Analysis of Popular Culture - SLU Madrid

     "No Brow Culture" by Seabrook describes the notion of 'highbrow' and 'lowbrow' being "American inventions, devised specifically for American purpose: to render culture into class" (Seabrook, 1999, p. 104). Husseyn argues in "After The Great Divide" that "the boundaries between high art and mass culture have become increasingly blurred" (Husseyn, 1986).      Flip flops, a casual shoe, is often associated with more so a 'lowbrow' item in American culture, being that most flip flops are bought at the dollar store and are made of flexible rubber. The average flip flop is probably 20-50 dollars retail, for a good, long lasting pair. Dollar store flip flops won't last very long, but they do work for awhile and put the couple dollars you spent on them to good use.      High fashion brand, Gucci, has a now iconic pair of flip flops that retail at almost 300 dollars for one single pair. This is a lower priced item on Gucci...

Black Panther was a movie that transcended throughout all generations and the whole world. It ranked more than 700 million in ticket sales in just the first 12 days, taking the box office by storm (Cascone, 2018, #). The first film that had a black superhero and had a community (Wakanda) that uplifted each other while being in a position of power. At the same time, it has touched on fundamental concepts of colonialism and the ownership of African artifacts. In the scene, we are introduced to the Museum of Great Britain and the African artifacts that have. In our reading, we talked about the concept of “ The Great Divide” and this separation of high and low cultures. This concept was presented during the interwar period, when there was a great fear for war and several nations had been having technological advances. This museum scene is showing how this elite culture of museum which to profit from people that they used to call “ Savage”.   These Museums are feeding into the narrative...

  “After the Great Divide” and “Nobrow Culture” address the concept of high and mass culture in different ways. As in ‘The Great Divide’ we approach the concept of modernism and how it had different post eras. We understand that modernism is the insistence on the autonomy of the art work while post modernism rejects the theories and practices of the Great Divide. Furthermore, we develop the concept of historical avantgarde, which aimed at developing an alternative relationship between high art and mass culture. The Great Divide takes place in the last years of the 19 th century and first decades of the 20 th century. In the Nobrow culture we understand that this term refers to the space between familiar categories of high and low culture. Highbrow and lowbrow are American inventions to render culture into class. A common characteristic from both readings is that they classify culture as something that is set for educated people. On top of that we also get to understand that h...