably male
audience, and the follow up (”Especially since she’s got
one fine ass.”) says loud and clear that her sexualized
portrayal is for the pleasure of the envisioned
heterosexual male viewer. In essence, Viki Vale’s
character is there to reassure the readership of their
hetero-masculinity while simultaneously denying Vicki
any agency of her own outside of that framework. She is
the quintessential watched by male watchers: the
writer/director (Frank), his artist, and the presumed
male audience that buys the book.
26. DINOSAURS AND THE MALE
GAZE
http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=859
Humorous discussion of the gaze
27.
28. OTHER GAZES DO EXIST
Female Gaze
Queer Gaze
Sometimes
unsettling images
29. GAZE AND EARLY FILM
Early film not officially censured, but debated.
May Irwin Kiss (1896)
Tame compared to some other early film!
30. EARLY FILM CONTINUED
First public screening of a film in Dec 1895
Sex sells: pioneering French film-maker Georges
Melies directed the very short 'adult' film Après
Le Bal (1897, Fr.) (After the Ball, Bath) with
one of the earliest nude scenes in film history.
Le Coucher de la Marie (1896, Fr.) in which
Louise Willy performed the first strip tease
onscreen
Hypocrites (1914) featured full female nudity
A Free Ride (1915) was reportedly the earliest-
known silent stag ('men only') or pornographic
film - with explicit sex scenes
31. SCANDALS IN
HOLLYWOOD
"America's Sweetheart" star Mary Pickford
married Douglas Fairbanks on March 28, 1920,
after they both divorced spouses to marry each
other.
A symbol of the erosion of values in Hollywood.
Contrary to the scandalous affair, Pickford had
always played innocent young women in her
films, such as Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
(1917) (the 25 year-old star portrayed a
teenager), and in the year of the divorce-
remarriage (when she was 28) portrayed a 12
year-old orphan in Pollyanna (1920).
34. HAYS CODE (1934-1968)
Censorship bills were introduced in many states
and localities.
In 1922, the Motion Picture Producers and
Distributors of America (MPPDA) was formed by
the studios. Conservative former Postmaster
General William H. Hays was appointed to head
the organization.
Efforts to clean up the motion picture industry
before the public's anger at declining morality
depicted in films hurt the movie business.
35. BEFORE GEORGE CARLIN….
The eleven "Don'ts" included prohibition of
profanity, suggestive nudity, use of illegal drugs,
sexual perversion, white slavery, miscegenation,
sex hygiene and venereal diseases, childbirth,
children's sex organs, ridicule of the clergy, and
willful offense to any nation, race, or creed. The
twenty-six "Be Carefuls" were only cautionary,
such as the elimination of the depiction of
criminality, excessive brutality, murder and
rape, excessive (over 3 seconds) and lustful
kissing, and the depiction of men and women
sleeping together in the same bed.
36. BACK TO GEORGE CARLIN…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFmRypAYz_E
37. EFFECT ON WOMEN IN
FILM
Pre-Hays, women were racier but more realistic.
Had powerful jobs.
Affairs with married men.
Seduced other women.
Had babies out of wedlock.
Got divorced.
Mae West: "Come up and see me sometime"
38. WHILE POST-HAYS
Women less brazen, less powerful, less sexual.
Many times, “female in peril” who needed to be
rescued.
Moralistic films.
Motherly love and sacrifice.
Suffering.
“Soft-core emotional porn for the frustrated
housewife”.
39. FILM NOIR
Women represented all that they were not
supposed to be: vamps, liars, criminals.
Fit in with Hays Code because they “got their
comeuppance” .
Sexual but brainy.
Not equal though: lost of mistrust and fear
between male and female characters.
40. FILM RATINGS TODAY
Motion Picture Association of America's 1968
ratings were adopted because the Hays Code was
considered out of date.
First G, PG, R, and X
Now G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17 (NR and X not
official)
Some want a Heavy R to replace NC-17 due to
economic reasons. Has culture become more
pornographic?
41. High/low/pop Culture
Cultural Studies
Intertextuality
Male Gaze (other gazes)
Early film and scandals
Hay’s Code (and women’s roles)
Film Noir
Film rating today
