Monthly Archives: March 2017

Hybridity and also the possible ‘end of popular culture’

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Again, I apologise for the lateness of this blog, and having not done last week’s either I just thought it might be easier for all you keen readers out there to do one more substantial post on 3 pieces…

The Velazquez piece is intriguing – especially for me as a music student – she quickly references Susan McClary’s ideology that music has the power to ‘make us our experience our bodies in accordance with its gestures and rhythms’ in a unique and unparalleled way – something which I would entirely agree with. For me, music taps into an emotional and sensual stimuli in our brains which in a completely unique way. She then goes on to discuss how the relationship between body and music can differ from culture to culture, which again is something I would agree with – salsa is the focus of this: The first thing she points out is the different ways instruments are used in performance of music from different cultures, for example how a guitar is used in rock, compared to how it is used in salsa (p118) – she notices how in rock music, guitar rhythms are more linear in terms of the way that they tend to follow the rhythm of the bass/kick drum, whereas in salsa guitar rhythms tend to swing across barlines (known as ‘anticipated rhythm) – this helps to create syncopation – which is probably the most characteristic trait of salsa music (and also of other types of music such as jazz/blues which have a lot in common with salsa). McClary would seem to agree with me here: she mentions near the end of the same page (118), how salsa has come to be known as an extremely musically flexible genre, because its musical structure is derived from African rhythms and more European style melodies. Similarly, blues originated from African rhythms, but because it was originally promulgated by Black Americans, there was the Western influence of the USA. As blues spread to Europe, and was adopted by many white Westerners (notably George Gershwin), this style of music was what some might call ‘polystylistic’, as it incorporated a range of different cultures.

Anyhow, back to the article (apologies for the tangent here!): page 119 is also very interesting as it touches upon how different forms of music are assimilated into different cultures, and then become developed in different ways – with salsa, it was exported to the UK, and took on a different form there, as it was developed by a different culture. Velazquez points out how people who learn salsa in the UK would have a different experience to people learning the musical form in Columbia, or other parts of Latin America, to which salsa is indigenous.

p123 – Velazquez discusses how ‘one of the ways a Latin musical identity is established is through the use of the Spanish language’ – however, this needs to be modified within the context of an English audience (in England) – most of whom will not understand Spanish, or just some very basic terms, such as ‘hola’, ‘amigo’ and ‘hermano’ (hermano means brother in Spanish for those who don’t know 😉 ).

 

Gomez-Pena reading

This reading is particularly interesting as it discusses the strategic use of the media by the guerrilla takeover in Mexico City – unlike any other takeover seen before! (all on p223) – he mentions how it has been unlike any other guerrilla seizure of power before because of the way in which they recognised the importance and power of the media. On p223, Gomez-Pena recognises how ‘from the outset, the ZLN was fully aware of the symbolic impact of their largely conceptual military actions’ – The ZLN stands for the Zapatista Liberation National Army. He then goes on to note how one of the leaders of the revolt ‘Subcomondante Marcos’ turned out to be a consumate ‘performancero’ – and went on to become ‘the latest pop hero in a noble tradition of pop activists’ (223) – this seems to me like a far more peaceful revolution than Mexico, and many other Latin American countries had received before!

Marcos, or ‘el Sup’ would then go on to become a sex symbol as leader, mainly because of his g ‘hazel eyes’ and also because no one had really seen him behind the ski mask! – the women all fell in love with him because of his mystery. However, p226 shows how he wasn’t really known at an international level – ‘though Marcos became the most famous Mexican celebrity in the world, no one knew who he really was’.

The Garcia Canclini reading on hybridisation is very interesting. The central theme of this piece is essentially that hybridisation is a consistent cycle (and an everlasting cycle) – it’s not a teleological process as was suggested by Vasconcelos in his theory of hybridisation in the his piece, ‘The Cosmic Race’, concerning mestizaje. Furthermore, he discusses how it is a process, and not a product and also how it is an extremely complex term: he believes that hybridisation defines distinction between what is popular culture and what IS NOT popular culture. Hybridisation avoids the levels of hierarchy which occur in transculturation and mestizaje, which I think is a very important conceptual point. On p223 he discusses what might be ‘the end of popular culture’ – however, what I think he is trying to get at is that it is impossible to define popular culture nowadays as it no longer has a fixed meaning. This might partly be due to how hybridisation affects the relationship between high/low/popular/not popular culture.

Discussion of Bellos/Ortega Readings

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These readings were very interesting (especially the Bellos, partly because I will probably write my paper on similar material, and because of my deep set love for the beautiful game (football, never soccer, please…).

The Nelson Ortega reading was intriguing, for a few reasons…the most important being the importance of the TV, and TV programming in Latin America. However, he importantly emphasises ‘telenovelas’. As he doesn’t directly define what a ‘telenovela’ is, I did some research on it. Indeed, they are very similar to what the Western world would define as soap operas, however they are importantly NOT the same as soap operas. They are much shorter than soap operas (they rarely run for longer than a year), but they are still much longer than most serials. A telenovela is best described as a ‘serial’ drama. On p64, Ortega notes how telenovelas have become ‘much more permeable to the changes in the genre, in the country, and in the audience’ since Radio Caracas Television revolutionised the genre with ‘Por estas calles’ (by Ibsen Martinez) in the early 1990s. Ortega implies that the first wave of telenovelas were slightly less serious than late waves. He notes on p65, how at first, telenovelas customarily ‘avoided references to to contemporary social life and current history’. Ortega then goes on to discuss how these 2 phases of telenovela: the cultural phase, which started in 1973, and the urban phase, which began in 1977. Essentially there isn’t a huge amount of change between the 2 waves, and there is a lot of overlap between the two, which he duly notes. Certainly the 2nd phase built from the first as it contains a lot of the same drama of the first (things such as love, sex, violence, relationships etc.).  He emphasises how melodrama is central to telenovelas on p68 too!

What I love about the Bellos reading, is the amount of emotion that is conveyed. Many people will say, football is just a game: I would say to that try going to one of the biggest derbies in the world: for example, Arsenal v Tottenham, Man United v Liverpool, Barcelona v Real Madrid, AC Milan v Inter Milan, Boca Juniors v River Plate: the list goes on and on. For the real, hardcore fans, football is more than just a culture: it’s a religion (to quote one of my heroes Skepta there). Unfortunately I don’t have time to go into more detail here (much as I would love to!) but rest assured I will be writing a football-based paper, so there will be plenty much more to come!

 

 

Thoughts on Ortiz/Millington pieces concerning ‘Transculturation’

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Apologies for the lateness on this one firstly!

I thought both of these pieces were extremely interesting, because they each provide their own slightly differing theories on what transculturation is and what the term can imply.

From the very start of his piece, Mark Millington is quick to point out how overuse of the term ‘transculturation’ can easily render the term ineffective; mainly due to how overuse shows an ‘inattention to precise definition’. Millington then discusses the difference between transculturation and hybridisation. This mainly occurs at the end of p256, and the beginning of p257.  Importantly, he recognises how hybridisation is a global term, and ‘has associations with post-structuralist postcolonialism because of the widespread acceptance of Homi Bhabha’s view of it’ (p257). I think it is important to know that Homi Bhabha himself is an Indian philosopher (and also current Director of Humanities at Harvard), who essentially defined the term in his own words in his book Narrative & Narration, published in 1990.  Bhabha views colonialism as something which continues to consistently pervade present day life, rather than an ideology which is locked in the past. This theory is drawn from Edward Said’s works, and insists that we our understanding of cross-cultural relations must be transformed. It is also possible to say that his work has transformed the study of colonialism by applying post-structuralist methodologies to colonial texts.

With this in mind, other possible ways of describing transculturation are discussed, for example, Millington says on p258 how ‘transculturation stands alone as a description of a process of mixing’.

It is worth mentioning how Millington’s piece was only written a few years ago, whereas Ortiz’s theories are taken from nearly 100 years ago! Hence Millington’s piece actually references Ortiz’s theories a fair bit!

Ortiz’s piece, concerns a more authentic view of transculturation, albeit far more dated than Millington’s, who has the advantage of foresight. One gets the general impression that Ortiz believes that everything is foreign in Cuba, ie its an amalgamation of other cultures. On p102, Ortiz defines transculturation as transition from one culture to another. Essentially he implies loss of culture on both sides as each culture is absorbed. So it’s different from acculturation, which has traditionally been a process of simply acquiring an another culture and possibly a more complex understanding. Indeed, he mentions how transculturation is process without end and constantly has room for new possibilities to be expressed. There is room for increasing complexity, rather than decreasing complexity.