The Poverty Mindset

What excellent topics to round out the semester! Television and internet, my only two pastimes these days (or ever, if I’m being super honest with myself). I especially appreciated Morgan’s text “Sex, soap, and society: telenovela noir in Alvaro Uribe’s Colombia”, as it delved into two ideas that I particularly enjoyed considering.

Firstly, throughout the course I have been considering the definitions of popular culture and ‘the people’. We work so hard to define general ideas, general themes, overall opinions, which are all good and useful things in their own way. However, I like to spend much more time thinking about the individual. I am not satisfied with a general answer, which is what I think we tend towards when talking about society and culture, and with good reason. Morgan discussed this somewhat, mentioning previous generalizations made by telenovela critics, as well as made some of his own. However, he was also fairly clear about the fact that these generalizations are likely not entirely representative of the people they’re meant to be describing. He showed this through the quotes from students and women that he had interviewed for previous research projects/courses. They didn’t all have the same opinion or perception of the novela being discussed, Sin Tetas No Hay Paraiso. I appreciated this acknowledgement of the individual nuance in these types of studies and topics.

Secondly, and somewhat following a generalization myself, this overall topic of narconovelas and the discussion of the poverty in Colombia and the actions and reasonings used by Colombians, as well as characters of the show, had me thinking about the poverty mindset. As a behavioural neuroscience student, something we are constantly discussing is how our upbringing and environment affects our decision-making. One idea that I remember talking about is how children who are raised living below the line of poverty are more likely to choose instant gratification over delayed-but-greater gratification rewards (compared to children raised living above the poverty line). There is something about being raised with nothing that makes you want to have as much as you can instantly, and you don’t want to wait for it. I saw this idea throughout the text in how people and characters talked about doing whatever it took to get money, even if it was wrong, the self-interest, the materialism, and the unwillingness to decide between two good, immediate things (Albeiro wanting to date both Catalina and her mother). I wonder if the poverty mindset plays a role in the popularity of such shows like telenovelas and narconovelas, in which the high dramatization and catharsis might provide some form of  instant gratification.

My questions to the class are these: how do generalizations play into discussions of popular culture? Can we discuss popular culture without them? On another note, do you think the psychological  phenomena of the poverty mindset has any effect on what popular culture is consumed in a society with high rates of poverty?