Cultural clarifications/pop culture

[moongirlk]

David, feeling responsible for raising the topic, tried to help me 
with my science/humanities confusion, and in the end, in relation to 
HP, came to this conclusion:
 
> In Harry Potter, is it the imaginary world or the way the people 
may 
> develop that grabs you?  If the answer is 'both', then just enjoy 
> it.  If it's only one of those things, or soemthing else, still 
enjoy 
> it but consider that there might be more to be had out of it (and 
> other literature).
> 

The answer is definitely both, plus a few dozen other factors, I'm 
sure.  I guess my problem isn't so much that I picked the wrong one 
as it is that I am a fence-sitter, in this as well as many other 
aspects of my life.  I hate having to choose between one thing and 
another.  That was always my problem with those personality tests, 
too - they'd ask if I preferred X or Y and I'd want secret option C-
both.  But, like the guy I can't remember says, you can't have 
everything, where would you put it?

While I'm posting anyway: 

On the subject of the ivory tower, which then became "Pop culture, 
what is it good for?"  Here's my secret option C - pop culture makes 
a fantastic field of study for some academics.  I wonder if they're 
fence-sitters too - I bet it's dizzying sitting on a fence 
surrounding an ivory tower.

Seriously though, it's fascinating to me that what started with a 
criticism of the ivory tower crew who feel that anything with popular 
appeal can't have value morphed into a criticism of the pop culture-y 
stuff itself.  Interesting ambivalence.

I for one am all for pop culture.  It's such an interesting lens 
through which to view things.  It affects language and taste and 
attitudes and interpersonal relations...  Netspeak is a good example -
 in just a few short years tons of new words have been coined.  
That's as much a part of pop culture as what we see on TV or what boy 
band is hot this week.  Does preferring alternative, classic rock or 
any other kind of music to what's known as pop music save me from 
being a slave to pop culture?  Does preferring PBS or "cult" 
programming to must-see tv save anyone?  Having a TV or a radio or a 
computer or virtually any other communication with the world around 
us pretty much guarantees a certain entrenchment of pop culture in 
our lives, and a significant lack of pop-culture exposure would leave 
me pretty out-of-touch with my fellow USAmericans (I'm focusing on 
USAmerican pop culture because it's what I know) as well as missing 
out on all sorts of jokes, like for example in Back to the Future, 
where Fox's character asks for a Tab or a Pepsi Free in the diner.  A 
funny scene, but viewed without the framework of our popular culture 
to tell us about soft drinks of the 80s, it would have been as 
meaningless or confusing to us as it was to the man behind the 
counter.  

One phenomenon may be more firmly entrenched in the collective psyche 
than the next, but everything from Buffy to Gilligan to Friends to 
Star Trek to Masterpiece Theatre enters into the equation and while 
some of it is terribly embarrassing (I can't tell you how embarrassed 
I was when I learned that Married with Children was show in other 
countries), when you put it all together there's so much to draw from 
and it really does add texture to the world.  

kimberly
who likes Gilmore Girls in part because of all the interesting pop 
culture references, even if everyone does talk too much, too fast.