Hover-boards; crazy fashion; corrupt governments;
apocalyptic events; evil, world-dominating computers—these are pretty common
devices in the universe of future-based stories. Humankind seems to have an innate desire to fantasize/fear
what is to come. This is not to say
we’re good at it. (Sorry, weather forecaster. You are the brunt of many bad prediction
jokes.) However, I’m not talking about
any crystal balls or biblical revelations.
No horoscopes, either.
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| Picture by Skarabeusz on Wikimedia Commons |
Each of the theories on here will have a certain type of
logic applied in their formation. In
order to better explain, I decided to speak to Professor Amy Damico of Endicott
College. Professor Damico, a woman who
always has an example at the ready and loves to use fun as an educational
method, teaches the foundational seminar for the Endicott Honors Program
alongside Dean Sarah Quay. The class
takes a scholarly approach to pop culture and examines how pop culture comes
about as well as its effect on people.
For Future Theory, examples of
both past culture and current culture are used in the hypotheticals presented. The class defines two different types of
culture:
“Small c” culture: Includes
what’s popular now (i.e. the big box office movies, the hit book series, the
latest thing going around tumblr, etc.).
This is your pop culture.
“Big C” Culture: The type of material that’s more intellectual
(i.e. Shakespeare, Van Gough, and Mozart).
“Small c” culture is the main
focus of the class. Recently, they’ve
also covered what author Jane Thompkins calls “cultural work.” It requires three steps:
1) Find
the historical context of the “text” (movie, book, picture, etc.). Look at the big events and movements of the
time.
2) Learn
what people thought about these situations.
3) Connect
the text back to the context and the reactions to see how the text affected the
surrounding culture.
Before launching into the example, let’s start with a quirky
little fact. Did you know that the
invention of bikinis began during World War II (1939-1945)? The U.S. had called a rationing on fabric
and, as a result, women’s swimwear received less material. The two-piece swimsuit came about, revealing
midriff, and in 1946, the bikini as we know it today appeared. It took its namesake from Bikini Atoll, the
collection of islands where the U.S. had been testing nuclear bombs for the
war.
To help explain the process of
cultural work, we would say that the “text” would be the swimsuit. The historical context would be World War
II. The thoughts were that material
should be reserved for the war efforts and that incorporating less fabric into
something such as women’s swimwear would be a logical move. This made two-piece swimwear acceptable, thus
started the advancement toward the bikini.
Step 3, otherwise known as “making a claim,” would be that the cultural
work of the bikini was to minimize fabric requirements for women’s swimwear.
In this modern day and age, the bikini is a fashion
statement, even if it wasn’t accepted in the U.S. until the 1960s (50 years ago
from now) after movie stars started wearing it on screen. It’s an odd string of cause and effect,
certainly. It seems it’s a trend that
appropriate clothing is losing more and more fabric—and not because of war
efforts. That topic will be debated
later along with a good helping of moral debate, which will often play a role
here. After all, morals often come into
play with future-based stories.
Professor’s Damico’s class is currently discussing one of
those matters of moral contradiction, pop culture, and futuristic
story-telling. They’re reading The Hunger Games. Written by Suzanne Collins, the popular
book/movie series focuses on a dystopian future world where teenagers are
thrown into an arena to fight to the death, gladiator style. It is the kind of thing where people think,
“That would never happen. People aren’t that sick in the head.” You have to consider where the inspiration
came from. Collins reported having been
channel surfing when she passed by a game show and footage from the invasion of
Iraq. Both of these are very real and
very relatable. These factors, which had
been encompassing the fronts of people’s minds when the first book was
released, may be part of what made it so popular.
Popularity is going to be a big focus moving forward in this
blog and, as such, was something I made note of when talking to Professor
Damico. Remember this phrase:
What’s popular is what
goes forward.
It’s the same way that an internet meme (another Honors
topic) is spread. Someone somewhere
thought it was amusing, so they sent it to another person, who sent it to
another, whose friend Tim McFunny decided to parody it, then Tim McFunny’s
cousin, Joe Jokes, twisted it even more, and now we have a few hundred memes
that are in a never-ending state of alteration and advancement.
Therefore, a lot of theory involving popularity is going to
be used in trying to discern what could happen going forth. What are the trends? Where are the trends going? What movements are in effect now? How could those movements affect pop culture?
The end result could seem totally unrelated. Big
Bang Theory fans, you may recall the question, “In a world ruled by a
giant, intelligent beaver, which food is no longer consumed?”
The answer: Cheese Danish.
Why: Because the beaver would get humans to build many dams
for it, which would cause the lower, surrounding areas to flood. This would include Copenhagen in Denmark,
which invented the pastry treat known as the Danish.
It’s like the bikini thing all over again.
This is a similar logical
approach to what I’ll be using on the future theories. After explaining the purpose of this blog,
Professor Damico elaborated on some of the concepts she teaches, which would
establish how comparing cultural examples from the present and past may be
useful when trying to create solid theories about the future. We met up in her office for the chat.
Q:
I know one of the subjects we’re talking about was what makes things popular in
reference to culture. Could you possibly
try to explain that a little bit?
A: Sure. So the person that we read, as you know, is
Thompkins, Jane Thompkins, in terms of what we call—or what she calls—cultural work, which is this
idea that we have these texts in our culture that are celebrated on a critical
level and over time that there are, what we call, these canonical texts, which
last over the years and are celebrated for their artistry or their good writing
or their aesthetics or whatever it is.
But at the same time, those texts are not always the one
that are consumed by the masses. Always
the ones that are widely popular. They
can be, but they don’t always have to be and often aren’t. And so Thompkins argues that we can look
critically at why texts are popular and she says that they do what’s called
cultural work—that they have, quote, “designs on their audiences,” that they
are encouraging audiences to think a certain way or they’re reassuring audiences
about something or prompting them to challenge a belief in some way, shape, or
form. And so that’s the tack we’ve
looked in terms of why texts are popular.
There may be other perspectives you could look at. You could look at box office, you could look
at trends, you can look at this idea that, um, it’s like a cyclical movement of
things in terms of what’s in favor, you know, and then it falls out of
favor. A new reiteration of it comes
into favor. Um, you can look at what’s
happening in the world right now and what is called the zeigeiset or the mood of the nation and look at that in terms of
what texts are popular. In our class,
we’re focusing on cultural work, which you know.
Q:
(laughs) Yes, I do.
So, um, with that in
mind, what current or recent movies, it could be within the last few years, do
you think would be considered classics in the next fifty years and why? Like, is there a specific impact it would have?
A: I think that’s a tough one. I think that there are a number of
categories. You have sort of the
categories of the—you know, I want to call them trilogies, but they’re not—the Harry Potter movies for example, those
series, or that’s a franchise. There’s
more than three.
The Lord of the Rings
trilogy. Um, so you’d have those kinds
of films that have a…have a large audience.
Those two in particular came from books.
And have made a dramatic impact on the culture in a number of ways. Certainly economic, but also in a cultural
way as well. So I think that, 50 years
from now, those will certainly be remembered rather than forgotten. But whether they will achieve this idea of
being a “classic,” I’m not really sure because I’m not sure how the word
“classic” will be defined in fifty years, but I think those will have staying
power.
And I think that, if history serves, the Academy Awards will
also dictate what films are remembered.
And so those films may not be popular, right? But because the Academy Awards still remains
a relatively powerful institution in our film history, I do think that the Best
Picture winners will be remembered in 50 years.
But it doesn’t then follow that the movies that won, that are bestowed
that honor, are the ones that were the most popular or would be considered
classics. So, you know, last year’s
winner, for 2011, was The Artist and
I’m not sure that was widely popular.
This year, 2012’s winner was Argo. That had a little bit more play in
popularity; had a higher box office.
Will it be considered classic?
I’m not really sure.
Q:
Ah, so it sounds like the Academy Award winners, those are more—they do have
that impact and they may reflect cultural work more. But in another category are movies that are
really popular and may have more staying power.
A:Yeah, but I think it would be
interesting to look at the cultural work at the Harry Potter franchise more-so than, say, The Artist, because Harry
Potter had a much larger box office, a much larger audience. It was much more popular in the culture—you
know, that “small c culture”—than The
Artist. Um, you could certainly look
at the cultural work of The Artist. Why did this film get such a positive
reception in 2011, being black-and-white, no talking, like maybe half a dozen
words?
It’s tough. I mean,
the film industry has so many genres and so, I’m speaking in general terms, but
there might be particular films in a certain genre that will be classic for
that genre in 50 years. And I’m not
really sure what those are.
Q:
That’s a good answer. I don’t know, I’m
just going to make a reference, like, The
Matrix. That’s like one of those
things that my parents sat me down and told me, “You have to watch it now. You can’t go into college without knowing
what The Matrix is.”
On that topic, I also
noticed that there were a bunch of future-based books and movies that are
really big right now. We [my friends and
I] actually just recently went to the movie theater and were watching all the
previews and I think three of them were based in the future….Do you have any
theories as to what events or what things could inspire that, just, onslaught?
A: You know, I don’t know. I think that what I was saying earlier may
apply in terms of things being in favor and then falling out of favor and then being
in favor again, like trends how they come and go. Because I think there’s always been movies, books, television shows that portray the future
in some way, shape, or form. And often
those are—if you think about 1984 by
George Orwell, that’s a book that’s read in so many high schools still today—it’s
sort of just this warning about the future.
A lot of Stanley Kubrick’s movies are warnings about these potentially
very scary futures. And so I’m not sure
it’s a new thing.
I think what I would be interested in finding out is, in
this new crop of future-oriented movies, how are they presenting the
future? And why are they presenting it
that way? Like, that, to me, would be
interesting. So what is it about our
current society that is informing or the impetus for inspiring people to write
these movies that take place in the future in the context which they’re taking
place.
Q:
Skipping back to current times, do you notice any trends or traits that you see
in the current generation, like a lot of phone technology advancements? Are there any ones that stick out to
you? That you thought were weird?
A: Sorry, I’m not sure what you’re
asking. Like the portrayals of
technology?
Q:
Things that you may have been surprised advanced so quickly. Like I know a lot of my teachers and a lot of
parents I know remarked and they said, “You know, kids, they’re always on their
phones these days. I can’t get them off
of them.” Then that’s shocking. Are there any traits you noticed?
A: No, I mean I think….I remember,
many years ago now, I had a senior who was writing his thesis on phone
technologies and he was talking about the Asian countries who were ahead of us
in that and, I don’t remember if it was South Korea or Japan, but he was
talking in his lit[erary] review about how much citizens there were on their
phones. And how they were connected to
their phones and how they use their phones for everything: for data, for
pictures, for recording things.
And I remember reading his thesis and working with him on
his thesis and he was saying, you know, this is the future, and I think he was
measuring or studying what people thought about this in the United States. Like, will this ever happen here? And it’s happened. I just remember, I remember that shift
because at the time he was doing his thesis and people weren’t event texting. I mean, that was just starting. So, it’s interesting, I think, in hindsight
to look back. I think sometimes I’m
surprised by the power of my phone.
(Laughs.)
And sometimes it’s a little intimidating because I’m a
little—I’m very conservative about not wanting to be tracked or
identified. I’m very conservative about
my search history and my location is turned off on my phone. They try to get me to turn it on because what
if I lost it? So, the power of it is sometimes surprising, but
for me I think it’s more that I didn’t grow up in this generation where—by and
large, not you particularly, there are exceptions—people are just very
comfortable putting themselves out there.
You know, in this internet for everyone to see. And, um, that I think surprises me. It does not correspond with my generation or
just my perception. That cultural level I think sometimes surprises
me more than the technology itself, if that makes sense.
Q:
I know that may be considered sort of a key issue with some people. Based on other current issues, what key
events do you think might be likely to happen?
Like, um…Person of Interest,
which we were saying that the cultural work was to assure the U.S. population
that the Patriot Act was a good thing because it helped, but do you think there
are other key events that may make an impact now that would make drastic
changes to the future or may inspire future events?
A: In regards to popular culture?
Q:
Yeah, in regards to popular culture.
A: I’m not sure necessarily what
they are right now. So, we talked about Person of Interest in regards to the
Patriot Act, which was a response to the terrorist attacks on 9/11, which
clearly something of that magnitude clearly is going to impact pop culture and
that’s our unit. Dean Quay and I edited
a book on that where we traced sort of how pop culture was shaped by the
terrorist attacks. Or, rather, not
shaped by, but reacted to and how things change in relation to [that].
So, you could apply that idea to things like Hurricane
Katrina and look at the impact that that just devastating storm had on pop
culture after that and the industry after that.
And different ways artists responded, right? You could look at the same, I think it would
be a little tougher to find in the American media, but you could look at major
events of large magnitude are easy to look at in terms of pop culture’s
reaction. I think you could look a little
more nationally, too. In sort of health
care and the National Care Act and how pop culture texts are reacting to that.
