Mar
22
theories of mixture; hybridity
Posted by: Brian | March 22, 2009 | Comments Off on theories of mixture; hybridity
Theories of Mixture III: hybridity
I have a history class this semester and in the tutorial we were talking about U.S. cultural Imperialism, and one of my classmates said that she did not think that the U.S. had anything to do with that because the American government was not forcing other countries to embrace American culture. Then, the TA asked Ana what do you think about that coming from Mexico, and I just tried to explain what it says at the beginning of the article that only the rich-powerful people and the government in Mexico have the choice to embrace American culture but that the other classes are forced to consumed it. For example when the government authorizes rich people to open a Wal-Mart the people with less resources have no choice and of course they buy there because it is cheaper than other stores. On page 146 it says that “the backwardness of the popular classes condemns them to sub-alternity” I do not agree with the idea saying that people of the lower classes are backwards or inferior. I think that adjective is used by rich people to keep their control over those people. I think that the article makes the reader to ask the question of where the authentic parts of a culture get eaten up by commercialization. On page 168 the author writes that some communities in Guerrero, Mexico are increasing their minimum wage because they started painting on the amate which is easy to transport as opposed to ceramics. I think here one can see in the effort to persevere something in this case pre-Hispanic art, the art losses its “authentic” essence and becomes a commercial product. But at the same time there is the ambiguity in what people consider authentic.
I also found interesting how the notion of mass culture makes people from one society generalize people of another society. For example, the assumption that Mexican people are all exactly the same without recognizing regional differences such as the ways of speaking and dressing, and that applies to all other the countries in the world. I liked also the part on page 188 where it says that the “popular does not consist of what the people have or are, but what becomes accessible, what they like” because one can see that what becomes “popular” is a mixture of what one part of the society (rich) allows the other part to have and the people of this part takes what they liked of the accessible options.
