Is Popular Culture Progressive or Reactionary?


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Essay #: 053571
Total text length is 21,221 characters (approximately 14.6 pages).

Excerpts from the Paper

The beginning:
Is Popular Culture Progressive or Reactionary?
ASSIGNMENT THREE: This essay will explore the question is popular culture progressive or reactionary. This is a question so broad that it is almost impossible to answer. After all, the terms “progressive” and “reactionary” are very loaded. For example, if someone for “progressive” reasons thinks that all American troops should be taken out of Iraq today, is that person being progressive (as civil war in Iraq would erupt instantly) or is that person being a reactionary against the ongoing policies of an ousted conservative administration whose decision can only be undone slowly?
Clearly some terms have to be set, and so for the sake of this paper’s argument “progressive” will mean wanting more...
The end:
..... a heavy metal format will not work. Attempting to use pop culture genres from specific political ends never works right in the same way zebras simply refuse to be ridden.
It is the nature of popular film, literature, television and music to address the issues of the day’s zeitgeist. Things people are singing about tend to be the same as what people are thinking, or feeling, or they did not know that the feelings a song writer is eluding to are so resonant in the listener’s imagination. While pop culture is often trashy or silly, it remains a critical aspect of cultural formation, and of the pleasure of life. High art and pop culture may have a complicated relationship, but pop culture and its audience need each other for daily stimulation.