Popular Discrimination (#6)

We're finally up to the point in class, as we stroll through popular culture theory history, where popular art is starting to be shown some love. I was wondering if I had picked the wrong topic for this blog, since every form of popular culture I love and hold dear has been demeaned and put-down week after week, but now, FINALLY, we're getting to the post-modern era and the triumph of the masses. The first wave of culture critics were concerned that the influence of the masses would corrupt the aesthetic of the arts. I'm sure some would still hold this view (conservative Bush era's National Endowment of the Arts was strictly used for "American Classics" painters. No boat-rocking Piss Christ's allowed.)

This week's essay by John Fiske, "Popular Discrimination" (1991), argues that popular culture does indeed contain the kinds of artistic truths that highbrow art does, but that it is decoded through the societal needs and experiences of the reader/viewer. Fiske points out that the vast majority of popular entertainment does not succeed and fails to find an audience. If the masses were indiscriminate, then why do a small fraction of releases gain blockbuster status or reach saturation-level appeal?

This is what my blog is essentially about! The cross-section between "crap" and Trash. It is about how John Waters can be the "Pope of Trash" and exalt forms of art once thought to be utterly worthless (like nudist nature films and Old Reliable trailer porn) and yet we all coexist in a culture where there are still works being made that ARE deemed utterly worthless. The Room (pictured above) can somehow simultaneously be one of the worst movies ever made and also a huge, massive cult hit every month when shown locally at The Plaza here in Atlanta.

The selection of certain films to be deemed "cult" classics is one of my favorite subjects in popular culture. I am a big fan of The A.V. Club's Cult Cannon and My Year of Flops blogs, which dissect particular films in these cannons each month. (The first published collection of Flops, My Year of Flops has just been released and I am looking forward to owning it. Perfect bathroom reader!)

Here's a selection of a few of my own examples of films saved from extinction by various "cults" of film lovers.

Or what about these now-classic films? Dismissed by "highbrow" critics and now hailed by subsequent generations as timeless works of art?

This highly regarded classic cost (adjusted for inflation) $43 million to produce and only made $46 million in its initial theatrical run. Through the diligence of MGM, re-releasing a decade later and then airing it annually on television, a mediocre box-office draw is now remembered as being one of Hollywood's earliest hits.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory grossed a dismal (adjusted for inflation) $20 million in its initial run. But television saved it, as well as the invention of Home Video. It became a children's classic in the 1980s and by it's remake in 2005, was deemed by some to be untouchable. 

1983's A Christmas Story was critically written off and was almost out of theaters by the time Christmas actual hit a month after its release. Home Video and television gave it a new life, leading to critics hailing it now as a holiday classic.

That's not even mentioning genuine crap like The Room or Plan 9 From Outer Space that are enjoyed by legions of fans BECAUSE they're awful.

The way we view "bad" art, what these films mean to us and why we cherish them, how we decode their texts, is going to be the premise for the rest of this blog as well as the articles we'll be reading in class.