Jan
26
3: Faces of Popular Culture, in Latin America
Posted by: Brian | January 26, 2009 | Comments Off on 3: Faces of Popular Culture, in Latin America
How do you describe the popular culture of a place as large and as diverse as Latin America? By writing A LOT.
This weeks reading was long, but it was interesting. I’m not exactly sure how to go about writing a 400 word response to over 100 pages, so I’ll just write about my general feelings about it.
I really liked how it was broken up into rural and urban contexts. The comparing and contrasting of the two instances of popular culture was very insightful. On top of that, I don’t know very much at all about rural or indigenous Latin America, so the first chapter was very informative all at once which led nicely into the discussions of more familiar things like telenovelas, samba and black culture, and football/soccer.
What I particularly found interesting, though, was the recurrent commentary on modernization and massification in popular culture, especially the ideas of Jesus Martin-Barbero relayed on page 98.
Anyway, if it weren’t apparent enough, this reading definitely affirms how the diverse cultures of Latin America meld into what we up North perceive as Latin American popular culture.