Popular Cultural Phenomenon Research Articles

Whose Film Is It, Anyway? Canonicity and Authority in Star Wars Fandom

IF THERE IS ANY popular culture phenomenon that can be referred to as “religion,” it would be the fandom associated with the Star Wars films. In the 2001 census in many English-speaking countries, a number of people identified their religion as “Jediism,” including 70,000 in Australia, 21,000 in Canada, 53,000 in New Zealand, and 390,127 in England and Wales (“Jedi Census” 2012). This may well have begun as a joke (Emery 2001), but it is also clear that at least some of those who support this movement take it seriously, such as the online Jedi Church (“Jedi Church” 2012). More significant, perhaps, is the number of fan activities related to Star Wars which might express some of the “markers” of religion, such as communal identity, a system of beliefs and values, myths and ritual practices. One cannot attribute all of these to marketing, as a number of fan activities clearly do not originate from corporations such as Lucasfilm but are generated by the fans themselves. Although it is hard to track all of this, one can find a sampling in fan-made videos posted on youtube.com and other web sites, fan stories based on Star Wars categories, fan art and comic books, fan-designed games, costume events (including weddings), and

The Western Reception of Buddhism

This article argues that the West’s positive reception of Buddhism from the late nineteenth century to the present has been informed by the continuing influence of three factors: first, popular cultural transmission of information about the religion; second, celebrity patronage and Buddhist celebrities; and third, the manipulation of the image of Buddhism to fit the pressing intellectual and social issues of the time. This has resulted in a distinctively modern form of Buddhism that is deeply imbued with the key cultural and religio-spiritual discourses of secularisation, individualism and consumer capitalism that have resulted in the transformation of Western religion since the late nineteenth century (McMahan 2008: 27-59). Recent scholarship has emphasised that the encounter of Buddhism and the West, mediated in the nineteenth century by popular cultural phenomena including Edwin Arnold’s poetic biography The Light of Asia (1879) and the World’s Parliament of Religions (held in Chicago in 1893 in conjunction with Columbian Exposition, a celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ discovery of the New World), was a mutual affair in which certain Buddhists engaged with Western discourses in order to exhibit the congruence of Buddhism with modernity and science, and Western Buddhists and sympathisers attempted to incorporate Buddhism into the framework of Western philosophy and the emergent discipline of psychology (Snodgrass 2003: 115-22, 227-30). Central to this was the rhetorical construction of Buddhism as a religion that rivalled Christianity in ethical excellence and outshone it in compatibility with science and thus modernity (Prebish 1999: 6). This articles concentrates on the influence of celebrity and popular cultural forms in the familiarisation of Buddhism in the West to build on and reinforce the intellectualist scholarship of Prebish, Snodgrass and McMahan (among others), because until very recently these factors were rarely admitted to be of significance in matters of religion.

Tracing Saint Germain: Absolute Knowledge and the Specter of Immortality

So‐called New Age practices and popular culture phenomena have virtually inundated the postmodern world, giving rise to numerous critical responses as well as welcome investments in their presumed significance. Sometimes dubbed a “religion”, New Age ideas and their various cultural manifestations have provoked sectarian and at times vituperative responses from significant critics of various ideological persuasions. Umberto Eco indicts the New Age movement for its lack of critical thinking, chastising the odd preference for a multiplicity of mystical truths, ranging from Dan Brown’s novels to faith in psychics. His position echoes the sentiments of a number of scholars who view New Age adherents as self‐centered and gullible. Slavoj Žižek, from his Marxist/Lacanian position, excoriates New Agers as deluded because of their withdrawal from political commitment, and he also views them as merely another symptom reproducing the mystified logic of consumer capitalism. Given the range of critical responses to New Age beliefs, it is particularly important to understand their historical antecedents. Some of these, such as the Saint Germain phenomenon, can be mined for what they disclose about the deeper motivations underlying the present willingness to grasp at arcane and ephemeral beliefs and dubious cultural practices. Some fall within the purview of “spiritualism”, including the search for a confirmation of immortality, which Saint Germain has symbolized for many, including certain of the nobility of pre‐revolutionary France. Saint Germain provides an ideological and psychoanalytic test case for what drives the alternative quests of New Age occultism. By reading Isabel Cooper‐Oakley’s work on Saint Germain, in conjunction with other representations, the objective is to launch a dialogue with both Eco and Žižek that builds a critical response to the New Age from a more informed historical and cultural studies approach.

‘Got my shoes, got my Pokémon’: Everyday geographies of children’s popular culture

This paper considers a particular popular-cultural phenomenon: ‘Pokémon’. Specifically, it concerns a social–historical juncture – a so-called ‘Pokémania’ – wherein Pokémon toys, games, collectables and merchandising were ‘must-have’ items for many children in South-East Asia, Europe, North America, and Australasia. Drawing upon research with Pokémon fans aged 5–8 in the UK, the paper explores some ways in which global cultural phenomena become intimately, complexly and constitutively co-implicated with/in everyday geographies. In so doing, I argue that the quotidian social and spatial import of Pokémon – and other analogous phenomena – should sensitise accounts of children’s everyday spatial practices to the ever-presence of contemporary popular cultural forms, and sensitise accounts of global popular culture to the importance of multifarious, contingent spatial practices.

“Paint and Be Happy”: The Modern Artist and the Amateur Painter—A Question of Distinction

Paint and Be Happy -Careerists; Hobbyists; Shut-ins; Learn Know-How of Oils. 12 Basic Home-Lessons for Beginners; 24 for Advanced Painters; or Random Refresher Course. All with Air Mail Critiques: Buy One by One. No time limit. Brochure free. $1 Brings Special Offer Trial Lesson (Specify Course), List of Materials to Buy and Color-Sight Tester. (Sea-Falcon Studio)One of more intriguing phenomena of popular culture in late 1940s through 1950s was development of a strong amateur art movement in United States that reached its apogee at same time as New York School of painting. Triggered by American publication of Winston Churchill's Painting as a Pastime in 1950, amateur painting was portrayed in Life and other prominent magazines as a celebrity leisure activity, paving way for institution of a national fad (Mr. Churchill; Businessman Artist; In Texas). The 1950s are well-known for proliferation of hobbyists and amateur activities in United States, result of pervasive attempts by industry as well as more general populace to fill increased leisure time of masses with psychologically satisfying and socially beneficial activities (Barzun 38-46; Marling 54; Toffler 99). The widespread enthusiasm for amateur painting that developed in early 1950s is particularly interesting, however, as a phenomenon that tested nature and limits of modern artist's identity and values of artmaking in modern world.The definition and nature of both artwork and artist changed enormously in context of modernism. The artwork, absolved from traditional requirements for naturalistic representation, was often understood to be an extension of artist, specifically product of expressive activities.1 The fine artist's identity likewise shifted from that of a highly trained and skilled maker of material objects to that of a uniquely expressive individual. As such, artist was widely perceived as a special case in modern industrial capitalist society, a worker whose production is determined by individual will rather than demands of industry and market. The artist as described in many modern accounts, both avowedly fictional and purportedly factual, does not create work to be sold or for any other person or purpose.2 The work of art is thus a product without price, a completely pure and disinterested production, and true artist is someone who is liberated from all social functions, and who has sacrificed everything to realization of this work (Bourdieu 97). Clive Bell's 1914 description is exemplary of modern conception of artist:The artist and saint do what they have to do, not to make a living, but in obedience to some mysterious necessity. They do not produce to live - they live to produce. There is no place for them in a social system based on theory that what men desire is prolonged and pleasant existence. You cannot fit them into machine, you must make them extraneous to it. You must make pariahs of them, since they are not part of society but salt of earth. ( 1 72)Artists like Van Gogh, Gauguin and Cezanne in varied ways fit Bell's paradigm and helped to concretize identity of modern artist as an outsider dedicated to obscure rewards of nonutilitarian production.Pierre Bourdieu made a less exalted comparison between modern artist and the bourgeois adolescent's dilettantism, provisionally freed of social determinisms (80), thereby narrowing chasm between artist and bourgeois by suggesting a point of identification between two, as well as distinctions that separate them. The artist has freedom that other members of society have lost or sacrificed to become useful contributors to social order; artist thus demarcates an ideological boundary. Existing in a liminal position, artist becomes a representative of fulfilled desires, not only desire for freedom from social and economic constraints but also for a life of total individualism and dedication to self-determination and self-expression. …

Lord of the Maya Creations on his jaguar throne: the eternal return of Elder Brother God L to preside over the 21 December 2012 transformation

AbstractSpeculation about what ancient Maya texts have to say about 2012 is becoming a global phenomenon in popular culture. This speculation, largely apocalyptic, is more often based on acquaintance with historical Western interpretations than on familiarity with the texts themselves and their cultural contexts. This paper approaches the 2012 phenomenon through close readings of Maya texts and images considered within the contexts of historical and contemporary Maya culture and Western scholarship. It focuses on images of mythological events depicted on two Late Classic Maya vessels: the ‘Vase of the Seven Gods’ (Kerr no. 2796) and the ‘Vase of the Eleven Gods’ (Kerr no. 7750). These images are interpreted as representing deities, gathered in ‘cosmogonic conclave’, preparing to re-create the world with their sacrifices at the last completion of a great cycle and the beginning of a new 5,125-year 13-Bakˈtun Maya ‘Long Count’. The rites of passage are presided over by an enigmatic Venus-warrior/sacrificer deity previously known only as God L. God L's principal name and nature had remained undeciphered and his identity obscure until the author's researches resulted in the decipherment and ‘reading’ presented here. This study offers an explication of why God L, whom the author has demonstrated is the Maya god of tobacco among his many aspects, takes the senior role in presiding over these 13-Bakˈtun completion rituals and why it is reasonable to hypothesize that the same entities would be back for the fulfillment of the present cycle in 2012.

Introduction

Introduction David Russell, Karin Westman, and Naomi Wood This issue of The Lion and the Unicorn takes us into the archives of children's literature. In his essay "The Child, the Scholar, and the Children's Literature Archive," Kenneth Kidd proposes that, for the field of children's literature, the archive "operates not unlike the ideas of the classic and the canon, which, for all their problematic aspects, have helped shore up children's literature as a creative and critical field." Kidd draws upon a range of sources—the material history of selected archives, the theories of Walter Benjamin and Jacques Derrida, his own experiences at various collections, including the Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature at the University of Florida—to map the nexus of personal, professional, and cultural energies that create the children's literature archive in the present day. The archival impulse—to reveal that which has been hidden from view, to find new knowledge within the past—informs the other three essays in this issue. In "Probing Pioneer Girl Sleuths: Puck Larsson and Nancy Drew in 1950s Girls' Book Series in Sweden," Tilda Forselius recovers a moment in 1950s Sweden when two girl detectives were introduced to young female readers: Puck Larsson and Nancy Drew. A comparison of their narrative, style, and characterization helps to identify what makes Nancy Drew such a long-lasting popular cultural phenomenon; it also considers the value of the less popular but still thoughtful depiction in Puck Larsson of a young Swedish girl's realistic struggles with class and gender inequality. Sarah Cantrell provides international context for another popular series in her essay "Harry Potter Goes to France: Exploring Erik L'Homme's Le Livre des Étoiles (Book of the Stars)." An avowed fan of Rowling's Harry Potter, L'Homme crafts his own fantasy series (2001-3) and, in turn, offers a mirror not only to contemporary French culture but also to Rowling's fantasy landscape. Of particular note, in Cantrell's reading, is the representation of "the Other" in both series—an issue for the fantasy [End Page v] genre in general and for the respective national literary traditions of Rowling and L'Homme. Finally, to shine new light on three authors of the past, Ruth Y. Jenkins's essay "Imagining the Abject in Kingsley, MacDonald, and Carroll" uses Julia Kristeva's theory of abjection to examine its presence and function in the work of these three Victorian fantasists. Arguing that the three writers demonstrate the structuring function of abjection in adolescence and, by extension, society, Jenkins considers the way the abject constitutes identity even as it is symbolically expelled. Each fantasy writer offers a distinctive view of the degree to which abjection may support or undermine personal identity and social stability. As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions for the journal. Please contact us at <lionunicorn@ksu.edu>. [End Page vi] Copyright © 2011 The Johns Hopkins University Press

‘The best thing ever’: how children's popular culture matters

This paper reflects upon a popular cultural event which was, briefly, for a particular grouping of children in the UK, ‘the best thing ever’: namely the release of the CD-single Reach, by the British pop group S Club 7. I suggest that this event was illustrative of manifold cultural forms and practices which—being ostensibly banal, fun, faddish, lowbrow and ‘childish’—continue to go largely unheralded by many social/cultural geographers. Against this grain, this paper presents three apprehensions of S Club 7’s significance. First, I restate a particular case made via Anglo-American cultural studies that ‘children's popular culture’, ought to be taken more seriously in contexts salient to social/cultural geographers. Second, I detail how the S Club 7 phenomenon existed, practically and materially, and mattered, in some children's everyday lives. Third, refracting cultural geographers' recent apprehensions of affective, evental aspects of cultural practices, I suggest that the pop cultural phenomenon described herein mattered (to those children, there and then) in ways which elude and exceed canonical scholarly habits of writing/knowing popular cultural phenomena.

Much Ado about Harry: Harry Potter and the Creation of a Moral Panic

The unrivaled publishing success and popularity of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series has undoubtedly made it the popular culture phenomenon of the decade. But such popularity and success have also come with considerable controversy. The purpose of this paper is to examine the “moral panic” surrounding the book series, using Cohen’s classic model, and to explore the role of the Christian Right as moral entrepreneurs in generating the “Potter Panic” through various claims-making efforts and tactics. Analyses of popular discourse concerning the Harry Potter series reveal evidence of a moral panic that has spanned nearly a decade, with geographic and temporal intensity. It is argued that the Potter Panic was not full-blown, due mostly to division among Christians, and that the panic’s main legacy has been to incite debate within the larger Christian community.

Experiential Learning and Health Eduaction through Identification with a Fictional Character

Today's US and Western Europe TV series and film features are getting increasingly crammed with health-driven sub-plots and narratives. A number of studies indicate that some TV series' attention is almost equally divided between describing fictional heroes' lives and their medical experience, the latter being a clear educational vehicle. In our contribution we are going to discuss the case study of one of the most appreciated examples of such an approach, the popular TV show Grey's Anatomy that - when usually attributed as a romantic/medical drama with small and specific comedy inserts - became a popular culture phenomenon and a regular prime-time broadcast since its 2005 premiere. This media product can be considered a striking example of spontaneous social and emotional learning right in the front of a TV-screen and the series is even more interesting because of the simple fact that it favours the visualization of professional physicians' experience instead of focusing on more traditional patients' sub-plots.

Tender Warriors: Muscular Christians, Promise Keepers, and the Crisis of Masculinity in Left Behind

The Left Behind series of “rapture” novels is undoubtedly one of the most intriguing, indeed perplexing, popular cultural phenomena to emerge from America in recent years. This essay seeks to analyze the problem of masculinity in the novels. A close textual examination reveals a masculinity that is far from monolithic and, at times, deeply troubled. Rather than offering consistent and convincing performances of hegemonic masculinity, the male protagonists vacillate between spectacular displays of heroic machismo, and affective acts of feminine submission. I will argue that the paradoxical representation of masculinity in Left Behind can be located in the ambivalent notions of gender that are evident in both the prophetic hermeneutic of dispensationalism, and the broader culture of conservative evangelicalism.

Small Screen, Big Tourism: The Role of Popular Korean Television Dramas in South Korean Tourism

This paper examines a popular cultural phenomenon originating in Korea which has assumed significance across Asia and beyond. This ‘Korean wave’ or Hallyu includes the circulation and consumption of Korean popular television dramas. An exploratory case study approach is presented to provide insights on the relationships between this phenomenon and patterns of tourism in Korea related to the wider concept of screen-tourism. The paper addresses the relative lack of attention to television programming within the film tourism literature, particularly in non-Western and non-English language settings. Some common assumptions in the film tourism literature are challenged here, including: the inter-changeability of large-screen films and programmes produced for the television; and the inter-cultural circulation of film and television programmes as catalysts for tourism. Our findings illustrate that the inter-cultural circulation of Hallyu television dramas, particularly in neighbouring countries in Asia, may be interpreted in relation to theories of cultural proximity. A need to understand the complex patterns and political economy of distribution, circulation and reception of television programmes is also identified. The paper argues for more research that links visitor flows with television audience research and which recognizes the organizational infrastructures that allow media productions to go beyond circulation in domestic TV markets. Professional expertise and networks, transnational business relationships, ownership and national media regulatory regimes are highlighted, as is the extent to which media professionals and organizations connect with the domestic and international tourism sector.

Harry Potter and the end of the road: Parallels with addiction

The term addiction involves aspects of salience, withdrawal, and conflict or interference with everyday functioning. The present series of studies examined whether high levels of engagement with the Harry Potter (HP) phenomenon could qualify as an addiction. Through use of three surveys posted online, we established that a sizeable portion (though not a majority) of self-described HP fans demonstrated craving for the release of the final book in the series, and experienced some withdrawal symptoms upon finishing the book. HP fandom also produced a disruptive influence on day to day functioning of some fans in a 6 month follow-up. In sum, we found parallels between criteria used to diagnose traditional forms of addiction or dependence and some people's attachment to a phenomenon in popular culture.

Making camp: rhetorics of transgression in U.S. popular culture

This title presents the rhetorical power of in American popular culture. Making Camp examines the rhetoric and conventions of camp in contemporary popular culture and the ways it both subverts and is co-opted by mainstream ideology and discourse, especially as it pertains to issues of gender and sexuality.Camp has long been aligned with gay male culture and performance. Helene Shugart and Catherine Waggoner contend that in the popular media - whether visual, dramatic, or musical - is equally pervasive. While aesthetic and performative in nature, the authors argue that - female in particular - is also highly political and that conventions of femininity and female sexuality are negotiated, if not always resisted, in female performances.The authors draw on a wide range of references and figures representative of camp, both historical and contemporary, in presenting the evolution of female and its negotiation of gender, political, and identity issues. Antecedents such as Joan Crawford, Wonder Woman, Marilyn Monroe, and Pam Grier are discussed as archetypes for contemporary popular culture figures - Macy Gray, Gwen Stefani, and the characters of Xena from Xena: Warrior Princess and Karen Walker from Will and Grace.Shugart and Waggoner find that these and other female performances are liminal, occupying a space between conformity and resistance. The result is a study that demonstrates the prevalence of as a historical and evolving phenomenon in popular culture, its role as a site for the rupture of conventional notions of gender and sexuality, and how is configured in mainstream culture in ways that resist its being reduced to merely a style.

The Blue Collar Comedy Tour: Southern Fried Humor in the Context of Class Society

A popular culture phenomenon of some note over the last few years has been the emergence, and substantial popular and commercial success, of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. The Tour, and related movies, books, television series and specials, and spin‐off merchandise, consists of joint appearances by four established American comics who have developed comic personas based on stereotypical ideas, jokes and representations of “blue‐collar” or “redneck” behavior and lifestyles. The success of the Tour, and its individual members, is analyzed in light of the role comedy plays in a highly stratified class society such as the United States.

Producing Postman Pat: The popular cultural construction of idyllic rurality

This paper concerns the popular cultural representation of English rurality. It focuses upon Postman Pat, a popular cultural phenomenon which has come to be routinely cited as exemplary and iconic of contemporary imaginings of the English countryside as idyllic. The idea that Anglocentric popular culture (re)produces this sort of ‘rural idyll’ – and that these idylls are particularly laden with cultural and ideological baggage – has been well rehearsed. However, this paper considers a question which has too often been overlooked or taken for granted: how, exactly – and I mean literally, actually, in detail, in practice – does this sort of idyllic rurality come to be constructed? Through conversations with two key figures in the creation of Postman Pat, the paper begins to develop an understanding of some of the everyday, banal, nitty gritty practices, decisions and encounters which must be understood as fundamentally part of the production of (this) ‘rural idyll’.

Use of traditional motives in Serbian science-fiction literature

Subject of this paper is consideration of use of traditional motives in Serbian science-fiction literature in relation with socio-cultural milieu of Serbia from late 80s until now. The author tries to point out ways of usage and construction of some traditional and mythological patterns in certain literature works. This genre of literary production is perceived as a popular culture phenomenon - with this premise, the paper intents to analyze communication process between text and audiences.

Texts and Paratexts in Media

To determine the significance andpotential of the conceptof theparatext for literature and cultural and media studies, it makes sense to start at a more basic level, namely, with the concept of the text, towhichparatext acts as a supplement. Adorno thought it an “abominable expression” to refer to phenomena of “literature” as “texts.” He detected in it an abandonment of the category of the work. Dolf Sternberger, his antipodean intellectual colleague in Frankfurt, offered a similar opinion that differed only in tone: “‘Texts’—this has become the universal generic term for the products of writers, or at any rate, the term now considered ‘progressive’. . . . They do not write poems, novels, essays or even stories—they ‘produce texts.’” These arguments and idiosyncratic reactions are now history. In themeantime text has gained wide acceptance—and why shouldn’t this be the case? But in view of how the meaning of this term has developed over the years, the old objections would seem to warrant some thought. In the course of things, text has come to be used synonymously with the older term work (opus). In many respects the current definition with all its implications of aesthetics and values has simply been inherited. However, text originally had another meaning; it is not just a coincidence that it was introduced at a time when the concept of literature was being expanded to include trivial literature, essays, and general nonfiction and when there was a growing interest in the phenomena of popular culture. Since then, literary and cul-

Finnish youth cultural research and its relevance to youth policy

This article intends to outline major characteristics, theoretical and empirical traditions, and ideologies and discourses related to Finnish youth cultural research. Historically speaking, the cultural socialization of the young Finnish nation after independence was a very special national project: ‘young’ citizens were socialized in a patronizing and enlightening manner to become true and loyal Finns. Diverse popular and youth cultural phenomena have formed a central pillar in the formulation of Finnishness and the national identity of Finnish youth. Also academic interest in popular cultures arose rather early. In this article, Finnish youth cultural research is described along two orientations, namely socio-politically orientated youth studies and more (post-)structurally orientated cultural studies. It is argued that the distinguishing feature of the Finnish youth research field is its somewhat ambivalent status in the crossroads between these two orientations. The article also analyses the complex role of youth researchers as political actors, and emphasizes that one of the special features of Finnish youth research is its close connection with those active in the field of youth policy.

AMERICAN PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING: EVOLUTION, CONTENT, AND POPULAR APPEAL

Over the past several years, professional wrestling, now referred to as sports entertainment, has become a hugely popular cultural phenomenon. There are several reasons to account for why tens of millions of Americans are attracted to this form of entertainment, but this article centers attention on three allures that stand out: excitement, intrigue, and political incorrectness. Content analysis suggests that these three foci form the core of pro wrestling program content. The present paper identifies the macrosocial forces that explain sociologically why these themes are especially marketable today: community breakdown, social disenchantment, and political correctness.