What Will Change in My Lifetime?
In 1944 - 80 years ago - the inference that all mass culture is predictable came to be. If true, this means that products of the popular culture industry - film, radio, magazines - are identical and have little to no change.
My boss is 73 years old, and one of his favorite stories to tell when giving speeches is how much change there is in life. He then refers to his grandfather, who lived for 88 years. My boss continues, “Throughout his lifetime, he went from riding horses into school to seeing the first automobile to seeing a man land on the moon.” What a lifetime! While these experiences aren’t necessarily applicable to popular culture, the concept is still the same.
Think about it - what all has happened within your lifetime?
I am 23 years old, and I’d like to say a lot has changed within the popular culture industry. But, a lot has stayed the same. For my 23 years of life, the Bachelor Franchise has been around for 21 of those. For those familiar with this franchise, I ask - how much has really changed? The outcome is always meant to end in a proposal, the timeframe is consistent, and there’s always someone there to stir up drama
Secrets out - I watch the Bachelor, Bachelorette, and Bachelor in Paradise religiously. I have for years, even though it is the same concept and a similar outcome every single season. Although I get fulfillment three times a year as the seasons come out, there really is little to no change each season.
Dr. Stein referred to Hallmark movies in his video, and how they generally all have the same, predictable outcome. If Hallmark movies and the Bachelor franchise are so predictable, why do we keep watching it? I think a lot of it comes from a sense of reliability and comfort. In Adorno and Horkheimer’s Culture Industry reading, they refer to when a person can predict or anticipate an event happening - they feel flattered when it actually happens.
As one who has a lot of respect for my boss and his wisdom, his story about his grandfather has always stood out to me. I think it’s such an interesting concept to think about all of the historical moments that happen in our lifetimes. While finding all the events that happen may be overwhelming, it may be interesting to narrow it down to something like popular culture and determine all that’s changed - or stayed the same - in your lifetime.
Look at what you've been through
ReplyDeleteI have always been moved by Moses' speech in Deuteronomy 1. Here, we find Moses at the end of his life. He knows he is going to die soon, and he will not see the land promised. I still think most people would write a speech about the future. Instead, Moses, the first judge, speaks about what was. Look at all that you have been through. Look at how your circumstances have changed. When we experienced the pandemic, I called my 80-year-old godmother. "Ugh, we've been through this before," she said. "We had the TB outbreak, and we had to isolate ourselves within our own homes."
I am not a fan of the Bachelor franchise. I don't get the attraction. However, I did notice this year, they had the Golden Bachelor (the older version). I find Pop Culture recycles. I saw the same shock at Cardi B as I did for Cher, then Madonna, then Lil Kim. Everything old is new again. I'm not sure we are the better for it.
This is a really interesting topic. Upon thinking about it, the first thing that came to mind wasn't a specific movie, TV show, website, or other piece of media, but rather how we access these pieces of media altogether. I am old enough to remember ordering DVDs from Netflix and watching them on a laptop or Blu-Ray player, and waiting until 6 p.m. every night to see what was going on with news and politics. Now, we have all of those DVDs available as digitized content, and the news is available at our fingertips 24/7, 365 days a year.
ReplyDeleteThe craziest part about this change is that it happened across the span of only 10 years or so. In less than half of the years of my life, the way we access pop culture changed so rapidly that we would have been considered crazy if we tried to describe our current situation to someone living back in that first time period.
There is still a lot of "pop culture" media that hasn't changed much, such as reality TV shows such as The Bachelor, like you mentioned, or a large amount of the recently released films where they copy the same clichés and tropes from one another, but the way we consume these pieces of media is changing at a rapid pace.
I think formats with a proven record, are repeated over and over again for decades.
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