A history of popular culture : more of everything, faster, and brighter PDF
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A History of Popular Culture This lively and informative survey provides a thematic global history of popular culture focussing on the period since the end of the Second World War. Raymond F. Betts considers the rapid diffusion and “hybridization” of popular culture as the result of three conditions of the world since the end of World War Two: instantaneous communications, widespread consumption in a market-based economy and the visualization of reality. Betts considers the dominance of American entertainment media and habits of consumption, assessing adaptation and negative reactions to this influence. He surveys a wide range of topics, including the: • emergence and conditions of modern popular culture • effects of technology and global conflict • phenomenon and effects of urbanization • changing demography of the political arena and the work place • development of music as theatrical performance • film, television and visual experience • growth of sport as a commercial enterprise Directed at students and general readers concerned with the dimensions and forms of popular cult ure, the book provides an engaging introduction to this pervasive and ever-changing subject. Raymond F. Bettsis Professor of History at the University of Kentucky and the author of many books on culture and empire, including Decolonization, in The Making of the Contemporary World series (Routledge, 1998 second edition, 2004). A History of Popular Culture More of Everything, Faster and Brighter Raymond F. Betts First published 2004 by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. © 2004 Raymond F. Betts All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Betts, Raymond F. A history of popular culture : more of everything, faster, and brighter / Raymond F. Betts. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. 1. Popular culture – History. I. Title. CB427.B46 2004 306′.09′04–dc22 2003018555 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0-203-64465-4 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-67368-9 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0 415 22127 7 (hbk) ISBN 0 415 22128 5 (pbk) To the Many Students I Have Taught and Who in Turn Have Taught Me Contents Preface ix Introduction 1 1 Popular culture in an early twentieth-century environment 9 2 Popular culture joins the war effort 25 3 Reconfiguring time and space 39 4 Picture this: a new world of images 55 5 All the world’s a stage: contemporary entertainment in its many forms 79 6 Happily spaced out: the topography of pleasure and diversion 107 7 The unintended outcomes 133 Conclusion: Reconditioning the human condition 145 Bibliography 148 Index 159 Preface Few subjects range as far and vary as frequently as does popular culture. It seems to embrace all and to discard much. Its consistency is change. Like the escalator that is now so essential to shopping center, sports arena and airport, it moves regularly, conveying us all up and down to different levels of engagement and distraction, to goods and pleasures regularly rearranged to attract, to appeal, to entice. Unlike the elevator that encloses and limits our immediate vision of things, the escalator opens out and provides a particular panoramic view of a carefully arranged environment. Contemporary popular culture is all about movement, about seeing things, about buying and having, about being distracted and entertained. At one time, the word “transported” suggested a psychological or spiritual change of condition, an imaginary movement from one state of consciousness to another. Today, of course, being transported means being moved swiftly– and usually effortlessly– from here to there and back again. Up and down the escalator, on the plane and in the car, we have a form of spatial freedom not known before the late twentieth century. The pace of life has changed dramatically, as has the space in which we now move. We also see more than did the people of previous cultures. Popular culture is about mass-produced images changing their form in seconds, popping up as advertisements on the computer screen, elega ntly laid out in photographs in trendy niche publications. My effort has been to situate all this activity within the institutions and among the devices where it moves, captures attention, allows diversion and assures entertainment. I therefore have concentrated on transportation and communi- cation, and the new environment they have created. Megamalls and cyberspace, automobiles and movies, tourist destinations and airports provide much of the structure of the text. They suggest the changes in both pace and space that have become so pronounced in the last half century. Entertainment pervades all: there is no denying that it has become a major industry, and many of its performers and producers form a new class of the wealthy. Prior to 1937, when Walt Disney did his first full-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the appearance of characters populating fairy tales was still largely left to the reader’s or listener’s imagination. Today, we see all. Our visions, of course, are less internally-inspired than projected inward. Our culture
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