Popular Culture and High Culture: an Analysis and Evaluation of Taste (1974) – Herbert J. Gans [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
With all this talk on nobrow, low and high culture, maybe it’s time to define the concepts of these cultures a little better. The best effort so far defining low and high culture is the following schema by American sociologist Herbert J. Gans from his 1974 book Popular Culture and High Culture: an Analysis and Evaluation of Taste.
High culture
- Interest in creative process and symbolism
- Preference for experimentation
- Introspection preferred to action
- Accepts different levels of meaning
- Expects consideration of philosophical, psychological and social issues
Upper middle culture
- A less literary verbal culture
- Figurative and narrative art preferred, especially if illustrative of individual achievement or upward mobility
- Enjoys nineteenth-century art and opera, but not early music or contemporary art
Lower middle culture
- Form must unambiguously express meaning
- Demands conclusions
- Unresolvable conflicts not made explicit
- Interested in performers, not writers or directors
- Influenced by word-of-mouth judgement
Low culture
- No concern with abstract ideas: form must be entirely subservient to content
- Demands crude morality with dramatic demarcations, but usually limited to family or individual problems
- Performer is paramount: enjoys vicarious contact with ‘stars’
- Considers ornateness attractive
–Schema adapted from Herbert J. Gans (1974) by Stephen Bayley (1991)
I really like this schema. Considering cinema I would add a few elements :
HIGH : Philosophy/Moral issues
foreign culture, foreign language (subtitles)
Pace (tolerance to boredom, transcendental narration)
UPPER MIDDLE : edgy/offensive topics (sex, violence, immorality, cynism)
LOWER MIDDLE : P.C. topics
Need for gimmick, pattern, twist, formula
LOW : Oblivious to remake/rip-off, redundance/overstatement
Enjoys walkthrough investigation, guess game
Harry,
Thanks for your additions. The schema above is only applicable to narrative forms such as film and written fiction and to a lesser degree to the visual arts.
It would be interesting how this schema works out regarding music, which is in general a non-narrative genre.
Jan
Interesting to look at the subject this way.
On the subject of film, I’ve always considered it more of a spectrum, rather than a group of categories. For example, you might have “escapist” on one end, and “intellectual” on the other. While some movies might be wall-to-wall action, blood-and-guts, or Shakespearean verse, more than likely, there’s some give-and-take between high drama and crass exploitation.
Certainly there are highbrow, intellectual films that dabble with suspense and melodrama. Just like there are intelligent filmmakers/artists/musicians (Hitchcock, Warhol and Lennon come to mind) who specialize in the techniques and styles that appeal to mass audiences, but also address some high-minded issues below the surface that could be studied in an academic setting.
I would argue that the successful artist (at least in a mainstream sort of way) is the one who is cognizant of these issues and has complete control over what he/she is trying to accomplish. Afterall, a respected critic such as Roger Ebert isn’t afraid to give a good review to a horror movie or some other lowbrow film, as accomplishes its goals in a skillful way.
Thanks for your comment, I’ve hyperlinked the words escapism and intellectual. I hope you don’t mind.
Jan
Well what’s interesting with this taxonomy is that it doesn’t define film formulas themselves, but the culture of the beholder (and therefore audience’s expectations when picking a film)
I don’t consider Ebert a highbrow critic… but like Jahsonic said in his previous post : nobrow, the critic is supposed to avoid being influenced by a particular “brow”. The critic hovers above culture to better identify it.
Maybe this schema dont apply for visual arts, I mean in that kind of obvious way that its written here.