Erik Tsao wrote:
----------
Last night I wsa talking with a fellow graduate student who wanted to
argue
against the idea that popular fiction is a part of popular culture. I
think I understand what he meant. Which was something like the fact that
people are more likely to consume pop cultural texts like film, music,
television, etc. than to read popular fiction. That doesn't seem quite
right considering the immense popularity of romance novels, adventure
fiction, and mysteries, not to forget mentioning science fiction and
fantasy. Not only that but there is a very clear connection, as we've
seen
in some of the discussions on this list, that popular genres of film
(such
as romance, mystery, adventure, etc.) are very much connected with
popular
fiction. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
----------
Definitely. I think that last part is crucial, as well as very
interesting. Granted, there are forms of pop culture with wider
audiences than popular fiction, but these are _connected_. And in both
directions. Popular fiction virtually always draws elements from popular
culture, whether consciously or not. And even if the viewers don't
necessarily recognize it, many writers and directors, musicians, and what
not, may be drawing elements from popular fiction that _they_ have read.
One of the most interesting examples of this to me is Frank Miller's
_Dark Knight Returns_. This, a graphic novel, a comic, (albeit of the
grandest and most literary variety) has, in my opinion, had a major
impact throughout a great deal of popular culture. I think largest and
most obvious effect that it had was via Tim Burton in the dark tone of
the first two Batman movies. I will withhold full explanation on this
for the moment, since it would be extensive, and I only brought it up
illustratively.
DKR, itself, and Frank Miller's works in general are tied deeply into the
cyberpunk subgenre, again bidirectionally. The Batman movies have, by
making bucketloads of money, had a powerful cascade into other areas of
pop culture.
Anyway, my point in all that is that, yes, I strongly agree that popular
fiction can and does have a vastly greater influence on popular culture
in general than a statistical analysis of direct consumption might
suggest.
Rhian
rhian.m.merris@cpmx.saic.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:07:38 PDT