Can Pop Art, Top 40 Music, Top 10 Bestseller Books & Hollywood Cinema be considered as 'Legitimate Culture'?

[Renee]

Just out of curiosity Renee, have you considered if he's had similar experiences with YOUR countrymen?



I, on the other hand, have had many wonderful experiences with both Americans and Aussies. I've come across many in my life both IRL and online for what that's worth.

I fully understand that everyone's experiences vary. I can only speak from my own.

[J0E]

I dispute your account of cultural history.



For starters, there never was a mass-produced popular culture as we know it until about the late 19th century, possibly somewhat before that, but not much more. Mass produced popular culture is a product of the industrial revolution which may had its beginnings in Britain, France, the United States & other parts of Western Europe. Among these, the USA may have been the major reason popular culture took off.



If a peasant, or illiterate city dweller of Elizabethan England had the opportunity to watch a Shakespearean play, then they were certainly not in the majority - especially since well over 90% of the population were farmers/agricultural workers who lived in the countryside. Their version of popular entertainment were songs/hymns derived from the Bible, and their version of musical entertainment was homegrown peasant music and country dances such as the jig. That was the entertainment of the masses.



If Shakespeare made it into the schoolroom or University play, it was not until several centuries later when it sunk into the public consciousness, this in large part to the creation of the printing press and spread of literary material. The vast majority of the population was illiterate. Books were very expensive, and the only  ones who could possibly own/house the complete works of Shakespeare were the noblemen and the extremely rich. If one had access to books, then they were likely passed around or read hundreds/thousands of times. And usually these could be found in libraries or seminaries. That's why it's difficult to find books printed prior to the 20th century in any decent shape. I should know because I own a couple of them. You're lucky to find a book from the 17th, 18th or even the 19th century with its cover still attached to the book.



The dime novel, pulp, comic book you refer to was largely a creation of America's mass production society. But even then with the United states having one of the highest per capita incomes at that time, people were generally still quite poor, and paying 5 cents on what was considered a throwaway item was a small fortune. Compared with our purchasing power today, that's like $5 or more. 10 cents, $10. 25 cents like $25. So just like 19th century books, they were also passed around and read hundreds and thousands of times. And if you can find any in decent shape, it's in all probability because it was a single owner of well-to-do means who didn't have to share it with anyone. A luxury in those times. Again, I should know, because I own a bunch of them.



What I find quite noticeable as that you can hardly find any pop culture items from Canada in decent shape compared with the United States, owing to the fact that America was a far more prosperous society back then.

Joe is an idiot.



And he is dead wrong about what constitutes high culture during the classical era, the middle ages, the Renaissance and pre-20th century America and Europe.



Pop culture during the Elizabethan era was indeed the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. You did not need to be able to read or write to enter the Globe Theater and watch a fucking play. Plays were the rock concerts of their time. They were advertised to the illiterate masses by flags hung outside the theater which signified the type of play being performed. High Culture of the time that the rich were exposed to were things like religious writings, Latin and Greek, dance, swordsmanship and the written works of Aristotle and Plato. During the 16th and early 17 the century Shakespeare was not considered an example of high or establishment culture. It was pop culture created to entertain the common man.



Greek and Roman mythology was created to entertain the masses or to explain the motives of the Gods and their offspring. They were also presented in the form of PLAYS. Reading or writing was not required.



As far as pre 20th century western pop culture goes, it was made up of theater, art and dime novels. Many of those so called dime novels are what today refer to as the classics. The pop culture of the time was much the same as it is today.



Joe is an idiot. He tries really hard to look intelligent but he fucks up because he over thinks every subject he gets himself into and in the process he loses sight of all common sense.

[Bricktop]

Ohhhhh...I hadn't noticed...



Because that is NOT the case. I distinctly remember you going off about Australia to Gordy over at Van, compelling me to intervene (he's hardly capable of holding up a decent argument).



Everything you say is couched in demeaning language about Australia. Now, its OK. I'm not complaining. If I were American, I'd try and drag other nationalities down to my level too.



I don't take it personally. And if I did, you'd give zero fucks anyway.



AND, I am compelled to remind you that I tried to be NICE when you returned from my last shellacking, and you could not find it in you to reciprocate.

Oh stop your baby bullshit. You're going on 70 years old and you act like you are 7.



Let me remind you that the thing with Gordy happened over 3 years ago and he more then deserved whatever I gave him. You should be deeply embarrassed by the way he represented himself and your country. Anything I said to him regarding his mother country had more than just cause. Any place that spawned that douche bag must not be without some severe social faults.



As for the nice guy act,.....sorry....wasn't falling for it and neither was anyone else. Just like no one falls for your erroneous claims of you giving me a "shellacking" at any time in you career on any forum.



Now let me explain something to you. The reason I'm so down on you Aussies is because my RL experience with you people, going all the way back to college, has been poor. I don't know much about your government, your society and I dont really care but what I've seen of your citizens, I'm not impressed. All in total I've had the distinct displease of coming in close contact with 12 Stralians in my life so far and only 2 were what I would call "decent". Those were 2 older gay gentlemen my husband and I sat next to at a restaurant in NYC. They were polite, friendly and delightfully respectful. Our encounter was brief but from the way they wonderfully conducted themselves, I'm more than willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.  The others I've met.....well without going into detail, lets just say they were a tad borish, rude, and arogant enough to make me want to put a dent in their fucking foreheads. In fact one Aussie woman I ran into on a cruise nearly ended up being thrown to the fish by me after some particularly rude and obnoxious comments. My experiences online haven't been much better. In fact I have one Aussie riding my ass with derogatory comments almost daily on VF, all because from the very begining, I didn't fall for his/her gender bender, faux intellectual, trolling bullshit. Like you, he/she never misses an opportunity to take a swipe at me; not that it really matters much.



So pardon me if I paint you, your countrymen and your country with a very broad and shit dipped brush. Believe me, I don't do it for shits and giggles.

Thank you for that elucidation.



I wish I gave a fuck what you think of Australians. But I don't, any more than you care what I think of your pretentious, arrogant, overbearing, disingenuous countrymen and women.



I say disingenuous because you've also had interaction with Australians that are warm hearted, genuine, loyal and sincere. Like cc, and my good self.



Thus you are surely aware that we have our share of idiots, as you do, and probably in the same proportion. What trips you up, though, is that I have been to your country, but you have not been to mine, so your view is taken from a rather small and unreliable sample. But let me help you out.



Jump on a plane and head to Adelaide. I'll put you up, and show you some of Australia. Then you can comment with a much greater degree of credibility than you do now.



Otherwise, just keep throwing punches...but stop your fucking whining.

[Renee]

Really Joe, Shakespeare entered the public conscious centuries after it was written due to the printing press??? Joe, the first movable type printing press was invented in 1439. That's approximately 150 years before Shakespeare's first published work. By the mid 17th century many of Shakespeare's works were being mass produced in book form.



I don't care how many paragraphs you write. During Shakespeare's life his works were not considered something a cultured individual would read. His works were basically what we would today consider TV type entertainment. It was very much a fixture in the popular culture of Elizabethan England.



By the end of the Renaissance and into the Reformation, playhouses and the performances they provided were a mainstream form of entertainment in the cities for the middle class, poor and aristocrates alike. In fact for many, is was the only true form of entertainment they would ever witness in their lives. It wasn't uncomon in playhouses to see aristocrats rubbing elbows with wool merchants, cobblers and beggers. And furthermore the profession of acting was considered vulgar and beneath contempt by may in more upper class portions of society.



As for your ridiculous assertion that the majority of the commoners were located outside the cities....that's ludicrous, especially when you look at time periods like the 14th through the 16th centuries. Most of the populations of England and mainland Europe were clustered in and around the major cities. By comparison the outlaying country sides were sparsly populated.

[Renee]

Ohhhhh...I hadn't noticed...



Because that is NOT the case. I distinctly remember you going off about Australia to Gordy over at Van, compelling me to intervene (he's hardly capable of holding up a decent argument).



Everything you say is couched in demeaning language about Australia. Now, its OK. I'm not complaining. If I were American, I'd try and drag other nationalities down to my level too.



I don't take it personally. And if I did, you'd give zero fucks anyway.



AND, I am compelled to remind you that I tried to be NICE when you returned from my last shellacking, and you could not find it in you to reciprocate.

Oh stop your baby bullshit. You're going on 70 years old and you act like you are 7.



Let me remind you that the thing with Gordy happened over 3 years ago and he more then deserved whatever I gave him. You should be deeply embarrassed by the way he represented himself and your country. Anything I said to him regarding his mother country had more than just cause. Any place that spawned that douche bag must not be without some severe social faults.



As for the nice guy act,.....sorry....wasn't falling for it and neither was anyone else. Just like no one falls for your erroneous claims of you giving me a "shellacking" at any time in you career on any forum.



Now let me explain something to you. The reason I'm so down on you Aussies is because my RL experience with you people, going all the way back to college, has been poor. I don't know much about your government, your society and I dont really care but what I've seen of your citizens, I'm not impressed. All in total I've had the distinct displease of coming in close contact with 12 Stralians in my life so far and only 2 were what I would call "decent". Those were 2 older gay gentlemen my husband and I sat next to at a restaurant in NYC. They were polite, friendly and delightfully respectful. Our encounter was brief but from the way they wonderfully conducted themselves, I'm more than willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.  The others I've met.....well without going into detail, lets just say they were a tad borish, rude, and arogant enough to make me want to put a dent in their fucking foreheads. In fact one Aussie woman I ran into on a cruise nearly ended up being thrown to the fish by me after some particularly rude and obnoxious comments. My experiences online haven't been much better. In fact I have one Aussie riding my ass with derogatory comments almost daily on VF, all because from the very begining, I didn't fall for his/her gender bender, faux intellectual, trolling bullshit. Like you, he/she never misses an opportunity to take a swipe at me; not that it really matters much.



So pardon me if I paint you, your countrymen and your country with a very broad and shit dipped brush. Believe me, I don't do it for shits and giggles.

Thank you for that elucidation.



I wish I gave a fuck what you think of Australians. But I don't, any more than you care what I think of your pretentious, arrogant, overbearing, disingenuous countrymen and women.



I say disingenuous because you've also had interaction with Australians that are warm hearted, genuine, loyal and sincere. Like cc, and my good self.



Thus you are surely aware that we have our share of idiots, as you do, and probably in the same proportion. What trips you up, though, is that I have been to your country, but you have not been to mine, so your view is taken from a rather small and unreliable sample. But let me help you out.



Jump on a plane and head to Adelaide. I'll put you up, and show you some of Australia. Then you can comment with a much greater degree of credibility than you do now.



Otherwise, just keep throwing punches...but stop your fucking whining.

Look old man, if you don't care what I think of Australians, then STOP MOANING about my treatment of you and your country. Let me remind you that you are the one crying here.



I wish I could believe you when you say you don't give a fuck but your obvious butt hurt tells me otherwise.



Thank you for the generous invitation but I've had all the Aussie hospitality I can handle right here over these past years.  :001_rolleyes:



BTW, you are correct, I did forget cc and my apologies to her. But as I've explained to her previously, I don't really consider her a Aussie. To me cc is more a citizen of the world. She left Oz many years ago and has made her home in many global locations. Truthfully if every Aussie I ran into were like cc, you wouldn't hear me say a single bad thing about Australians.

[J0E]

I think you've tended to overstep yourself and become confused by the historical time frames, Renn.



Most people in 1500 or 1600 around Shakespeare's time did not live in the cities.



Here's one source which indicates that it may have been as low as 1%.



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So the idea that masses of 16th century commoners having widescale access or even known about William Shakespeare is unrealistic. If the majority of inhabitants lived in the countryside and rarely ventured into the cities, It's more likely that the awareness of Shakespeare by the masses (the British) did not come about until about the 19th century, when over half had moved to the cities by then.



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And when they had access to mass produced books. Books also became more abundant due to improved production methods.



Anyways, your idea of 'mass-produced' books from the 16th, 17th, 18th century were more akin to 'handcrafted' books by today's standards.  Reproduction of books was very slow, and the production numbers would have been in the hundreds, sometimes less. They were produced through metal plate impressions, aka gravure. Books published by the thousand would have been quite rare. That probably came about in the 19th century with the advent of steam power and mechanical presses. - offset presses mounted on rolls as opposed to solid (and expensive) metal plates.

Really Joe, Shakespeare entered the public conscious centuries after it was written due to the printing press??? Joe, the first movable type printing press was invented in 1439. That's approximately 150 years before Shakespeare's first published work. By the mid 17th century many of Shakespeare's works were being mass produced in book form.



I don't care how many paragraphs you write. During Shakespeare's life his works were not considered something a cultured individual would read. His works were basically what we would today consider TV type entertainment. It was very much a fixture in the popular culture of Elizabethan England.



By the end of the Renaissance and into the Reformation, playhouses and the performances they provided were a mainstream form of entertainment in the cities for the middle class, poor and aristocrates alike. In fact for many, is was the only true form of entertainment they would ever witness in their lives. It wasn't uncomon in playhouses to see aristocrats rubbing elbows with wool merchants, cobblers and beggers. And furthermore the profession of acting was considered vulgar and beneath contempt by may in more upper class portions of society.



As for your ridiculous assertion that the majority of the commoners were located outside the cities....that's ludicrous, especially when you look at time periods like the 14th through the 16th centuries. Most of the populations of England and mainland Europe were clustered in and around the major cities. By comparison the outlaying country sides were sparsly populated.

[J0E]

Anyways Renn, I did some more reading about Bill Shakespeare, and it seems to determine that in some respects you are correct and I was wrong. But in others, I am right and you were wrong.

Really Joe, Shakespeare entered the public conscious centuries after it was written due to the printing press??? Joe, the first movable type printing press was invented in 1439. That's approximately 150 years before Shakespeare's first published work. By the mid 17th century many of Shakespeare's works were being mass produced in book form.

Reply to your first assertion]

According to one scholar, Shakespeare was extremely popular in his day. So much so, that his works were mass-produced, as you point out, but not after he died. Actually, during his lifetime. So many people jumped onto the bandwagon, that they tried to copy him or take credit for his work, or produce false copies of the plays he wrote...even before they were written. Since there was no such thing as copyright, many publishers printed his works using what was considered mass production printing techniques of the day.



http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/shakespearefame.html">http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biogr ... efame.html">http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/shakespearefame.html

Value of his name to publishers.



Shakespeare's name was thenceforth of value to unprincipled publishers, and they sought to palm off on their customers as his work the productions of inferior pens. As early as 1595, Thomas Creede, the surreptitious printer of 'Henry V' and the 'Merry Wives,' had issued the crude 'Tragedie of Locrine, as 'newly set foorth, overseene and corrected. By W. S.' It appropriated many passages from an older piece called 'Selimus,' which was possibly by Greene and certainly came into being long before Shakespeare had written a line of blank verse.

Reply to your second assertion:

I don't care how many paragraphs you write. During Shakespeare's life his works were not considered something a cultured individual would read. His works were basically what we would today consider TV type entertainment. It was very much a fixture in the popular culture of Elizabethan England.

....Shakespeare was very highly regarded among his peers and among the most learned scholars in England of his time. Someone at Cambridge University, one of the nation's oldest institutions, wrote]Of the many testimonies paid to Shakespeare's literary reputation at this period of his career, the most striking was that of Francis Meres. Meres was a learned graduate of Cambridge University, a divine and schoolmaster, who brought out in 1598 a collection of apophthegms on morals, religion, and literature which he entitled 'Palladis Tamia.' In the book he interpolated 'A comparative discourse of our English poets with the Greek, Latin, and Italian poets,' and there exhaustively surveyed contemporary literary effort in England.



Shakespeare figured in Meres's pages as the greatest man of letters of the day. 'The Muses would speak Shakespeare's fine filed phrase,' Meres asserted, 'if they could speak English.' [/quote]

Reply to your third assertion:

By the end of the Renaissance and into the Reformation, playhouses and the performances they provided were a mainstream form of entertainment in the cities for the middle class, poor and aristocrates alike. In fact for many, is was the only true form of entertainment they would ever witness in their lives. It wasn't uncomon in playhouses to see aristocrats rubbing elbows with wool merchants, cobblers and beggers. And furthermore the profession of acting was considered vulgar and beneath contempt by may in more upper class portions of society.

...yes, many of his plays were performed in outdoor venues, playhouses, in which Shakespeare was a participant/actor. But he wasn't taken lightly like some tawdry vaudevillian. He was taken seriously as a man of letters. It's just speculation, but given the sparse population of the cities at that time compared with the countryside, that many or most of  his countrymen wouldn't have known or heard about him. Perhaps those lucky enough to live in or near London, and having an opportunity to visit and watch one of his plays. Also, then as now, attending concerts, plays and having the spare time to do so would have primarily been the domain of the well-to-do, don't you think? If a person was poor or starving like the majority, then they probably wouldn't have had time to attend all these outdoor plays. They were likely worried about survival and where they were going to get their next meal. Unless they were some pickpocket rummaging through the crowd looking for their next wallet.



So in summary, Shakespeare was indeed popular during his lifetime, he was published, his popularity grew while he was alive and thereafter. At the same time, he was considered much greater than you've indicated. In other words, he was part of the Literary Establishment and highly regarded. So, he was never really part of the common class of culture at the time - which were peasants, poor people.

[Renee]

Joe, you are totally missing something. England of the 16th and 17th centuries was a rather sparsely populated country. At the beginning of the 14th century England had an estimated population of about 7.5 million people. By 1400 there were only about 2 million left. (I will leave you to figure out why)



By 1600 the population had only recovered to around 4 million. About 8 percent of the population lived exclusively in the large cities BUT at least another 25% of the population depended upon the cities as their means of livelihood. That means although people may have not lived in cities full time, there were still certain times of the year where travel to larger cities was necessary. Cities as today, were cultural hubs where the latest trends in culture and entertainment eminated from.



You seem to be laboring under the concept that there were vast numbers of poor people in England in the 17th century. Well that's simply not true. The medieval cultural phenomenon of Serfdom had ended in the early 15th. The catastrophic depopulation of Europe in the 14th century had opened up huge economic opportunities for the surviving population.



Again you are over thinking the situation and you are missing the point. No surprise here.

[J0E]

You seem to be laboring under the concept that there were vast numbers of poor people in England in the 17th century. Well that's simply not true. The medieval cultural phenomenon of Serfdom had ended in the early 15th. The catastrophic depopulation of Europe in the 14th century had opened up huge economic opportunities for the surviving population.



Again you are over thinking the situation and you are missing the point. No surprise here.

The standard of living may have risen somewhat, but not that much for the vast majority.

Some merchants/entrepreneurs did well, but most were still poor. The end of serfdom didn't raise their standard of living much.

And the Reformation in England threw many nuns on the priests on the street, as the were no longer needed under the New Order. So it created a lot of beggars, poverty was institutionalized and there was a lot of crime.



Life was hard for many. Anyways, here's a short video you may enjoy about our perception of the Golden Age/The Renaissance, and the way things actually were for most people living in that time:

[J0E]

You raise an interesting point that perhaps the population being small and more homogeneous, that it would've been easier for someone like Shakespeare to establish himself back then. And perhaps his renown was easier to spread & many knew about him by word of mouth, peasant or nobleman. The English population, being less literate back then, was an aural culture. people were accustomed to long speeches and performances and were forced to retain more in one sitting - as opposed to today, where you can buy a CD/DVD, play a bit of it, rewind, go to bed and watch part II tomorrow. But that option didn't exist back then. So maybe a lot of the English population did know about Shakespeare back then, and if they didn't have a chance to see him, then others told others about him by word of mouth.



Also, England around that time had cast off the Catholic Church, and its traditions, including adherence to Latin as the Gold Standard may have begun to wane and the English people were searching for literary heroes of their own in their own language.



The other thing was that the distinction between what may have been considered 'high culture' and that of the masses was less distinct than it was today. That it was just thought of as 'their culture'.

Joe, you are totally missing something. England of the 16th and 17th centuries was a rather sparsely populated country. At the beginning of the 14th century England had an estimated population of about 7.5 million people. By 1400 there were only about 2 million left. (I will leave you to figure out why)



By 1600 the population had only recovered to around 4 million. About 8 percent of the population lived exclusively in the large cities BUT at least another 25% of the population depended upon the cities as their means of livelihood. That means although people may have not lived in cities full time, there were still certain times of the year where travel to larger cities was necessary. Cities as today, were cultural hubs where the latest trends in culture and entertainment eminated from.