Week 1

Please respond to both of these questions (using references) in a post tagged under this page.

How has the academic reception of popular genres changes over time?

Early literature like plays, poems, and ballads, which were popularized and consumed by the wealthy and predominantly upper class, as they had disposable income and free time to watch and read these forms of media. This form of literature became known as “High Literature”, being favoured by academics, while other forms of media weren’t respected and given the title, “Low literature”. As stories in the format of the popular genre began to come out they weren’t well-received by critics as they weren’t “High Literature”.

Popular culture is defined as “…generally recognized as the vernacular or people’s culture that predominates in a society at a point in time… As the ‘culture of the people’, popular culture is determined by the interactions between people in their everyday activities: styles of dress, the use of slang, greeting rituals and the foods that people eat are all examples of popular culture. Popular culture is also informed by the mass media.”. It has come a long way from its first iteration as “Pulp Science Fiction” (Delaney, 2007). These books were mass-produced, allowing them to reach a wider audience, and as technology advanced, stories that were once in books were now in comics, with visuals to add to the reader’s enjoyment. And as technology developed further, popular genres would adapt its materials to fit the platform, for example, Radio,  Films, Television, and recently with the advent of the internet, streaming platforms have made popular shows and films easily accessible to viewers with streaming sites and applications. This is only possible due to the fact that phones and computers have become cheaper and more powerful over the years. Popular genres seem to correlate and change along with the technology available at the time, and the fact that films and television are more widely available means reception to them will be overall more positive, as shows and film receive more audience and critical acclaim. This is supported as Pop-culture began after the events of ww2, as a larger number of people owned a TV, allowing for shows to develop cult-like followings, “With the post-World War II economic boom, however, all this changed. By 1955, half of all American homes had a television. Various types of programs were broadcast on the handful of major networks: situation comedies, variety programs, game shows, soap operas, talk shows, medical dramas, adventure series, cartoons, and police procedurals.”(Khan Academy)

An example of this would be with the show, “Arrested Development”, originally released in 2003 on NBC it never had much of viewership despite its critical success and was cancelled after 3 seasons, however, after Netflix had added the show to its site, it gained a wider audience, and it led to 2 more seasons being produced nearly 7 years after its initial cancellation.

What might the value be of studying them?

The study of Popular Genres can show societal and cultural advancements, as the stories they tell usually reflect on current political and societal issues, making these stories preserve the period they were written in. Shows like Star Trek and films like Blade Runner are set in the distant future, but tackle real-world issues like racism, class system, and the effects of what colonialism can do to entire civilizations. Science fiction, in particular, is well known to use thinly veiled allegories to speak on hot button issues in order to reach a wider audience that would maybe avoid such topics, like robots in Star Wars being an analogy for slavery, and the oppressed, where they have autonomy and display sentience, but are restricted to labour positions and are sacrificed without a second thought. Studying popular genres packages these important messages into digestible stories, so people especially children can interpret them easier. 

References

Delaney, T. (2007). Pop Culture: An Overview. Retrieved November 6, 2020, from https://philosophynow.org/issues/64/Pop_Culture_An_Overview

Popular culture and mass media in the 1950s (article). (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/postwarera/1950s-america/a/popular-culture-and-mass-media-cnx