Pop Culture and the Curriculum

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And, frankly, saying that popular culture doesn't count and shouldn't
be studied goes back centuries as an elitist reaction to the culture
of non-elites.  Alyson Buckman, CSUS
 

Finally can't resist... In his own time Shakespeare was popular 
culture, perhaps not as popular as bear-baiting, but he helped the 
King's Men stay in the game.

Bob Bender
Professor Emeritus, English & Women Studies
University of Missouri-Columbia

Exactly -- and, as Rhonda Wilcox discusses in a book on _Buffy_, there
are quite a few similarities between Shakespeare and Joss Whedon, the
creator of Buffy.
 
Alyson R. Buckman, PhD
Associate Professor
Humanities and Religious Studies
California State University, Sacramento
Mendocino 2011
6000 J St
Sacramento, CA 95819-6083

Hm, there's a problem in the logic  of the references to Shakespeare. Yes, 
he was popular; so no doubt were many other writers of whom we have little 
or no recollection.  That Shakespeare was popular in this own time does not 
mean any writer popular in our time is the equivalent of  Shakespeare, or 
that it's all the same if students study Shakespeare or Buffy.  Seems to me 
Shakespeare is hardly a perfect example of anything except his own 
remarkable talents.

DP 

Actually, Daphne, Shakespeare is a perfect example of an author whose  
works were once popular culture but have been retroactively   
rehabilitated as elite culture. Walt Whitman, Charles Dickens, most  
19th European and American novelists (in fact the whole genre of 'the  
novel'), photography, prints, church ornamentation, etc.--all pop  
culture in their time; now fine art or high lit. Shakespeare's  
'classical' status demonstrates that there is nothing inherent or  
automatic in the classification of cultural artifacts which, as  
Foucualt so ably demonstrated in The Order of Things, constitutes the  
pre-eminent operation of power. We call it cultural politics. None of  
us should surprised that gender is implicated in the invidious  
hierarchical classification of culture's products.

I have to say, as an art historian who doesn't study 'art', and whose  
dissertation depends heavily on clothing and advertising artifacts,  
and who's teaching the course Sex, Gender and Popular Culture next  
spring, and who regularly helps students deconstruct episodes of The  
Simpsons and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, this seems like a very  
old battle to me. If popular culture is so insignificant then why do  
corporations spend billions of dollars on it and why are we all  
immersed in it? Why are social and religious  conservatives in such a  
huff about it? So you didn't watch Buffy; did you watch any sports  
last weekend? See an advertisement? Rent a video? Listen to music on  
the radio? Surf the net? Buy most anything? Put on CLOTHES, for  
cryin' out loud? If pop culture's beneath our notice then why have so  
many smart people been commenting on it on this list (comments I've  
enjoyed BTW)? Why are we even discussing this if there's nothing to  
discuss?

Have we not read Laura Mulvey? Susan Bordo? Naomi Wolf? Sherrie  
Inness? bell hooks? Diana Fuss? How much evidence that pop culture  
and gender are mutually implicated does one need?

Peace,

Mike
********************
Michael J. Murphy, M.A.
Doctoral Candidate, Art History and Archaeology
Instructor, Women and Gender Studies
Campus Box 1078
Washington University in St. Louis
Saint Louis MO 63130-4899
mjmurphy  AT  wustl.edu

"Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few  
injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even  
to hope, by a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as  
lying within."
 -- Stephen Jay Gould

 Michael -- did I say pop culture was "insignificant?"   I don't think so. I 
do think we should be very careful how we spend our precious class time and 
those too-few years in which students are exposed to higher (excuse the 
elitism of the term) education.  Period.  It's basically the same thing I 
usually say on this list, because the issue keeps coming up again and again. 
And the reason, I'm sure, is because so much of the teaching done in women's 
studies (and not only there) aims at political transformation, and is done 
in a denunciatory mode; not at all the same thing, in my view, as education.

As for Foucault, he didn't "demonstrate" that the classification of cultural 
artifacts is the "pre-eminent operation of power" -- a claim that ought to 
be subjected to sharp analysis.  Referring to Foucault doesn't clinch the 
argument and his words are a far cry from "demonstrating" anything. (Our 
students should perhaps be studying the rhetoric of Foucault and other 
maitres a penser, plus the sociology of French intellectual life, to help 
them figure out why and how these figures came to have such currency among 
intellectuals.  But, anyway, if our students don't get exposed to harder 
material than that provided by pop (really "mass") culture, they'll never be 
able to read Foucault and even join in the argument, will they? But they 
probably will get good at just dismissing anything that is difficult and 
demanding.

DP 

Daphne,

"Precious class time" is very curious -- to use your language, 
illogical -- construction.  English vernacular literature began to be 
taught in British Universities in the early 20th century.  Before 
that it was deemed too insignificant -- i.e. not written in Greek or 
Latin -- to make it into any curriculum.  Similarly, for several 
hundred years after his death Shakespeare's plays were read in 
something like their original version but played on the stage only in 
various "improv'd" versions because he was thought to be too 
barbaric.  Mozart's operas fell into oblivion until they were 
"rediscovered" in the earlier 20th century.  Precious class time has 
always been devoted to what some group of worthies thought were 
"great works of art of literature or music," and they, the worthies, 
all eventually pass out of fashion.  This is not necessarily to 
defend the teaching of Buffy, which really is beside the point.

Bob Bender


At 05:11 PM 9/15/2006, you wrote:
>  I do think we should be very careful how we spend our precious 
> class time and those too-few years in which students are exposed to 
> higher (excuse the elitism of the term) education.  Period.

hello again all

i'm intrigued by this idea that all popular culture is white and 
mainstream.  this is a very modern US-mass-culture-influenced 
anglo-world way of looking at popular culture.  in france, the first 
meaning of 'culture populaire' is 'of the people' and originally 
referred to working class culture.  'd'origine/de milieu populaire' 
still means working class.  the sort of TV/mainstream-music culture that 
is being discussed on this list is what the french would call 'mass 
culture'.

even if, with the impact of transnational capitalism and cultural 
globalisation, the two meanings are starting to overlap in france, the 
distinction is still made. 'la chanson populaire' does not refer to 
patricia kaas or carla bruni or that odd gallic reincarnation of britney 
spears: lorie (or their antecedents sylvie vartan, johnny halliday 
etc...), but to songs sung in the streets, cafes and fields of france by 
its working and peasant classes, and other songs derived from their 
themes and rhythms.

kaas et al would be tagged with the anglicism 'la musique pop'.

then there's la chanson frantaise, a different grouping again.

but equivalents can be found for the US.  'popular culture' that is 'of 
the people' is not always white and middle class.  jazz/blues/swing, 
even if mainstreamed and whitewashed, came from african-american popular 
culture and nothing can change that. 

which is not, of course, a defence of such things as gangsta rap.  but 
here again, there is mainstreamed rap and the popular (in the french 
sense) origins of rap.  there are some fabulous women rappers some of 
whom have feminist content to what they do.  in england, there was 'dub' 
in the late 1970s/early 1980s - people like linton kwesi johnson.  v. 
different from mass-produced gangsta rap.

then there are hybrids.  a male colleague of mine did a study, now 
published somewhere in the US i believe, of the appropriation of rap by 
'white trash' boys living on the margins in sydney's outer suburbs, as a 
means of expression and empowerment.  one reviewer of the manuscript was 
shocked at this cultural appropriation of 'black' culture by 'white' 
boys.  which we both found puzzling and US-centric.  there is no 
indigenous 'black rap' culture in australia (in fact, indigenous 
australian musicians originally favoured the very 'white' 
country-and-western style for their modern musical production) - and the 
marginalised 'white boys' in sydney are probably far lower down the 
cultural and economic food chain in their context than many of the rap 
stars in the US.

anyway, an interesting anecdote i thought, about cultural 
transplantations and hybridities.

i am starting to feel very nostalgic for the writers of the frankfurt 
school on mass culture - pre-foucault and to my mind far more 
interesting in their analysis of mass culture and power.

re shakespeare as popular culture (or as i thought flippantly in writing 
my last post) jane austen as the 'chick lit' of her day:  both 
interpretations are both right and wrong, both historical and 
a-historical.  there wasn't mass-produced globalised culture in either 
shakespeare's or austen's day.  there wasn't generalisation of 
compulsory education.  there weren't a whole lot of things, so 
suggesting equivalences is a bit hard.  moreover, shakespeare did both 
'high' and 'low' culture *in the same plays*.  the hoi polloi standing 
in the pit got the vulgar comedy while the aristocrats in their comfy 
seats in the gallery got the noble sentiments. 

so it is both correct and erroneous suggest that history has 'elitised' 
what may have been more 'popular' in its day.  exactly what do we mean 
by 'popular' in that case?  lots of people watched it/read it so it was 
'popular'?  it made money (or was patronised by royalty) so it was 
'popular'? it was 'of the people' so 'popular'?  it was marketed to the 
masses as a means of cultural/ideological reproduction and thought 
control so it was 'popular'? 

did servants and peasants and factory workers read jane austen?  did 
slaves and servants and peasants watch shakespeare?  did such 
literature/theatre come originally from their ranks? 

shakespeare was 'popular' perhaps by some definitions, or sat somewhere 
at the border of 'high' and 'low' culture (a bit like 'la chanson 
frantaise' perhaps).  but light years, even recontextualised 
historically, from all of rap, jazz, survivor and buffy (which are light 
years from each other, and in the case of rap and jazz, have all sorts 
of internal distinctions to be made).

bronwyn

-- 
***********************************************
Dr Bronwyn Winter
Senior Lecturer
Dept of French Studies 
School of Languages and Cultures
Mungo McCallum Building A17
University of Sydney  NSW 2006
Australia

email: bronwyn.winter  AT  arts.usyd.edu.au

***********************************************

I used a clip from Crash last week in my WS100 class and the students  
responded with a great deal of enthusiasm. The readings were Peggy  
MacIntosh, "White Privilege and Male Privilege;" Marilyn Frye,  
"Oppression;" and Patricia Williams, "On Being the Object of  
Property."  The students related well to MacIntosh and Frye's pieces,  
but Williams' essay initially went over their heads, as I expected.

I began the class with a clip from the tv show Veronica Mars  
(episode: "Like a Virgin") in which a group of upper-class white  
students mock the lead character by calling her a slut, then go on to  
discuss a "purity test" circulating in their school. I had the  
students take a moment and write down their responses to the clip  --  
what they thought it said about gender and oppression. We then went  
around the room and each one shared a critical comment on the clip,  
often relating their comments to the readings. (I find taking a few  
moments and having students write down their thoughts rather than  
immediately asking for commentary improves the quality of discussion  
and helps them feel confident that they have something concrete to  
say -- especially when the topic is a sensitive one.) We talked about  
the clip for a little while longer, then I divided them into four  
groups and we watched a clip from Crash. I started the clip at the  
beginning of Matt Dillon's phone call to the insurance agent and  
continued with it through the end of the scene where he harasses and  
molests Thandie Newton and then lets the couple drive away. Again, I  
had each student write her individual response first. I then assigned  
a character from the scene to each group (the racist White male cop  
(Dillon), the silent White male cop, the mixed race woman (Newton),  
and, finally, her African American husband). I asked each group to  
discuss their assigned character in relation to three terms from the  
reading -- privilege, property, and object -- and gave them a range  
of definitions for each term. Each group then presented their  
conclusions to the class as a whole, and their critiques were  
incisive. They made connections between the earlier clip -- teenage  
banter about sexuality -- and the cop's sexual violation of Newton's  
character (systemic oppressions). Some of the highlights: they noted  
that Newton's body became the object of the cop's racism and sexism,  
as well as a message to her husband, a violation of his property.  
They said that the silent cop was just as culpable, because he did  
nothing, as the cop who performed the actual assault. As they spoke,  
they demonstrated a much clearer understanding of Williams' points  
then they had realized they had. It was a great class, and we ran out  
of time way too early.

I don' t normally post to this list, but on this issue I felt a need.  
How does it help anyone to argue for or against popular culture in  
the abstract? I don't mean this question facetiously. I just don't  
see the point of arguing about whether a class on Buffy is worth  
anything without seeing the syllabus. If Buffy is just a way of  
talking about larger issues, and the readings are theoretically  
complex, I don't see a problem. I will reach my students in any way I  
can. Period. If it's a weak course with little theoretical rigor and  
a book club vibe, then it's not Buffy or popular culture that's the  
problem, it's the course design. A weak course is a weak course, no  
matter what the subject matter.

If you don't approve of pop culture in the classroom, there's no  
reason that you have to use it, but  that doesn't mean that those who  
do use it are lesser scholars or lazy teachers. That's a separate  
issue altogether. If, however, you're just frustrated because you  
don't have any good examples for incorporating it and are fed up with  
seeing bad ones, well, that's something actionable. And proponents  
might find sharing successful teaching exercises -- those that are  
not necessarily tied to the study of a particular phenomenon in pop  
culture so much as to understanding a systemic issue through example  
and increasing students' understandings of complex material -- a more  
productive defense.

Just my $.02.
Shannan Palma
spalma  AT  emory.edu

Deborah Louis said:
"At the same time, giving scholarly time and legitimacy to Buffy the
Vampire Slayer and gangsta rap is about accommodating consumer-driven
playpen schooling (which is very attracftive to the institutions these
days!), not about building critical skills students need to defend
themselves against this relentless and ever more sophisticated assault!"

What I find so distressing about this and  similar comments of the past few
days is the casual--and to my mind, careless--dismissal of an entire field
of study (Buffy studies; yes, it's a field) without providing a shred of
substantial evidence to back them up.  In fact, the same people that reject
Buffy out of hand also often proclaim that they haven't seen an episode or
read any of the many scholarly books about the show that have been pointed
out here.  Wouldn't we fail our own students for doing such irresponsible
work?  And, in fact, it's quite easy to find the scholarly work on
Buffy--there's an online journal run by the well-respected scholars Rhonda
Wilcox and David Lavery (www.slayage.tv) where one could find numerous
articles covering topics as varied as Buffy and speech-act theory, Buffy's
connection to Stoker's Dracula (surely one of the "classics"), Buffy and
postmodernism, and, of course, Buffy as an empowered female hero (using the
theories of Butler, Tasker, Mulvey, and others).  To say that the people
that teach and write about Buffy are not engaged in "building critical
skills students need" without first investigating the syllabi we use or the
topics we (and the show) cover shocks me.  And, though I have only taught a
three week section on Buffy (I myself have spent 7 years writing about and
studying the show), I will say that my students were resistant because they
assumed, primarily based on the show's title I think, that it was a silly,
shallow show with little to offer them.  They were pleasantly surprised at
the complexity and the many hidden layers of the show--as I think many on
this list would be--and they were even more shocked by the intellectual
demands the show placed on them when they had to critically analyze it (by
using a number of sophisticated theories we had been wrestling with all
term).  Many of their evaluations marvelled at the way studying Buffy had
changed their outlook on a variety of things, mostly gender issues as well
as issues of othering.  They became more critically aware, more culturally
sophisticated as a result of studying Buffy and reading it through a variety
of lenses.

As to its ability to comment or connect to real-world issues, I would say
Buffy's more than capable of being applied to a variety of current events.
For example, at a recent Buffy conference (yes, we have those too) I heard
the wonderful Patricia Pender give a paper that connected Season 7 of Buffy
to George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq and his refusal to hear other voices in
the matter.  It's a fantastic piece (that is on the slayage website, I
believe) and would no doubt spark many important, intelligent conversations
in the classroom.  Who knew Buffy could be applied in such a way?  Well,
people who watch and study Buffy do, and then we can bring it to students so
they can begin to look at it more critically, as more than a show that
features a cute young woman who kicks butt.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I would hope it would not be so easy
to dismiss in such sweeping ways something which many fellow WMSTers have
devoted much of their lives to studying and teaching. Not just Buffy, but
many popular texts including chick lit and gangsta rap.  You just don't
understand Buffy's value or agree that it is a text worthy of college-level
studies?  That's fine with me, but please investigate it a bit and supply
some back up for such a claim.  Something more than what essentially boils
down to "Buffy's not worthwhile for students because I said so."  I don't
think that's too much to ask.

Respectfully,
Peggy Davis
Ph.D. Candidate
Literature and Media Studies
Miami University
Lecturer in Comp Studies
UC Irvine
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