pop culture reflects the culture
May. 10th, 2007 11:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluelovesorangeDo you think that popular culture accurately represents the environment it reflects? For example, America's on going love affair with mostly crappy reality tv shows, game shows, and the 100 ton behemoth that represents the Law & Order franchise? I predict, 20 years later, Law & Order: In Hyperspace will be running, with reanimated heads as the actors. (Futurama said it, so it MUST be true.)
I'm only pondering this because of my recent immersion in asian pop culture (reclaiming the other half of my hyphenated existence, one could say) and trying to see the truth among all the pretty, shiny lies/entertainment, and trying to interpret it through the Western filter. Pop culture is escapism or satire waiting to be written, but what is commonly loved and hated among the masses - isn't it also a reflection of our ideals/expectations?
Then again, I could just be over-reaching or oversimplifying. I do that sometimes.
Also, I have now firmly decided that Japan is a nation full of virile young men (read: Pop stars/actors/models) waiting to marry the slightly more experienced older woman. Maybe all those office-lady dramas had something more than just wish fulfillment going on.
While I'm being 89% facetious, the other percent notices that for the most part, courtships among the cognesceti often span years, and usually marriage occurs when the lady gets pregnant. (See: Kimura Takuya defense.) This also happens with brooding British musicians.
Oguri Shun's best friend (and really, he has a name and I know it, but I just like calling him Oguri Shun's best friend) Tsukamoto Takashi (that blond Casa Nova in Stand Up!, the love interest in Teppan Shoujo Akane, etc, etc.) is getting married/is married to his significant other, she's apparently five months pregnant, and seven years older. Love is love, after all - and when you're ready, you're ready.
I am not ready. I'm still at that delightful, "Let's make out, and have a conversation about Sartre, and I'll make you a mixtape!" phase.
It's a pretty awesome phase.
But one day, I'd like think I'd be at the Margaret Atwood - Variations on the word 'Sleep' phase - I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed & that necessary.
I'm only pondering this because of my recent immersion in asian pop culture (reclaiming the other half of my hyphenated existence, one could say) and trying to see the truth among all the pretty, shiny lies/entertainment, and trying to interpret it through the Western filter. Pop culture is escapism or satire waiting to be written, but what is commonly loved and hated among the masses - isn't it also a reflection of our ideals/expectations?
Then again, I could just be over-reaching or oversimplifying. I do that sometimes.
Also, I have now firmly decided that Japan is a nation full of virile young men (read: Pop stars/actors/models) waiting to marry the slightly more experienced older woman. Maybe all those office-lady dramas had something more than just wish fulfillment going on.
While I'm being 89% facetious, the other percent notices that for the most part, courtships among the cognesceti often span years, and usually marriage occurs when the lady gets pregnant. (See: Kimura Takuya defense.) This also happens with brooding British musicians.
Oguri Shun's best friend (and really, he has a name and I know it, but I just like calling him Oguri Shun's best friend) Tsukamoto Takashi (that blond Casa Nova in Stand Up!, the love interest in Teppan Shoujo Akane, etc, etc.) is getting married/is married to his significant other, she's apparently five months pregnant, and seven years older. Love is love, after all - and when you're ready, you're ready.
I am not ready. I'm still at that delightful, "Let's make out, and have a conversation about Sartre, and I'll make you a mixtape!" phase.
It's a pretty awesome phase.
But one day, I'd like think I'd be at the Margaret Atwood - Variations on the word 'Sleep' phase - I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed & that necessary.
