Popular Culture Chapter 1

Popular Culture

Practices, beliefs and objects that dominant a point in time

Mass Media

Sends cultural content to a mass audience (radio, tv, etc.)

• main force in shaping pop Culture

High Culture

takes education & money to buy

• fine culture 

• for the upper middle class white 

• e.g. classical music, visual arts, performing arts 

Low Culture 

little to no academic or artistic training 

• folk art 

• for Black and poor white America - pop Culture 

• e.g. tribal, work/travel songs, etc. 

Great American Songbook

• Targeted mid-upper class White America

• Written by professional song-writers and sung by professional singers

  • follows a strict formula  

Influential Songwriters from The Great Songbook

Irving Berlin, George Gladwin, and Jerom Kern  

Ragtime

• a style of dance music, piano-based using syncopated rhythms  

  • first style of American pop music to be truly black music  

Scott Joplin

most famous ragtime musician

New Orleans

the center of jazz

• creation of artists like Louis Armstrong (trumpet) and Jelly Roll Morton (piano)  

Nickelodeon

early 20^th century form of neighborhood theater

• first opening in Pittsburgh 

• run by and shown to blue-collar and working class audience and required minimal investment  

  • regular viewers were women and children

Birth of a Nation (1915)

• Direct by D.W. Griffith - runs 3 hours 

• highest-grossing film of the silent film era  

• Controversial nature its racist topic and theme 

Formula for Hollywood’s Success

• Production: Process of making films; studio were like factories  

• Distribution: Distributing the films produced both domestically and globally  

• Exhibition: The showing of films at theaters and through other media  

  • Paramount first studio to adopt the idea

Big Five Studios

• Paramount 

• Warner Brothers 

• MGM  

• 20^th Century Fox 

• RKO  

Charlie Chaplin

• co-founder of United Artists

• famous for his popular on-screen persona "The Tramp" and iconic fashion

• refused to translate to talkies and was later deported from US 

  • thought to be a communists   

Movie Palaces (1920s)

• bigger and gave more dimensions to the cinema experience than theaters 

• owned by five major studios 

Race Films

• Movies that specifically targeted the black audience

  • Movie industry main consumer was upper-class America 

Race Music - Rhythm & Blues

• Music performed by African Americans for sale to Black listeners  

• Harsh vocals, spirituality, work/travel songs, and improvisations  

• Birthplace: Mississippi by cotton field and plantation workers 

  • played in juke joints 

  • Delta Blues - first race substyle 

Robert Johnson

• King of Delta Blues

  • laid foundation for Rock ‘n’ Roll 

• supposedly sold his soul to the Devil at the Crossroads of Highway 49 & 61 in Clarksdale, Mississippi  

  • first musician to join “27 Club”

Hillbilly - Country & Western

• Music performed by and intended for sale to southern whites  

  • nasal timber, use of string instruments (guitar, banjo, fiddle, etc.) 

• Reflects values and traditions of the performers

Early Pioneers of Hillbilly Music

• Jimmie Rodgers - “The Father of Country"

• Bob Willis - Leader of Texas Playboys

Woody Gutherie

• Father of Folk Music 

  • biggest social protest singer during Great Depressions 

• made folk music one of the most notable genres

• known for “This Land is Your Land” 

Italy - Epic Film

• Quo Vadis marks start of feature-length cinema

French Impressionism

maximized the beauty of image & evoked characters' psychology

German Expressionism

• Extreme angles, distorted sets, deep shadows

• Themes of insanity/chaos

• Inspired early Hollywood horror

Soviet Montage

Meaning created through editing (e.g., Eisenstein)
• Editing can changes emotion/idea