The Illusion Of Popular Culture

Popular culture is consumed through interaction in the social media that includes television programs, movie theaters and virtual social networks. From the media, interests lie in the political developments and discussion concerning governance. These media satisfy appetite for political information while guiding an understanding on the national issues and choices made.

The article, The Cult of Womanhood: 1820 - 1860 written by Barbara Welter discusses the philosophy towards women in America during the mid 19th century. A set of demands and expectations based upon four principles: piety, purity, submission and domesticity were placed on women as well as certain behavioral expectations left 19th century women feeling guilty. It also left women feeling this way during the industrialization period as well as having a huge presence of incompatibility with society. Welter shares her viewpoint that the Cult of Womanhood was an attempt to preserve pre modern values in the industrial age. Men held a dominant place in society and continued to prevent new opportunities for women to explore. Narrow minded

The 1920’s was an era of dramatic political and cultural change, where many Americans lived in cities rather than farms. Many inventors came to be noticed as new cars were invented and as music entered the entertainment industry. A new style of music was invented mainly in the African American community, creating the Harlem Renaissance; which was an evolution of music and entertainment in Harlem, New York City. The women of America began to evolve in the 1920s, adding new styles to our fashion industry and changing the way women dress, act, and are portrayed in society for generations. Women were viewed before the 1920’s as innocent housewives, that made little to no money, as they often relied on their husbands’ for income. Women also had little to no rights, such as voting rights, which many women began to protest. Women of the 1920’s through the 1930’s influenced and impacted society by transforming their looks from innocent housewives to a sexually liberated generation of women, increasing the working rate to twenty-five percent by working in factories and the telemarketing business, and participating in the Women’s Suffrage Movement in which they protested for their rights which then influenced the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.

Frederick Lewis Allen, in his famous chronicle of the 1920s Only Yesterday, contended that women’s “growing independence” had accelerated a “revolution in manners and morals” in American society (95). The 1920s did bring significant changes to the lives of American women. World War I, industrialization, suffrage, urbanization, and birth control increased women’s economic, political, and sexual freedom. However, with these advances came pressure to conform to powerful but contradictory archetypes. Women were expected to be both flapper and wife, sex object and mother. Furthermore, Hollywood and the emerging “science” of advertising increasingly tied conceptions of femininity to

Although most women's lives were not radically transformed by “labor‐saving” home appliances or gaining the right to vote, young American women were changing the way they dressed, thought, and acted in a manner that shocked their more traditional parents. They began to step away from primitive murals and views which dictated how a mother would stay home,cook,clean and remain to be a modest elegant woman.American girls challenged traditional notions of proper behavior. They attended rambunctious parties, drank illegal liquor, and danced new, sexually suggestive steps at jazz clubs. Normally all people would dance to is orchestrated ballroom music and would refuse to stand within a foot of one another, as if there were third person standing in between the two.These changes were encouraged by the new mass media that included radio and motion pictures.

In antebellum America there was little tolerance for autonomous women. Usually females, spanning all classes, were attached to households, dependent on males for status and wealth. Society demanded that domesticity be the woman’s domain, any deviations from this constricting edict was met with disdain. The cultural myth of the model genteel women permeated the fabric of 19th century life. However, with the advent of the Civil

Today popular culture has a substantial effect on our lives. It can affect what we wear, what music we listen to, or even how we behave. Many people decide what clothes to buy depending on what is in style or what celebrities are wearing. The same happens when people choose what movies to see or what music to download. While pop culture may seem harmless, it exposes people of all ages to sex, drugs, and violence. Children and teenagers all over the world are watching these shows or listening to these types of music. They take what they hear or see and develop bad habits or make poor decisions. Popular culture including movies, music, and franchises mostly has a negative effect on countries who import it.

No longer an element in any ties to a program of broad social reform, sexual freedom now was defined as individual rebellion (Foner 777). Equally important, with bobbed hair, short skirts, public drinking and smoking, and unapologetic birth control methods, the singe, young “flapper” embodied the change in standards of sexual behavior, at least in the case of large cities (Foner 777). She visited dance halls and music clubs where white people engaged in “wild” dances like the Charleston which had been popular early on in black communities. She also frequented sexually charged Hollywood films that featured stars like Clara Bow, the provocative “It’ Girl,” and Rudolph Valentino, the original on-screen “Latin Lover.” (Foner 777). Furthermore, what was once scandalous a generation earlier had become a device to market goods from automobiles to cigarettes (Foner 778). Finally, having found a husband, women were expected to look for freedom within the confinements of their own home, finding “liberation,” according to the advertisements, in the used of new labor-saving appliances (Fonner 778). Many professional opportunities for women continued to be limited due to the assumptions about what jobs were suitable for females. The “new professional woman” was clear and widely publicized image. However, the reality was that most women who were married did not

During the mid 1800s, a true woman understood her limitations. This included, “ modesty, submissiveness, physical weakness, limited education, and complete devotion to [their] husband.” Any actions that threatened these norms had to be put to a stop. During the late 1800s, there appeared to be advancements in education and movements for women’s rights. Women were challenging the norms to become more independent. Many women did not want change for the consequences to come. But as soon as the film industry started, women culture began to reflect roles of main actresses.

Women are capable of bringing human beings in this world, and they live a lot longer than men. They are like the sun, the whole world needs women but in other cases, this cannot be said for most women. Based on The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and the motion picture Chicago directed by Rob Marshall, both prove that during the 1920s, women had a negative influence in society. They were seen as toys. They were manipulative over men and had a way of always getting what they wanted using lust and acting a bit promiscuous. Rather than being seen as human beings, they were seen as trophies and were not taken serious and were ignorant. They would only care about money or fame. Even during the 1920’s women are portrayed as always being competitive and jealous towards each other when it comes to receiving attention.

The overall theme of the 1950s depicts the representation of women and their linkage to sexuality. In unit two Marilyn Monroe, Barbie, and beauty pageants expose how many parallels are transparent. As the golden age lecture points out during this duration women received punitive treatment compared to men when it came down to categories composed of their sexuality (Vlahoulis, 2018). Women were expected to maintain a positive image and not appear sexual but carry themselves in a domestic goddess way. In fact, they were expected to shelter their sexuality for wifely duties and propagating offspring. As for women like Marilyn Monroe she was the center of a sex symbol for women of her time and was thought to be a “dumb blonde” based on roles assigned to her in her career as an actress. However, Monroe had a life behind the eye of the public and detrimental childhood experiences influenced a broad array of her actions and encounters she had with the men in her life.

Popular culture has an undeniable influence on how society perceives itself. When examining mass culture, one must keep in mind the equilibrium between how much we, as a society, affect the way popular culture is constructed and to what extent popular culture influences the way we view ourselves and shapes our ideologies. An aspect of popular culture that may serve to greatly exemplify this theory of society as both the affecter and the affected is the genre of magazines targeted at young women. Though these publications are targeted as the representation of our society’s adolescent females, they actually have a great influence over the ways in which teens view and construct

What pops into your mind first when you think of popular culture in today’s day and age? The latest dirt on celebrities or the latest iPhone release? The latest controversial issue or the latest iTunes hit? Regardless, pop culture encompasses all four of these concepts and many more, which consume the world we live in each and every day. Think about education. At first thought, your mind may not make the connection between the newest Taylor Swift song and the highest ACT score, but the linkage between the two becomes undeniable when you dive deeper. Ponder this: each day millions of kids walk into school buildings across the United States, each of them glued to a little slice of pop culture, a.k.a. their phone. And each day these millions

The study of popular culture is useful in many ways. To be more specific, this course has reached its three intended main ideas: what it means to be American, how to be more consumption-conscious, and how to apply these studies in our own lives. Jim Cullen puts this in a less specific sense, arguing that the study of popular culture can “afford valuable clues – about collective fears, hopes, and debates” (Cullen, The Art of Democracy, 2). We use these clues to understand the world around us, as well as why we do what we do as Americans and as humans. I will be touching on themes that relate to this quotation by Cullen, escapism, exploitation, and globalization, as well as how these themes relate to the course goals.

Popular culture is a term that holds various meanings depending on where it 's being defined and the context of its use. It is usually recognized as the language or people’s culture that prevails in a society at a point in time. As social researcher Brummett explains in his book “Rhetorical Dimensions of Popular Culture”, pop culture reflects the characteristics of social life, where the publicly are most actively involved. Popular culture is known as the ‘culture of the people’. This culture is determined by the interactions between people within their daily activities, for instance, dressing styles, use of language, greeting rituals and the ways that people behave in public, etc. are all examples of popular culture. Popular culture is also diverted by the mass media (Abbott and Sapsford, 1987).