Popular Culture in Literature

The Issue

What constitutes popular culture is debated, and the definition that one chooses influences the interpretations one makes about popular culture. Popular culture may be said to be represented by those objects and icons that are recognizable to a large number of people but that have not yet passed into the social canon. When something becomes part of the social canon, it becomes part of the norms, rules, and expectations of the members of a society. For example, one may argue that a currently famous athlete is part of popular culture, because they are widely recognized, but that the player is not part of the social canon, because they are not a model of conduct or historical example, as are such figures as Jesus or Martin Luther King Jr—or perhaps even an athlete recognized as an all-time icon, such as Babe Ruth or Michael Jordan. The borders between popular culture and canonical culture are clearly quite fluid, and precise definition is impossible. Some art, in fact, has as its theme the ease with which images and cultural references can shuttle between canonical culture and popular culture.

100551468-96239.jpg

Many critics make a distinction between popular culture and mass culture. When this distinction is made, "mass culture" is used to describe popular culture materials that have been appropriated by commercial interests. This is often a circular process, with commercial interests producing objects and images that are adopted by groups as cultural icons, which in turn are further exploited by commercial interests. An example is the artist Andy Warhol's using a commercial image, the Campbell's soup can, in his art, and then the art's being printed on shirts, which are sold in large numbers. In another example, sports figures endorse items of clothing, which are in turn used by youth gangs to identify members. An element of popular culture, such as a type of music, may also be considered part of mass culture, since a commercial interest (a record company) is involved in the music's dissemination.

Another distinction is often made between popular culture and what is called elite or high culture. Such a distinction often says more about the social identification of the person making the distinction than about popular culture or elite culture. Vague boundaries also exist between elite culture and popular culture. The works of British poet Geoffrey Chaucer, for example, may clearly belong to elite culture, and the songs of the rock group Nirvana may clearly belong to the popular culture, but the categorization of a figure such as British author Jane Austen is hard to determine definitively, especially in the wake of popular film versions of her novels. Elite culture tends to be culture that has passed into social canon and that is preferred by the rich and powerful in society.

Another definition of popular culture is that culture created by subcultures in the process of solving a problem. Popular culture materials are often used by subcultures as ways of identifying subculture members. It infers an active participation of subculture members in the appropriation, creation, and use of popular culture materials as audience and as artist. Henry Jenkins' Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture (1992) explores this active aspect of cultural product use and production as it affects television fiction. His title is intended to preview the thesis that he presents: that subculturally organized television viewers use television media for their own purposes and are not passive consumers.

Many popular culture theorists have tended to examine television and music more than cultural products based on the written word. Unwritten media, it seems, appeal to the theorists because such media are more ephemeral than the written word. Additionally, literacy is an acquired skill, whereas even people who do not speak Chinese can enjoy a Chinese television program by following the action or enjoy Chinese music. Consequently, there is more opportunity to study people interacting with such popular culture media as television and music. However, trends in popular literature do often reflect important issues in society.

Popular fiction is often marketed as genre literature—any work meant to fit into an already well-known and commercially successful style. Genre literature is a type of mass and popular culture material. It is studied by popular culture theorists as a branch of literary study. To popular culture theorists, a text is any societal production, therefore any media—books, film, television shows, recordings, radio, and music—are texts. Genre literature consists of written texts. Surveys of book purchasing habits consistently show that genre fiction outsells canonical literary fiction, reinforcing its position as part of popular culture. Yet genre literature is frequently accused by academics and intellectuals of being simplistic, sometimes banal, and at its most controversial, of defying social norms.

Traditional classifications of genre literature—romance novels, science fiction, fantasy, mystery and detective, horror, pornographic books, and Westerns, for example—create a system of expectations for the reader. Texts have recognizable, conventional themes and plots, as publishers prefer to reproduce fiction similar to what has successfully sold before in order to reduce financial risk. Marketing by genre further helps reduce the financial risk of publishing. Genre fiction announces to the potential purchaser what to expect from the product. Meeting these expectations can often be crucial to a work's success.

The set of assumptions of genre fiction can also allow writers to exploit conventions of plot and vocabulary. Readers and writers generally demand a certain amount of innovation or novelty to be entertained. In genre literature, however, there can often be too much or too little innovation. Genre literature innovation tends to be slow and steady, not taking great leaps, as a result of market forces. The categories of genre fiction can be as fluid as the definition of popular culture; the elements that are necessary to create a science-fiction detective novel, for example, are simply a writer, a publisher, and a hoped-for reader. When a market for a new genre category is found, a new genre category is created, despite how someone who wishes to create a reliable categorization system may feel about such developments.

While most categories of genre fiction contain considerable variety, the persistence of these categories indicates the fact that there are significant shared elements as well, which help to create a recognizable style. Noted African American nonfiction and science-fiction writer Samuel R. Delany, in The Jewel-Hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction (1977), explains that science fiction is distinct from other genres because the reading and writing of science fiction require a much more literal interpretation of the writing than other genres. For example, the sentence "It blew him away" may require quite different interpretations by the reader depending upon whether it is found in a Danielle Steel romance novel or a Robert A. Heinlein science-fiction novel. In the first case, the author would probably be referring to an event having great emotional impact on a character. In the second, however, the author might very well be saying that some force propelled a character an undetermined distance. Either in spite of or because of this need for literal interpretation, science fiction as a genre has been innovative in introducing characters with nontraditional gender roles, characters of color, and characters with alternative lifestyles. Another possible reason for science fiction's innovation is its roots in the adventure genre. Much science fiction is about travel to other worlds, which implicitly or explicitly invites the reader to compare this world to the other one. Thus, science fiction is by tradition a way to produce entertaining social criticism.

Genre Literature and Elite Literature

For popular genre fiction to become literature that is recognized by the elite culture, it must stand the test of time. Writers of popular fiction who aspire to enduring fame and critics who deprecate contemporary popular fiction may recall that William Shakespeare's plays, at the time of their composition, were not considered great literature. Shakespeare wrote popular literature and measured its success in financial terms. Thus the boundaries between popular culture and elite culture are mutable. Although it is impossible to define with great accuracy what does and what does not belong to popular culture or to define accurately what genre literature is and what elite literature is, such lack of definition does not preclude fruitful critical and scientific study. Popular culture informs elite culture and vice versa; the issue of which cultural artifacts are preserved, and which names are remembered, depends not exclusively upon a committee of experts but also upon popular acceptance and the accidents of history.

There have been many more modern examples of genre literature crossing over from mass-market status given little regard by literary critics to considerable literary acclaim. The detective fiction of writers such as Raymond Chandler, James M. Cain, and Dashiell Hammett was originally dismissed by many but by the twenty-first century were recognized for their great influence and iconic style. While much subsequent detective fiction is derided for following formulas, the legacy and popularity of the crime novel is seen in the success of later authors such as Tana French (In the Woods, 2007) and Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl, 2012). Similarly, during the mid–twentieth century boom in science fiction few cultural elites saw the genre as worthy of consideration of literature. Yet pioneers of science fiction such as Isaac Asimov, Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke came to be recognized as some of the most noteworthy authors of their time, it part due to their great popular success that in turn shaped culture in general. Many later "literary" authors have written works that can be considered science fiction, including Margaret Atwood (Oryx and Crake, 2003) and Cormac McCarthy (The Road, 2006).

Popular literature is mass marketed, so publishers tend to publish works that will appeal to the largest target audience. In the United States, that target audience historically was primarily middle-class to upper-class white households, and the majority of fiction published had characters representing that market. For example, the conventional Western features white cowboys, despite the diverse reality of the Old West. Until the late twentieth century American Indians were typically depicted as villains or comic characters, while women in a cowboy novel were usually stereotypes. Traditional spy and detective novels also featured mostly white males in the hero role, although market forces eventually created a demand, and a supply, of more diverse lead characters. A groundbreaking example is the series of detective novels by Sara Paretsky featuring V. I. Warshawski, a female version of the classic hardboiled detective character, which began in 1982 and continued through the 2010s.

Horror and occult fiction that has a female main character usually does so in order to terrorize her. Most often, she triumphs over evil, since that is what the genre conventions call for, but most often it is with the help of a male character, and both of them are almost inevitably white. Historical romance novels, in common with horror novels, tend to follow the basic conventions of the genre, in which the heroine is white, beautiful, and in the end submissive to her male romantic lead. Only late in the twentieth century has genre fiction begun to explore positive and nontraditional images of American ethnic minorities and women.

Many such examples that have earned popular and critical acclaim have blurred the boundaries between genre fiction and literary fiction. Alice Walker's The Color Purple, which has elements of the romance genre, appeared in 1982. Walker's novel The Temple of My Familiar (1989), a steamy romance, lends insight into black and Latino experience. The Xenogenesis trilogy, a science-fiction work by Octavia Butler, was published from 1987 to 1989. These works are about African Americans and have strong female characters. Eye of Cat (1982), by Roger Zelazny, is a science-fiction novel that draws heavily on Native American mythology and experience. A Native American man who makes his living as a hunter for the Earth's extraterrestrial zoo brings back a catlike creature that is confined in the zoo. As time passes, the man begins to suspect that the creature he has brought back is intelligent.

Diverse family and sexual identities have been depicted most often sympathetically in science fiction. Joe Haldeman's The Forever War (1974) depicts a thousand-year interstellar war, during which homosexual relations result from the conditions of war. Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) explores love relationships in a world whose population spends most of its time neither male nor female. In the novel, when individuals enter into a period of sexual readiness, they develop randomly either as females or as males, and then revert again to a sexually neutral condition. Theodore Sturgeon's Venus Plus X (1960) is a witty novel in which an average American man is suddenly transported to a planet of lovely hermaphrodites. Heinlein's Time Enough for Love: Or, The Lives of Lazarus Long (1973) explores all aspects of love, as the title suggests.

Delany's Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia (1976) explores a future in which people can choose their appearance, identity, and gender. Delany's experience of being black and gay informs his work. Feminist utopia and dystopias also tend to be classified in the genre category of science fiction. Examples of feminist utopias are Sheri S. Tepper's The Gate to Woman's Country (1988) and David Brin's Glory Season (1993). Glory Season was inspired by Charlotte Perkins Gilman's feminist utopia novel Herland (1915). The popular feminist dystopia by Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale (1985), was made into a 1990 film as well as an acclaimed television series that premiered in 2017.

Bibliography

Berger, Arthur Asa. Popular Culture Genres: Theories and Texts. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1992. Volume two in a series on popular culture; other volumes discuss how culture is produced, popular music, and the relationship of journalism to popular culture.

Fowles, Jib. Advertising and Popular Culture. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1996. Volume five in a series on popular culture explores the possibility that consumers are not passive puppets of advertising, but rather that consumers "look to advertising to provide them with images that can assist them in negotiating the personal dilemmas of advanced industrial life."

Hoffman, Frank W. American Popular Culture: A Guide to the Reference Literature. Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1995. Provides bibliographic references to United States popular culture materials. Topic areas range from fashion and sports to religion and topic sources range from comic books to clothing.

Jenkins, Henry. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. New York: Routledge, 1992. A media theorist's examination of the cultural productions of the fans of television shows.

Journal of American Culture, The. Published quarterly by Bowling Green State University Press in cooperation with the Popular Culture Association, Bowling Green, Ohio. Contains articles on all aspects of American popular culture.

Journal of Popular Culture, The. Published quarterly by Bowling Green State University Press in cooperation with the Popular Culture Association, Bowling Green, Ohio. Contains articles on all aspects of popular culture.

Kellner, Douglas. Media Culture: Cultural Studies, Identity and Politics between the Modern and the Postmodern. New York: Routledge, 1995. Discusses the theory, context, and methodology of cultural studies and attempts to analyze the underlying political and economic motivations for the way the media portrays various cultural icons such as Ronald Reagan, Madonna, and Spike Lee.

Landrum, Larry N. American Popular Culture: A Guide to Information Sources. Detroit: Gale Research, 1982. A resource guide to other publications and information on American popular culture.

Pickard, Kevin. "Should Fiction Be Timeless? Pop Culture References in Contemporary Novels." Electric Literature, 19 Jan. 2016, electricliterature.com/should-fiction-be-timeless-pop-culture-references-in-contemporary-novels/. Accessed 27 Aug. 2019.

Sanders, Clinton R., ed. Marginal Conventions: Popular Culture, Mass Media, and Social Deviance. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1990. Examines theories of deviance in relation to popular culture.

Simonson, Rick, and Scott Walker, eds. The Graywolf Annual Five: Multicultural Literacy. Saint Paul, Minn.: Graywolf Press. 1988. Examines multicultural literacy, arguing that the advocates of cultural literacy are advocates of middle-class, white male values.

Sochen, June. Enduring Values: Women in Popular Culture. New York: Praeger, 1987. Discusses the images of women portrayed in popular culture and mass media in the twentieth century and what social values these images express.