Beyond "it's just entertainment": Therapeutic discourse and resistance to popular culture criticism in the United States
Author(s):
Rockler, Naomi Rachel
Format:
Thesis
Degree granted:
Ph.D.
Publisher:
Ann Arbor : University of Minnesota, 1999.
Pages:
288
Language:
English
Abstract:
Many Americans are resistant to arguments that evaluate popular culture texts ideologically. In my dissertation, I found that because Americans understand the social world through the terministic screen of individualism, many Americans are only accustomed to discourse that evaluates the effects of popular culture upon individuals. Americans are not accustomed to discourse that evaluates the ideological effects of popular culture upon the culture as a whole. I investigated the phenomenon of resistance to ideological popular culture criticism in several ways. First, I examined the discourse surrounding three popular culture controversies, in which Americans argued that ideological criticism of popular culture was illegitimate: (1) a 1994 controversy surrounding several newspaper columnists' negative ideological interpretations of the film The Lion King, (2) a 1998 controversy in response to several Latin American groups' accusations that a series of Taco Bell ads were derogatory, and (3) a 1998 controversy in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area prompted by a citizens' group that protested a radio show that mocked Hmong immigrants. Detractors rejected critical discourse about popular culture (1) by contrasting “everyday people,” who understood that popular culture had no political ramifications, with foolhardy “critics,” (2) by claiming that the only legitimate mode of critique for the viewer was to exhibit consumer behavior and “change the channel”, (3) through therapeutic parodic reversal, and (4) by “blaming the victims” for causing the controversy. I also conducted focus groups with undergraduate students, who watched The Lion King and were asked to critique it. Because most of the students understood communication through the individualistic transmission model of communication, they did not understand the claims of one critic that the symbolism of the film was racist and classist. Furthermore, many of the White students in the interviews individualistically rejected this critics' argument that the wealthy lions ought to share their resources with the poverty-stricken hyenas.