Jan
26
The faces of pop culture
Posted by: Brian | January 26, 2009 | Comments Off on The faces of pop culture
Ok so out of all our readings thus far, this is by far my favorite. Although somewhat lengthy, I enjoyed every bit of this reading. Some of it was a little tedious to read but I’d say one out of all the pages one was tedious, in my opinion.
The thing I enjoyed the most was the fact that the author went into great detail about specific Latin American pop culture. For someone who has never taken a course on Latin America and who knows relatively nothing about it, this article made it easier to put a picture to a name.
I am so interested in other cultures and have traveled to many diferent places outside of Canada and the US, and Latin America is one of the places I am most interested in visiting and learning about. I love to learn about the different cultural practices of people far away and relate them to my culture or those I know of.
This essay really brought me to all the little corners of Peru, Argentina and others, places I can only dream about and have. I really enjoyed the background and the history which really put their different cultural practices in a new light. I had so many questions about this population of people that just simply learning about their various ideas of pop culture, wouldn’t give me such an in depth view of them but this essay really helped.
After reading this essay, I now have a better idea of what popular culture really is. The thing that really drove it home for me was how the author explisitly tells us that the ideas of these cultures are imbedded into every day life. That the meaning of every day life is what is popular culture. The seemingly mundane aspects of life have incredible meaning in places where such things aren’t so readily taken for granted. The idea that their history is played out in every day life is a powerful idea. They use oral and written tradition to pass down onto future generations what they think are the most important things in life. The idea that these spoken and written traditions are heavely embedded into their every day lives is important in understanding their way of life.
This essay brought me into their theatre, where history is played out and their songs and music are ways in which they connect with the world around them. The mere thought of having a dance to celebrate the changing of the year and seasons is an amazing thought that brings the world and human nature closer together. In a world where we rarely focus on the earth in our daily lives, this culture/s is deeply intwined with the earth and nature.
Their practices do not just bring them closer with the world around them but connect them with the past and future. Their stories and plays tell the truths of how their political system has come to be, how they have maintained faith and how they associate themselves with the outer world and community. I love that each word they say, eachsond or dance they perform is full of meaning, spilling over into a culture of people who take this meaning seriously.
I compare it to Western culture due to the fact that it seems we are so much the opposite. Not ever in my daily life do I truly encounter anything that makes me think, or question (other than school) our current situation. I am never met by singing people where their words become my own but then if it were my popular culture, I would also be involved. I don’t have any groups of people I sit with and talk about our world and the way it’s come to be and nowhere are there instruments that are connected to the seasons, that I know of in my popular culture. I would love it if my reality was presented in a way such as dance, song and profound lyrical stories, then perhaps I would be more inclined to listen.
Instead I live in a world where danc e and music have become so sexualized that it’s often difficult to find a real story in lyrics and I do listen for them. The reason I dream of their ppopular culture practices is that it seems real. Everything in my reality seems fake, or not tangible. You can’t go to a hockey game and say that that is our reality and our world passed down from generation to generation, is there nothing else? And if there was something else, would anyone listen? Does anyone even care?
I would love to sit on a mountain somewhere and just take it all in, the nature, the realness of it all. In a world where it seems most things are based on superficiality, can we actually see the real from the fake? Now that I’ve finished the reading, I long for other people’s popular culture instead of my own.
