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I AM majoring in Supernatural, dammit! So go shove it!
Grr. I am SO SICK of the derision of popular culture that goes on in mainstream media (ironically enough) and society in Australia. More specifically, the dismissal of it as a valid field within which to base critical theory.
Every time I mention to someone outside of my field of interest that I’m studying – gasp! - television, their response is frequently one of scorn. Someone even questioned whether it was possible for “TV theory” to exist at all!
To which my response was: dude. It has such a huge influence on our lives, and you’re saying it’s not worth the time of day?
There is this tenaciously clinging assumption in Australian society that ‘real’ culture, the only culture that holds any value, is this classical (and at times, arthouse) European culture. There are huge literature, art history and history departments; people still kind of blink puzzledly at me when I say I’m majoring in “Media Theory”, or to dumb it down further – “Cinema studies”.
Popular culture is, of course, linked inextricably with American culture, as this article demonstrates:
For $25m cash, unis say: kick me
[From the Australian Financial Review, Rear Window p.54, 18th Sept 2006]
It’s high noon in the bidding war between Australia’s major universities to host the proposed United States Study Centre, which will attract a nice $25 million wedge to help whichever seat of learning is chosen to set it up.
This all relates to the announcement in May by Prime Minister John Howard of a plan to deepen Australian understanding of our oft-pilloried ally. The University of Sydney went public late last week to say it was making a submission before entries closed n Friday.
You won’t be amazed to hear that the University of Melbourne and ANU in Canberra are also understood to have thrown their hats in the ring. The winner is expected to be announced in November.
The real clincher in these cash-strapped days is that the chose university can expect the initial $25 million in funding to be doubled via corporate donations.
The revenue raising will be managed via the Australian American Association.
Out only concern is that the present wave of ‘blame the Yanks’ sentiment around the world, setting up such a centre in an Australian university is akin to pinning a note on your back that says ‘kick me’.
We’re not taking sides, but lets just say there may have to be a few security considerations.
The tone of which irritates the crap out of me again. The thought of a United States Study Centre at my university sends me into fits of delirious delight. The bulk of politically correct society in Australia may have little respect for George Bush, but the absolute conflation of American culture with American government is a big mistake to make. Just because our Prime Minister like to kiss the US President’s butt doesn’t mean that media texts produced by American artists (or whatever you’d like to call the creators of contemporary texts) should be dismissed and derided.
I agree that the volume of American culture in comparison to texts produced from other places (including our own country) is problematic. But I still say that regardless of ill will toward Administration or desire for more diversity, popular culture has a huge, huge influence on our lives.
I say, acknowledging that and working to be active within it and take our own interpretations of it is a more appropriate – if not necessary – course of action to take instead of covering our metaphorical ears and eyes against the nuclear blast and continuing to reminisce on the ‘good ole days’ of the Italian Renaissance, fer frick’s sake.
Not that there’s anything wrong with studying the Italian Renaissance, hell no. But claiming that that field of study is a more valid one than the field that concerns the material we consume on a daily basis is seriously screwed up.
This message brought to you by the fact that Star Wars creator George Lucas announced today that his private foundation will give his alma mater, the University of Southern California (USC), $US175 million ($A233.35 million) to endow and rebuild its School of Cinematic Arts in what amounts to the largest donation in USC history.
Meanwhile, my school is being closed down and dissolved into the wider “Arts” (or humanities) faculty, namely the English department. Bye-bye, school dedicated to both practical and theoretical creative arts disciplines.
Every time I mention to someone outside of my field of interest that I’m studying – gasp! - television, their response is frequently one of scorn. Someone even questioned whether it was possible for “TV theory” to exist at all!
To which my response was: dude. It has such a huge influence on our lives, and you’re saying it’s not worth the time of day?
There is this tenaciously clinging assumption in Australian society that ‘real’ culture, the only culture that holds any value, is this classical (and at times, arthouse) European culture. There are huge literature, art history and history departments; people still kind of blink puzzledly at me when I say I’m majoring in “Media Theory”, or to dumb it down further – “Cinema studies”.
Popular culture is, of course, linked inextricably with American culture, as this article demonstrates:
For $25m cash, unis say: kick me
[From the Australian Financial Review, Rear Window p.54, 18th Sept 2006]
It’s high noon in the bidding war between Australia’s major universities to host the proposed United States Study Centre, which will attract a nice $25 million wedge to help whichever seat of learning is chosen to set it up.
This all relates to the announcement in May by Prime Minister John Howard of a plan to deepen Australian understanding of our oft-pilloried ally. The University of Sydney went public late last week to say it was making a submission before entries closed n Friday.
You won’t be amazed to hear that the University of Melbourne and ANU in Canberra are also understood to have thrown their hats in the ring. The winner is expected to be announced in November.
The real clincher in these cash-strapped days is that the chose university can expect the initial $25 million in funding to be doubled via corporate donations.
The revenue raising will be managed via the Australian American Association.
Out only concern is that the present wave of ‘blame the Yanks’ sentiment around the world, setting up such a centre in an Australian university is akin to pinning a note on your back that says ‘kick me’.
We’re not taking sides, but lets just say there may have to be a few security considerations.
The tone of which irritates the crap out of me again. The thought of a United States Study Centre at my university sends me into fits of delirious delight. The bulk of politically correct society in Australia may have little respect for George Bush, but the absolute conflation of American culture with American government is a big mistake to make. Just because our Prime Minister like to kiss the US President’s butt doesn’t mean that media texts produced by American artists (or whatever you’d like to call the creators of contemporary texts) should be dismissed and derided.
I agree that the volume of American culture in comparison to texts produced from other places (including our own country) is problematic. But I still say that regardless of ill will toward Administration or desire for more diversity, popular culture has a huge, huge influence on our lives.
I say, acknowledging that and working to be active within it and take our own interpretations of it is a more appropriate – if not necessary – course of action to take instead of covering our metaphorical ears and eyes against the nuclear blast and continuing to reminisce on the ‘good ole days’ of the Italian Renaissance, fer frick’s sake.
Not that there’s anything wrong with studying the Italian Renaissance, hell no. But claiming that that field of study is a more valid one than the field that concerns the material we consume on a daily basis is seriously screwed up.
This message brought to you by the fact that Star Wars creator George Lucas announced today that his private foundation will give his alma mater, the University of Southern California (USC), $US175 million ($A233.35 million) to endow and rebuild its School of Cinematic Arts in what amounts to the largest donation in USC history.
Meanwhile, my school is being closed down and dissolved into the wider “Arts” (or humanities) faculty, namely the English department. Bye-bye, school dedicated to both practical and theoretical creative arts disciplines.
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Meanwhile, my school is being closed down and dissolved ...Bye-bye, school dedicated to both practical and theoretical creative arts disciplines.
rarrrrrgh!
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And, I don't get the television/pop culture hate either. I mean, even cinema studies has a certain amount of artsy respect in some circles, but there is NO LOVE for TV. And that's not even bringing the entire Australian vs. American side of it into things. And dude, I majored in American Studies. I'm sad that the rest of the world doesn't love US culture as much as I do. =(
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my arguments are kind of confused. but ther're lots of good reasons for supporting media studies.
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I am so full of popcultural love right now. I want to give you all US-Aussie hugs. And like, boxes full of comics and DVDs.
(from Mary's journal)
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Yes the idea that TV is an invalid cultural media is stupid and naïve;
There is and was so many craps word written but for some reason that medium is far more acceptable;
I love TV and I don’t get to watch enough and I dislike people that use their lack of telly viewing as a sign of intellectual superiority – it’s bullshit;
There will be bits of TV that we will be discussing for many years in the future and children will be forced to watch episodes in high school English.
Again, I wish I could be more coherent, especially given that your post was so thoughtful.
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grrr...
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That said, this book (http://www.amazon.com/In-Over-Our-Heads-Demands/dp/0674445880) bye Robert Kegan (http://integralvisioning.org/article.php?story=rk-epistemology) is his theory that there's a shift going on in the meta of what our culture(s) hidden curricula are, and that's why some of us notice these things, and some just don't get it.
Grr, though. Anyway I can help from here? nearly broke student myself, but... articles? links? -sigh-
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don't let it get you down, huh? we know we're right, dammit! even if our school is dissolving around us!
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LOLOLOL
speaking as an Italian, I am totally agreeing with you *g*
yes, classical studies ar eimportant, but contemporary, popular culture studies are exactly as important (if not more, but let's say at least equally important).
I still blame the Frankfurlt school and the freakish snobbish look down upon anything that wasn't elitist - the Illuminism has a lot to answer for, I say - just saying 'popular' is almost an automatic assumption/declaration of less worth!
Arghhhh!
it's not just in Australia, btw. In Italy, only now TV series are getting some notice, and it's not yet at the critical studies level, or barely there. I'm studying in the UK, and it's better, but still very very far from what it should be.
/rant :D
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But... but... WE DON'T WANT YOU. MEDIA THEORY STUDENTS AND ENGLISH STUDENTS ARE STUDYING DIFFERENT THINGS AND IT CAUSES BUST-UPS IN CLASS. Have they *thought* of the added security they're gonna need to separate the two groups?
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I think I'm in hate.
Every time a journalist or newspaper cartoonist suggests that someone's field of study is not valid, the baby Jesus cries.
(My father's specialty is Indonesian history. Ask him about the history of Asian Studies at Melbourne. Heck, give him a map of the campus, and he could *draw* the history of Asian Studies. With great big zigzaggy lines and little twisty staircases. I think there was a decade at one point when they locked all the academics, and students, from every non-European discipline in the Arts faculty together in a small storage closet in the John Medley Building and left them there.
And they all broke out the clove cigarettes and let their hair down.)