Popular Culture Research Articles

Exploring debates over “boys love” media in the Philippines: from misogynistic backlash to queer emancipation

ABSTRACT As a genre originally emerging from Japanese women’s popular culture and developing into a transnational phenomenon, debates over “Boys Love” (BL) media have increased in recent years. Within this article, we explore debates over BL through a case study of its reception in the Philippines, situating our analysis within the broader context of the Philippines’ heteropatriarchal culture. Drawing upon critical discourse analysis of traditional and new media discussions responding to the rise of BL fandom in the Philippines and qualitative interviews with 31 LGBTQ+ fans of BL, we reveal tensions between those who view BL positively and negatively. Through a feminist and reparative queer reading of our data, we contrast cisgender gay men’s dismissal of the genre as always already problematic due to its emergence from women’s culture with LGBTQ+ Philippine fans’ positioning of BL as an emancipatory media genre that combats homophobia. Ultimately, we argue that attempts by certain critics in the Philippines to downplay the queer emancipatory potentials of BL emerges from a misogynistic rejection of the contributions of women to Philippine queer culture. We conclude by calling for a more nuanced appreciation of BL’s queer interventions which recognises the genre’s deconstructive force.

What’s in the African name? “Shaka Zulu:” a European invention to destroy African identity

ABSTRACT Some scholars and media outlets, because they are preoccupied with tarnishing Shaka Senzangakhona’s African identity have, in their quest for profit and popularity, replaced Shaka’s surname, Senzangakhona, with a false substitute- Zulu. The works of E.A Ritter, Joshua Sinclair, Carolyn Hamilton and Richard Spilsbury, although they provide insightful comments about Shaka Senzangakhona’s military and political achievements, have paraded a misguided title, Shaka Zulu, which is a blatant attack on Shaka Senzangakhona’s identity. Thanks to Thomas Mofolo and Mazisi Kunene, we now know about the military genius of Shaka and that t Shaka Senzangakhona and not Shaka Zulu founded the Zulu. Despite these cues, scholars and media outlets casually inter-change the names Shaka Zulu and Shaka Senzangakhona as if both names are the same. Our thesis is that Shaka Zulu is a European invention driven by popular culture and profit to perpetuate the misguided notion of Shaka Senzangakhona as a cruel person and to destroy his African identity.

Stars, Anti-Stars, Anti-Star-Stars

The phenomenon of stars and celebrities in media cultures – and especially in popular music cultures – seems to be omnipresent. At the same time, there is an astounding lack of analysis and research on these media personalities and personas, and international celebrity studies only recently a developing new field. Similarly, these kinds of observations are still very rare especially in German sociology as well as communication, media, culture and popular music studies. In this article, I therefore want to concentrate on the foundations of studying stars and celebrities within the attention economies by undertaking a theoretical transmedia-cultural framing of media personas and suggesting a typology. This ensuing typology of stars, anti-stars, and anti-star stars – especially within popular music cultures – demonstrates how stars and celebrities and their quantities and qualities of success and peer-group specific values coming form programs of (media and music) culture can serve as persona-seismographs of socio-cultural change between tradition and innovation.

Theopolitical police: BOPE, Christianity and popular culture in Rio de Janeiro

ABSTRACT This article centres on contemporary mergers between state security practices, popular media and religion in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It discusses the actions and the representations of BOPE – Batalhão de Operações Especiais da Polícia Militar do Rio de Janeiro – the special operations battalion of the military police of Rio de Janeiro, to show how this unit frequently employs Christian symbols and practices to legitimate violence at the border between the legal and the illegal. BOPE’s religious iconography is amplified by movies, memes, toys and popular clothing. BOPE’s military pop-culture can best be regarded as theopolitical because such a perspective underscores the fact that different Christian symbols and practices, derived from Roman Catholicism and Pentecostalism, produce incoherent political theologies that are fuelled by bottom-up innovations and institutional legacies.

From DIY Avantgardism to Icons of German New Wave: Einstürzende Neubauten and the Legacy of “Ingenious Dilletants”

ABSTRACT Originating from the avant-gardist part of Berlin’s “ingenious dilletants” of the late 1970s and early 1980s, Einstürzende Neubauten have been playing a significant role in Western popular culture for more than 40 years. This article investigates Einstürzende Neubauten’s reception and legacy-building process by using ethnographic field research and documentary analysis. The analysis focuses the dimensions of musical traditions and innovations within the Neue Deutsche Welle (German New Wave) movement, the artistic and philosophic approach of the “dilletants” as well as the social and local context of Berlin during the times of Cold War.

Submissive housewives, unfaithful spouses, dysfunctional marriages and violence: the portrayal of gender roles and marriage in Moroccan jokes

ABSTRACT This paper examines Moroccan marital discourse as portrayed in popular culture, specifically jokes that circulate orally and online. Our analysis focuses on fifty jokes related to husbands, wives, and marriage. We employed content analysis for the entire dataset and critical discourse analysis (CDA) using Van Dijk's ‘socio-cognitive’ method for a subset of jokes. The study reveals prevalent stereotypes and societal views on husbands and wives, with a special emphasis on the role of women in Moroccan marriages. These views represent shared ideologies, influencing how individuals in society think, speak, act, and interact. The humour reflects marital conflicts, infidelity, and misogyny as commonplace. Several jokes normalise violence and animosity toward wives. The selected jokes predominantly depict women as passive, insecure, nagging, and reliant on their husbands, who are the primary breadwinners. Women’s contributions to the family are typically limited to motherhood and cooking, and their concerns are shown to be trivial. Negative portrayals of wives, a prevalence of jokes in which females are engaged in infidelity, and reinforcement of traditional gender roles demonstrates a societal concern with regulating the female body and maintaining patriarchy.

’n Feministiese ondersoek na Bettina Wyngaard se misdaadfiksie

The recent discourse on black feminism in Afrikaans literature is strongly influenced by powerful and activist-oriented writers like Ronelda Kamfer, Lynthia Julius, and Veronique Jephtas. With their poetry and public statements, they have shaped the feminist discourse significantly. However, the recent discourse on feminism in Afrikaans largely overlooks the contributions of certain black Afrikaans women writers. Bettina Wyngaard, a black Afrikaans woman novelist, attempts to disrupt this silence and through her literature and opinion pieces, she advances an alternative feminist stance. This article focuses on Wyngaard’s contribution to the recent feminist discourse and the ways in which she asserts her voice within the debate. In this article I refer to three of her crime fiction novels, namely Vuilspel (Foul play) (2013), Slaafs (Slavishly) (2016) and Jagter (Hunter) (2019). I analyse these texts in attempt to examine the feminist ideology underlying her literature. I argue that Wyngaard chooses crime fiction, a genre traditionally dominated by white males, in attempt to sanction her voice within the feminism debate in Afrikaans. In this article, I examine Wyngaard’s crime fiction within the context of third wave of feminism, which engages with popular culture as a tool for critique and to promote feminist ideology. I explore the feminist consciousness and ideology in Wyngaard’s novels and the ways in which she challenges established patriarchal conventions in crime fiction as a genre. I employ Anne Cranny-Francis’ framework in the feminist value of crime fiction to examine the feminist themes in Wyngaard’s work.

Enchanted Backburner: Channeling Taylor Swift and Niki on Cegil Identity

This study chooses a transnational perspective to understand the practice of American culture in Indonesia. As this study discussed identity formed in social media and involved popular music singers, the theories applied in this study are the theories of identity, youth culture, new media, and popular music from the popular culture approach. In examining this study, the content analysis method was applied. After reviewing primary and secondary sources and find suppported theories for the data, it is find that the cegil identity is channeled through Taylor Swift and NIKI’s musicality due to the interconnection of youth culture and new media in treating popular music. The star and stardom of Swift and NIKI influence people's perspectives on their songs. The cegil community likes their lyricism in descriptive, imaginative, and poetic songs. Global access and media allow Spotify and X as the mediums to communicate and participate for cegil to express their feelings. They were also the place where the cegil term was coined. The last factor is a youth culture that treats music as the soundtrack of life and hence sees songs as a medium to express themselves.

It Depends

While Comic-Con is a celebration of popular culture, it is also a launching pad for new properties in film and television. In recent years, the conventional thought about how to approach this has changed from handing out free memorabilia such as tee shirts and posters to providing an actual experience in the properties world. This type of advertising is the immersive activation. The goal of the activation is an analogous relationship between the live experience and the mediated, neither serving as the precedent to the other. In embracing this analogous relationship, mediatized and live performances move forward, establishing new entanglements with their audience. The clearest example of this analogous relationship exists in activations. An immersive activation is a live-action event where the spectator is tasked with the moniker of both audience and participant. The shift from “viewer” to “collaborator” is, as Clair Bishop (2012) and so many others have noted, manifested in fascinating and new creations. I take an approach following neuroscientific discoveries, which support this shift through different means joining the brain’s function with philosophy, as I explore the immersive activation.

The Structure of Social Capital and Cultural Participation: A Cross-sectional Study

This article examines the relationship between cultural participation patterns and access to social resources, proxied by the position generator tool. In addition, it asks to what extent social networks are class-homogeneous (closed) depending on the configuration of cultural practices. The survey results show that participation in highbrow culture is a more relevant predictor of access to higher prestige contacts than participation in popular culture. Both styles are related with the general volume of contacts and the heterogeneity of social resources. Moreover, the analysis indicates that the structure of social capital (i.e., the proportion of contacts with upper-, middle-, and lower-class members) is connected with pursuing different cultural profiles. The effect of network homogeneity is stronger for highbrow style than for any other style. The results are interpreted in terms of social closure and the role that culture plays in monopolizing access to social resources and maintaining social boundaries.

Refining Contextually Vulgar Word Choices in the Lyrics of Campursari Song "Gubug Asmoro": A Semiotic Analysis

Campursari lyrics have distinctive characteristics in refining word choices, even in contexts that may be considered vulgar. Likewise, the artists constantly adapt to the changing times. They understand that excessively harsh or vulgar word choices can undermine the beauty and wisdom they intend to convey. In this regard, the present study aimed to analyze word choices to refine the vulgar context in the lyrics of the Campursari song "Gubug Asmoro." The research method employed was descriptive qualitative with a semiotic analysis approach based on Charles Sanders Pierce’s theory. Data collection techniques included observation and note-taking. The research data consisted of lyrics manifesting as words, phrases, and sentences representing gender imbalances. Data analysis techniques involved content analysis and focus group discussions. The findings of this study could contribute to the fields of linguistics, Campursari music, and language usage in song lyrics. The results documented the semantic and contextual variations in word choices used to refine the vulgar context in Campursari lyrics, aiming to understand how their usage could influence listeners' perception of art and culture. The semiotic analysis by Charles Sanders Pierce was incorporated to provide a deeper understanding of the connection between vulgar words, the context of traditional music art, and how social interpretations were formed through their usage. Thus, this research could contribute to the understanding of meaning construction and representation in the context of popular art and culture in Indonesia, particularly within the Campursari genre.

Influence of Indian Directors on Popular Culture and Societal Views: A Comprehensive Study

This study investigates the global impact of Indian cinema, focusing on the works of notable directors such as Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Rajamouli, Imtiaz Ali, Anurag Basu, and Anurag Kashyap. The study examines Indian cinema's rich cultural past and its power to alter societal views, influence popular culture, and promote inclusivity and diversity through an interdisciplinary viewpoint. Using a combination of qualitative analysis and case studies, including notable films such as Bhansali's "Padmavat," Rajamouli's "Baahubali" series, Ali's "Jab We Met," Basu's "Barfi!," and Kashyap's "Gangs of Wasseypur," the research examines the narrative techniques and thematic content employed by these directors to challenge stereotypes and promote unity among diverse communities. It also looks into the reception and cultural relevance of these films, both domestically and abroad, emphasising their role in promoting cross-cultural dialogue and understanding. This study seeks to shed light on the changing dynamics of cultural representation, diversity, and global influence in the film industry by contextualising these directors' contributions within the larger landscape of Indian cinema. Keywords: Popular Culture, Inclusivity, Diversity, Naaratives

Boardgaming after the fall of Kabul: player and designer (re)engagement with a distant plain

ABSTRACT During summer 2021, the world watched the swift and, for some, surprising collapse of Afghanistan’s government. However, a Taliban victory was always a possibility for players of A Distant Plain (ADP), a boardgame about insurgency and counterinsurgency in post-9/11 Afghanistan. These events inspired many ADP players, and its designers, to (re)engage with the game, thus providing scholars with a unique opportunity to investigate in real time how historical practice occurs within the popular culture space. Utilizing primary sources, this article demonstrates that contemporary history games – those which depict current events or open-ended, unresolved periods, rather than ones designed to model what is seen as ‘settled’ history – are uniquely subject to external, out-of-game interventions which may prompt reevaluations of their assumptions and models, since players and designers are repeatedly challenged by changing circumstances to integrate new data into how they perceive and consume the historical representations found therein. These games are therefore exceptionally suited to engendering genuine and ongoing historical practice, through the use of evidence, argumentation and debate, retrospective reassessments, and counterfactual analysis. The broader discipline will greatly benefit from taking a more inclusive view of popular history by paying greater attention to historical games of this type.

From Pencil to Pixel: The Evolution of Animation Techniques in Cinema

This study delves into the rich history of animation, tracing its evolution from its early beginnings to its current status as a significant form of entertainment and artistic expression. Through an interdisciplinary approach, the study explores key milestones, influential figures, and technological advancements that have shaped the trajectory of animation over the years. By analysing notable works and examining their cultural impact, this research aims to provide insights into the transformative power of animation in shaping popular culture and fostering creativity worldwide.

An Island of One’s Own: Home and Self-Fulfilment in Madeline Miller’s Circe

Circe is renowned for her profound knowledge of sorcery as a minor goddess in Greek mythology. Her depictions and representations are numerous in literature, painting, music, and popular culture, ranging from Homer’s classical masterpiece The Odyssey to John William Waterhouse’s painting Circe Invidiosa (1892). Recently, Circe has been recreated with a modern kick by the contemporary American novelist Madeline Miller. In Miller’s novel Circe (2018), Circe voices her own story as the first-person heroine. The novel focuses on the spiritual growth and self-fulfilment of the protagonist. Reimagined by Miller in her family home in the early chapters, Circe is the innocent yet neglected child, always strange, pushed away, looked down upon, and alienated by her parents, siblings, and relatives. Miller first portrays Circe in her father’s halls where she is made to believe that she is a failure, she is incomplete, lacking, and neither a nymph nor a goddess. However, as her powers as a witch begin to unravel, some of her practices draw the attention of the patriarchs in her life, and she is exiled by these men to an island named “Aiaia.” How a woman can turn a punishment given by men into an advantage is shown in the novel. Marginalised and exiled to a deserted island with a house, forests, herbs, plants, and animals, Miller’s Circe practices her witchcraft, discovers life, and manifests her true self. In this respect, this article focuses on how Circe’s island, which she turns into her “home,” empowers Circe as a woman.

Sitcom as refuge, sitcom as prison: Nostalgia, anti‐nostalgia, and the embedded multi‐camera sitcom in WandaVision and Kevin Can F**k Himself

AbstractThis article claims that the recent trend in television and web streaming drama series to feature segments shot in the style of a multi‐camera sitcom, a phenomenon which is termed “embedded sitcom,” reflects the current popularity of nostalgia in popular culture. Situating the sitcom in the context of television history and theories of nostalgia, the article argues that embedded sitcom reveals the nostalgic quality of the sitcom genre as well as of the medium of television, and negotiates a larger cultural conflict between the lucrative potency of nostalgia for past media formats and a wariness of nostalgia as politically regressive.

Turning a Blind Eye to Gender at Work: A Call to Action for Management Scholarship

In this paper, we provide a fiery critique of the tendency for management research to adopt gender-blind perspectives and call on management scholars to step up and call workplaces what they are: gendered. Blending perspectives from diversity scholarship, organizational sciences, popular culture, feminism, etc., we provide a multifaceted argument for why ignoring gender in our work is harmful to our field and to gender equity efforts.

Unstable Statives – An Observational Study: How British Popular Culture Reveals What is Happening to A Specific Verb Class, and the Possible Reasons for This Development

That a certain class of verb commonly known as ‘statives’ is undergoing change in terms of the way in which certain verbs of this type are being used in everyday speech is nothing new to the field of linguistics. Much has been written about it, and the author of this paper alone has been preoccupied with the subject for many years now. However, notwithstanding that this change has been fairly widely documented for well over half a century, the present paper has been motivated by the desire to capture the root cause of this change in writing and to establish the linguistic conditions that have enabled it to occur. This is not so much a reductionist venture, negatively conceived, as a quest to determine the primary factors involved in what can seem at times to be a most peculiar phenomenon. The method employed to delimit these causal factors proceeds by a process of elimination, while the provision of evidence adopts the traditional, tried-and-tested method of ‘observation and collection’. The stative-specific research papers that examine the current variation constituting the focus of this paper are all from the present century.

What Next for the ‘Text’? Popular Culture and Literature Today

Literary studies have evolved over the past few decades to include popular culture fields as text. Proponents of this inclusion argue that songs, memes, tweets, local dialects, and slogans say as much about people and cultures as traditional texts – perhaps even more. The opinion is that, by over-relying on traditional text for literary fodder, scholars shut themselves off from current and relevant information about the rapidly evolving literary and cultural landscape. The disregard for popular culture also turns away a younger audience that seems to prefer a more informal approach to art and literature. Thus, the reading of popular cultures as text is forcing the literary field to re-evaluate the fundamental principles that define its work. Literary scholars have to rethink their traditional ideals of writing, reading, and teaching texts. Yet, there remains a reluctance to accept such informal forms of communication as memes and tweets as legitimate literature. Popular culture is not well regarded in literary studies and some stakeholders fear its classification as text could dilute the impact of the field. This paper investigates this trepidation by analyzing how reading popular culture fields as text impacts the identity of text in literary studies. Based on selected tenets of Literary and Cultural Studies (LCS) Research, particularly cultural literacy, this paper examines the legitimacy of different popular culture formats to determine if they hold enough value to warrant literary analysis. The author argues that many forms of popular culture deserve a closer look, especially through a literary lens, because they reveal the cultures, beliefs, and practices of their audience. He suggests that the incorporation of popular culture into literary studies offers many opportunities for growth and discovery but only if implemented diligently. Finally, this paper investigates why the literary field is reluctant to read popular cultures as text and how scholars can navigate this inclusion to create a more cohesive definition of text.

The Shadows of Sovereignty: A Visual Genealogy of Dark Knight Archetypes

Abstract This paper investigates the role of the dark knight archetype in the theory of sovereignty. The dark knight archetype has repeatedly emerged in popular culture, but has never been fully explored in jurisprudence and political theory. The aim is to develop a new visual method to bridge the distance between the theory and the tropes that have historically been used to create and justify the notion of sovereignty. Sovereignty is understood here not only as a founding concept of modern legal theory, but also as a trope: a special kind of narrative, illustrated, capable of being modernized, and yet maintaining its initial trends; one that is foundational and colonial, and capable of institutionalizing subjects and sovereigns. Strategically following the works of Agamben, Benjamin, Jung and Warburg, this paper analyses – in a psychoanalytical sense – the unconscious dimensions of sovereignty from evidence collected in popular culture and political history. From fallen medieval knights to Zorro; from fascist Blackshirts to Darth Vader, this paper examines the pervasive repetition of dark knight figures in Western tropes of sovereignty and its consequences.