Term Paper on "Popular Culture Is Relatively Young"

Term Paper 8 pages (2618 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Through greed, jealousy, and pride their hearts have become like stone. So they are turned into statues, but retain their consciousness that they might behold their sister's happiness until they admit their own faults. (from Opie, I. The Classic Fairy Tales)

This tale makes a parallel between the reality, the world we live in and the world of our imaginations and illusions. It teaches us to value what we have already, to be tolerant, patient and do the best to save humanism and harmony in relations with others. It teaches us to see the best in what we have and accept people as they are, not as we want them to be, looking for the best in them. This tale contributes to spread of popular culture values about person's evaluation, which is done in most of cultures on the base of his merits, his character his ability to communicate with others and his personal success. This also promotes the ideas of equality and of equal rights, as all people are equal and have the same rights and especially the right to be happy.

Popular culture attributes are also directed on the guarantee of social stability and development of society's infrastructure. The main concept of this stability is on-based social order, obedience and principles of equality and human rights. That's why starting from early childhood child is got acquainted with these norms and concepts. In tales the obedience of children to parents, obedience of servants to masters, obedience of soldiers to kings is taken for granted. The main thing is that obedience to kings, parents, step parents, in general to any kind of authorities is taken for granted even if these authorities are mean and cruel. Probably the real face of them is disposed through the story plot but still obedience takes the main place.

Another aspect of obedience is quite good observed in all fairy tales when describing the role of woman in society. According to fairy tales woman participation in life has to be passive, she has to be faithful to husband, submitted to him and be a house wife. Nearly there is no tale which describes women as active seekers of happiness who build destiny by themselves. From another side men are considered to be a privileged position, as they (positive characters) are described as strong, faithful, decent moral and loving. This also creates a stereotype of man's behavior and in many aspects is considered to be important in fiuture child's up-bringing as he would have a wel-formewd image of a man in his consciousness, and will aspire to achieve this status in future.

Actually the role of fairy tales is essential not only for children at their early age. As tales form the moral and spiritual basis of children, in future emotional and spiritual world of grown-ups is enriched nearly in the same way. Modern fiction, cinema, music, etc. have pretty much the same to the plot of fairy tales. Of course the plot is more advanced in the movies and actions described in them take place in the real world, but the acting characters are nearly the same as those from fairy tales as the main theme remains to be the same: eternal fight of good with evil, triumph or failure of human virtues, of friendship and love. For example, the influence of fairy tales may be observed in popular movies, in soap operas. Lots of modern cinema products are based on a classic plot: tales about Cinderellas, tales with "happy ends," etc. The same approach was present in the creation of myth about America.

For a long time, especially for last two centuries America had been an embodiment of the "country of dream," a country where there are freedom and unlimited opportunities that open a door in front of nearly everyone who comers there and start to work. Of course it is more than exaggeration and those who came to the U.S.A. soon understood it quite it, but anyway in most of cases immigrants were happy with their choice.

Of course popular culture has a lot of minuses as well. First of all it's an alienation of personality, his spiritual dependence from somebody else's ideas. At the same time popular culture impacts on the decreasing level of real art or its primitivisation or its interpretation to a level of an average customer. Popular culture is simply directed on customer's demand. If to take very popular soap operas- they are simply unlimited TV shows with a primitive nature of relations between people, with very shallow evolutions psychological evaluations and simple plots. They simply complicate the structure of usual fairy tales but execute nearly the same role, without giving any time for plot's analysis and thinking.

Lots of popular culture elements are directed on sub-consciousness and instincts, as they cause associations in human mind with well-known and simpler objects. This includes seeking for power, obedience to authorities, sense of property, etc. manipulation with these ideas and application of them in modern life caused appearance of popular culture, appearance of stereotypes, certain ways of behavior and morality and values. It also refers to such attributes of modern culture as advertisements and different marketing strategies directed on public relations. Using of different methods that influence on person's consciousness as fairy tales and myths, creates illusion and naive ideas on a sensual level establishing new standards of popular culture.

As popular culture is an expanded concept that covers different aspects of society's life not only norms and values, we should admit that it is perceived gradually by a person starting from an early childhood and this process lasts during the while life as some values may change. But the very important aspects of popular culture are perceived at an early age, when person is "tabula rasa." At this point the role of fairy tales is essential as they execute the role of up-bring and development of the personality on very simple for understanding and very influential examples.

References:

1. Ionia and Peter Opie, eds., The Classic Fairy Tales Oxford University Press, (1980). pp. 182-83.

2. Dubino, Jeanne. The Cinderella Complex: Romance Fiction, Patriarchy and Capitalism, Journal of Popular Culture 27 (1993): 103-18. Proquest Direct. 19 May 1999 .

3. Paul, Lissa. The Politics of Dirt: Or Mucking About with Piggybook, Harry the Dirty Dog, and 'Cinderella The Horn Book Magazine Sep.-Oct. 1997: 534-42. Proquest Direct. 19 May 1999 .

4. Kolbenschlag, Madonna. Kiss Sleeping Beauty Good-Bye: Breaking the Spell of Feminine Myths and Models. 1979. Toronto: Bantam, 1981.

5. Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and… READ MORE

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