In the winter of 1994, besieged by parental complaints that a high school English teacher had shown the R-rated film The Piano to her honors English sections, the Anoka-Hennepin school district banned the showing of all contemporary films without the prior approval of the curriculum director. A local school board member was quoted in the media saying, "Rather than viewing this modern trash, students should be watching Shakespeare" (Peterson D1). The issue -- Is the study of contemporary culture, even when it does not depict sex or violence, appropriate classroom fare? -- is especially sensitive in academia, where any hint of censorship threatens academic freedom, but where it is expected that rigorous content standards will be maintained.
Nor is the debate over the worth of popular cultural expression limited to high schools. Universities too have faced growing objection to the use of contemporary artistic works, sometimes because of an objection to the morality or lack thereof expressed in the pop works and sometimes because some academics fear that use of popular modern works in college classrooms is detrimental to the study of more classical works commonly associated with liberal arts curricula. With entire courses devoted to the work of Madonna and Keanu Reeves cropping up at even the most prestigious of academic institutions (Harvard, Princeton, and UCLA, to name a few), and at least one institution -- Bowling Green State University -- offering an entire degree devoted to the subject, the question repeatedly asked by doubters is "Should today's popular culture really be a part of the classroom?"
While proponents are sanguine about the educational benefits that popular culture affords, opponents are equally vehement that contemporary culture contradicts the purpose of a liberal education: to explore the "universal" ideas, works, and expressions which have transcended the parochial approval of their times and have come to be considered "classics." If liberal education prepares students for life-long study of the human condition, it would appear well-advised to include contemporary culture in a study of the humanities. In fact, inclusion of popular culture examples as familiar reference points might well lead students to better understanding of the culture expressions of other ages.
This point of view is not, however, without it's opponents. Esquire columnist Michael Hirschorn refers to our exploding fascination with popular culture as a "kind of dumb-down chic, a cheerful capitulation to anti-intellectualism that takes the detritus of a past age and, with a wink and a nudge, reincarnates it as post-modern camp" (90). Likewise, Roger Kimball, author of Tenured Radicals, charges the incorporation of popular culture into class lessons with nothing short of "defrauding students of a liberal-arts education" (qtd. in Tippens 89). Study of popular culture has been metaphorically dismissed by opponents as "detritus," or as "fallout from some postmodern apocalypse" (Heilemann 34). Many a critic has taken to the soap box, proclaiming, like William Gass, "This muck cripples consciousness. Therefore no concessions should be made to it" (Andersen 70).
Perhaps this vehemence is, in part, a reflection of the human tendency to avoid paying attention to the moment at hand. In a sense, ours is a society of Miniver Cheevys:
For the same reason that we study current social events and recent developments in mathematics and biology, it is important to keep a finger on the current pulse of the arts. The humanities, like any other fields, are not limited to the developments of the past -- they continue to be developed.
We have long endorsed the study of history, because, in viewing how others in other times have viewed the human spirit, we have come to see how various people have expressed what the human spirit is. However, it would be reasonable to suggest that there is also a great deal going on in the times in which the students live. What many popular culture proponents argue for is not an abandoning of the classics, but an increased sensitivity to what is happening in the present -- in our current culture -- as well. Using Randy Newman's song "Sail Away," Richard Pryor's sketch "Wino and Junkie," and Michael Jackson's "Black or White" video as examples, Eric Lott concludes that pop culture is full of aesthetically pleasing works which make definite statements about the human condition as its is viewed by modern writers, artists, and philosophers.
It seems implicitly logical that the exploration of patterns in human thoughts and issues would be incomplete without some exploration of those patterns as they are expressed by today's culture. Linking the past to the present can make both more meaningful. The teaching of US history and literature, for example, can be greatly enhanced by the use of American cinema in classroom exploration. Proponents of this approach conclude that "the growth of American cinema can be identified with the growth of American technology, culture and identity" (Johnson & Vargas 111).
Not to deal with the present is essentially to declare that current times are less significant than times of the past. Jay Santino, a professor of the Bowling Green popular culture department, explains:
The one thing that I think is important is that we don't necessarily say that T.S. Eliot shouldn't be taught. It's not an either-or situation. I think people should know when the Civil War was and they should be aware that the culture they live in is important and meaningful and operative. (DeCurtis 135) As Santino suggests, modern popular cultural expressions and phenomenon can be used as teaching tools to enhance the study of the classics and as topics in themselves. Aside from films and programs of and about specific time periods being used to provoke class discussion, media artifacts can themselves be studied to provide insight into the social context of these artifacts in terms of creation, intentionality, and audience. As Camille Paglia of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia exclaims, "Our culture is a pop culture. [We] have to be the ones interpreting the pop culture reality" (Brand 31). Causing students to examine pop culture allows them to be more critical participants of their times. After all, the purpose of education is to create life-long learners. Ultimately what we know of all cultures of the past is through their arts. What will future generations know of us? Popular culture provides another means of studying the past, present, and future. It is another means of encouraging people to be students of the human condition. By studying the present, in a addition to the past, we can create a better future.
However, to implement even a component of pop culture study in a liberal arts curriculum will take a concerted effort. Even elective pop culture offerings receive criticism for allegedly "dumbing down" academics. Professors of so-called "lowbrow" courses are regularly called upon to defend the significance of their offerings and to make sure that all examinations of popular culture are tempered with the same rigor as any other discipline. Admittedly, this type of class may attract students who want an "easy A" or "slough class" and could conceivably be borne of "contemporary academics' attempts to counteract their own marginality by making desperate forays into popular culture" (Harris 30). And, although the entire world truly is a text, there are certainly some disciplinary pursuits where tackling the study of the impact of Madonna, for example, may work better than in others.
Even a vociferous critic of popular culture in the classroom like John Heilemann begrudgingly concedes that "an investigation of pop music could tell you a great deal about race, class, and gender in post-World War II America" (34). But many critics get bogged down in issues of implementation and potential abuses. Heilemann, for example, tosses forth an almost certainly atypical example of a class entitled "Poets Who Sing," a study of the likes of Bob Dylan and Bob Marley, in which a student reported that:
The midterm took the form of an in-class, gang oral. The prof would ask a question, we'd yell out the answer, and she'd toss a piece of candy to whoever got it right first. (35)
But these examples, although they are apparently meant to shed a bad light on the implementation of popular culture, really do little but shed a bad light upon some bad teaching. Incredibly bad curriculum can be found in classes of even the most traditional subjects. My own junior high history classes were sometimes conducted in a similarly embarrassing manner. Does that mean the study of history, as Henry Ford once suggested, is bunk? If it's possible to generalize from poor implementation to the conclusion that popular culture is inadequate, could we not do the same to all education?
Journalist Pete Hamill, with decided dismay, invites us to consider the following: "We live in a country that has never made a movie about Leonardo da Vinci and has produced three about Joey Buttafuoco" (87). But there are valuable -- even educational -- issues that can be derived from even the most "lowbrow" of artifacts: What does this artifact say about us? How do we respond to it? Does it reflect present conditions? What are our times? Out of what exigencies is this artifact created? These are some of the questions which utilizing popular culture ultimately raises. These types of questions are particularly important in a consumer society because people will be called upon to evaluate new cultural products throughout their lives. Studying various modern media phenomenon will ultimately create better consumers.
In justice, implementing popular culture's study of the now should be done in an inclusive process. It should cover all the arts. What is the music in our time, the visual art, the film, the theater? What does this say about us? A study of current developments in the arts, just as the developments in any other discipline, is important because culture evolves -- and it both influences and reflects what we are and what we believe. If a study in the humanities is an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the human condition, then it's important to be aware that the human condition continues to be described and in richly varied ways. The time has come for us finally to examine the present, for, as Camille Paglia said of the incorporation of Madonna in the classroom:
We do not need a whole course in Madonna, but within a big course like mine, it is absolutely legitimate to show how images of the present inherit the meanings of the past. (qtd. in Tippens 89)
A complete liberal education should have a component of pop culture, so that the student is caused to examine his own times, just as a student is legitimately expected to study major movements and events of other times throughout history. An inclusion of pop culture art in the liberal arts curriculum validates the fine arts and humanities as a vital part of every age including one's own. To do less is to risk the development of Miniver Cheevys, who worship the past, disdain the present, and are less than fully capable of analyzing, and evaluating the future and whatever unique brand of pop culture it may produce.
