The dictionary definition of pop culture goes like this: "modern popular culture transmitted via the mass media and aimed particularly at younger people." The fact that popular culture is aimed primarily at young people means that it shapes the minds of those young people. And the fact that pop culture has come to permeate at an accelerated rate due to the ubiquity of multi media devices among those young people, might lead us to believe we have on our hands a clear case of mass brainwashing...
Image by geralt - source: Pixabay
Now that I'm older, after having existed on this planet for over half a century, I can look back on my life and recognize how my personality, morals and core beliefs have been shaped by the multitude of interactions I've had with my surroundings. Starting with my parents, the rest of my family, the teachers I drove crazy at school, the people I've befriended and those I hold at a distance, the books I've read and yes, the films and television content I've consumed. I can say with a great degree of certainty that I wouldn't have been the person I am now, if Star Wars wouldn't exist. I know for sure that Dune and The Lord of the Rings, books I've read multiple times, have left their impressions on my evolving psyche. Every culture and every society has their own set of stories and myths that bestow upon them a sense of community, that help cultivate a shared set of morals, ethics and values. What some might call mere entertainment is in fact part of our shared cultural tapestry, and forms for a great part the background from which we get our shared values, and against which we test our own.
Since we all are products of the culture we grow up in, it's needless to say that that the authors and artists produced by that culture will generally produce art that reinforces existing values and beliefs. There are of course exceptions to this rule, and those artists produce works that challenge current paradigms, sometimes even discredits them; that's when we get to enjoy exceptional gems like A Brave New World or Blade Runner. Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, however wonderfully crafted and engaging they are, don't fall into that category; they follow the ages old rules of the hero's journey and depict the beliefs encapsulated in the great man theory Ayn Rand used to justify her philosophy of selfishness and greed. Rand is without doubt one of the prime examples of how pop culture is used to reinforce existing power hierarchies, and one of the founders of the ideology that's responsible for the existence of the oligarchy we now live in.
Usually it's not done so overtly and deliberate as in Ayn Rand's case though. The powers that be have an invested interest in controlling the population, and their main weapon to do so in our era is information. Modern technology has made it possible to track every individual's movements and interactions every second of the day; we see the panopticon society, more popularly known as the surveillance state, mature before our own eyes. And I can't help but notice that pop culture has been leading the way by normalizing this surveillance state through books, movies and television. Do you remember the mega popular TV series "24"? In it we followed, in real time, a day in the life of counter-terrorist secret agent Jack Bauer. The brilliant stroke in this series was that, to make it possible to follow all events on different locations in real time (it was 24 episodes of an hour each if I remember correctly), the screen was split in two, three or four separate screens, each showing the events at different locations simultaneously. And those split-screens were often shown in security-camera quality, with a running timer always present in one of the corners. Then there were films like Enemy of the State with mega stars like Will Smith and Gene Hackman, in which authorities always seem to know everything about their targets through a vast array of spying technology. Mission Impossible is another shining example in this category. All this pop culture conspires to normalize the surveillance state, and as mentioned in the dictionary description, it's aimed at young, impressionable minds.
Look, this is nothing new, as the stories that shape our lifes have always been disseminated from the top, and usually paint those at the top in a favorable light; the super-spies from Mission Impossible and Jack Bauer the anti-terrorist agent were the good guys. The king is a good guy in every fairy tale. Like the philanthropist billionaires today, the rulers of old were depicted as champions for the people. And speaking of secret agents, spies and the "terrorists" they kill on our behalf, I'd like to invite you to watch this brilliant video by Renegade Cut, in which he dissects the most popular secret agent of all times, James Bond, and how that character relates to the propagation of modern imperialism. I've always enjoyed Bond and his masculine bravado, his uneasy relationship with "Q" and easy relationship with the women who have disrespectfully come to be known as the "Bond girls". Watch the video to see these aspects of the Bond movies for what they are...
James Bond Examined | Renegade Cut
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