Low culture
Encyclopedia
Low culture is a term for some forms of popular culture
. Its opposite is high culture
. It has been said by culture theorists
that both high culture and low culture are subculture
s.
It is claimed that in simple terms, low culture is a derogatory term for popular culture. This means everything in society that has mass appeal. In today's society, this would involve things like 'take-away' meals, the Kardashians, gossip magazines, books that are current best sellers, and sports such as football, basketball.
, popular music
, escapist fiction
, Kitsch
, slapstick
, camp
, toilet humor, yellow journalism
, pornography
, and exploitation film
s are often cited examples of low culture. It has often been stated that in postmodern
times, the boundary between high culture and low culture has blurred. See the 1990s artwork of Jeff Koons
for examples of appropriation
of low art tropes. Rhys Chatham
's musical piece Guitar Trio 1977 is also an example of incorporating (low culture) 'primitive' punk rock esthetics with (high art) contemporary classical music
.
Romanticism
was one of the first movements to reappraise "low culture", when previously maligned medieval romances
started to influence literature.
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
. Its opposite is high culture
High culture
High culture is a term, now used in a number of different ways in academic discourse, whose most common meaning is the set of cultural products, mainly in the arts, held in the highest esteem by a culture...
. It has been said by culture theorists
Culture theory
Culture theory is the branch of anthropology and semiotics that seeks to define the heuristic concept of culture in operational and/or scientific terms....
that both high culture and low culture are subculture
Subculture
In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a group of people with a culture which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong.- Definition :...
s.
It is claimed that in simple terms, low culture is a derogatory term for popular culture. This means everything in society that has mass appeal. In today's society, this would involve things like 'take-away' meals, the Kardashians, gossip magazines, books that are current best sellers, and sports such as football, basketball.
Manifestations
Reality televisionReality television
Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...
, popular music
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
, escapist fiction
Escapist fiction
Escapist fiction is fiction which provides a psychological escape from thoughts of everyday life by immersing the reader in exotic situations or activities.The term is not used favorably, though the condemnation contained in it may be slight...
, Kitsch
Kitsch
Kitsch is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons while making cheap mass-produced objects that...
, slapstick
Slapstick
Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated violence and activities which may exceed the boundaries of common sense.- Origins :The phrase comes from the batacchio or bataccio — called the 'slap stick' in English — a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in Commedia dell'arte...
, camp
Camp (style)
Camp is an aesthetic sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its taste and ironic value. The concept is closely related to kitsch, and things with camp appeal may also be described as being "cheesy"...
, toilet humor, yellow journalism
Yellow journalism
Yellow journalism or the yellow press is a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines to sell more newspapers. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism...
, pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
, and exploitation film
Exploitation film
Exploitation film is a type of film that is promoted by "exploiting" often lurid subject matter. The term "exploitation" is common in film marketing, used for all types of films to mean promotion or advertising. These films then need something to exploit, such as a big star, special effects, sex,...
s are often cited examples of low culture. It has often been stated that in postmodern
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
times, the boundary between high culture and low culture has blurred. See the 1990s artwork of Jeff Koons
Jeff Koons
Jeffrey "Jeff" Koons is an American artist known for his reproductions of banal objects—such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces....
for examples of appropriation
Appropriation (art)
Appropriation is a fundamental aspect in the history of the arts . Appropriation can be understood as "the use of borrowed elements in the creation of a new work."...
of low art tropes. Rhys Chatham
Rhys Chatham
Rhys Chatham is an American composer, guitarist, and trumpet player, primarily active in avant-garde and minimalist music. He is best known for his "guitar orchestra" compositions...
's musical piece Guitar Trio 1977 is also an example of incorporating (low culture) 'primitive' punk rock esthetics with (high art) contemporary classical music
Contemporary classical music
Contemporary classical music can be understood as belonging to the period that started in the mid-1970s with the retreat of modernism. However, the term may also be employed in a broader sense to refer to all post-1945 modern musical forms.-Categorization:...
.
Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
was one of the first movements to reappraise "low culture", when previously maligned medieval romances
Romance (genre)
As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...
started to influence literature.
See also
- Mass societyMass societyMass society is a description associated with society in the modern, industrial era. "Guided by the structural-functional approach and drawing on the ideas of Tönnies, Durkheim, and Weber, understands modernity as the emergence of a mass society...
- KitschKitschKitsch is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons while making cheap mass-produced objects that...
- Popular culturePopular culturePopular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
- Culture industryCulture industryCulture industry is a term coined by critical theorists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer , who argued in the chapter of their book Dialectic of Enlightenment, 'The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception' ; that popular culture is akin to a factory producing standardized cultural goods...
- Bread and circusesBread and circuses"Bread and Circuses" is a metaphor for a superficial means of appeasement...
- One-Dimensional ManOne-Dimensional ManOne-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society is a book written by philosopher Herbert Marcuse, first published in 1964....
- Reality televisionReality televisionReality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded...
- Primitive art
- Lower class
- ProlefeedProlefeedProlefeed is a Newspeak term in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. It was used to describe the deliberately superficial literature, movies and music that were produced by Prolesec, a section of the Ministry of Truth, to keep the "proles" content and to prevent them from becoming too...
- Outsider artOutsider ArtThe term outsider art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for art brut , a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture; Dubuffet focused particularly on art by insane-asylum inmates.While...
- Bread and circusesBread and circuses"Bread and Circuses" is a metaphor for a superficial means of appeasement...
- Lowbrow (art movement)Lowbrow (art movement)Lowbrow, or lowbrow art, describes an underground visual art movement that arose in the Los Angeles, California, area in the late 1970s. Lowbrow is a widespread populist art movement with origins in the underground comix world, punk music, hot-rod street culture, and other subcultures. It is also...
- Trash cultureTrash cultureTrash culture is a term for some aspects of modern culture in the UK and USA that peaked in the 1990s and 2000s. The term is used for labeling the cultural by-products of modernism with barbarism and injustice.-Overview:...
- Shock humourShock humourShock humour is a style of comedy intended to shock the audience. This can be achieved through excessively foul toilet humour, mocking of serious themes , or through tactlessness in the aftermath of a crisis....
- Human intelligence variationIntelligenceIntelligence has been defined in different ways, including the abilities for abstract thought, understanding, communication, reasoning, learning, planning, emotional intelligence and problem solving....
- BoganBoganThe term bogan is Australian slang, usually pejorative or self-deprecating, for an individual who is recognised to be from a lower class background or someone whose limited education, speech, clothing, attitude and behaviour exemplifies such a background....
(Australia and New Zealand) - DresDresDres or dresiarz is a term used in Poland to describe a specific subculture or class of young males. Dresiarze stereotypically live in urban tower blocks or tenement houses. They are usually portrayed as undereducated, unemployed, aggressive and anti-social. The dresiarz phenomenon was first...
(Poland) - GopnikGopnikGopnik is a stereotypical class of young males up to 30 years old found in Russia and post-Soviet countries, similar to a Chav or Ned in Great Britain, characterized by aggressive behavior, specifically towards the weak, predilection to the criminal subculture, abuse of alcohol beverages and...
(Russia) - ChavChavA chav is a term that is used in the United Kingdom to describe a stereotype of teenagers and young adults from an underclass background.-Etymology:...
(UK) - FlaiteFlaiteFlaite is a classist Chilean Spanish slang used to define urban youth of low-socioeconomic background by linking them to vulgar habits and crime...
(Chile)