Daily Dose of Culture and Politics: January 30, 2012

Where do we begin with culture and politics?

In today’s class, a group was able to discuss the Birmingham School of Culture Studies. This school of thought is based on critical theory. It is also theoretically grounded on two philosophers, Gramsci and Althusser. Althusser sees that culture is subordinate to the economic order, which is capitalism, while Gramsci believes that there is cultural hegemony, wherein a hegemonic entity dictates culture and embeds this idea to the people so that it would be established as a norm. Gramsci also believes in counter-culture that would destabilize the hegemonic culture.

The first thing that I thought of while I was listening was the cultural domination of high fashion in magazines and in television. They dictate what the standards of beauty are. At most, they also marginalize those who do not conform to their point of view. Shows like Fashion Police that has a panel of celebrities that criticizing the clothes of other celebrities. They do it all for the sake of entertainment, but on the other hand, it places huge pressure on other celebrities to look good, that will make them turn to not eating or drugs. High fashion is expensive. Thus, publicizing it in any mean necessary would help its industry. Therefore, it is subordinate to the economic order, the theory of Althusser.

The second things that I thought of were the television shows of real women who are not stick thin. An example would be Keeping Up with the Kardashians on E! It is about a family who are do not follow the standards of beauty because they all have womanly curves, but are still famous for flaunting it. They counter the culture of tall skinny girls, because the family sees that their assets are their curves. Another example is the reality show, Ruby, that is about the journey of a 447lbs woman who tries to lose weight and find happiness at the same time. Lastly, the reality show America’s Next Top Model, do not reject or criticize models that are not stick thin. They welcome full-figured models to participate. And in one season, Whitney Thompson, a full-figured model, won. Here we can see that the acceptance of real women is slowly becoming more prominent than what magazines are pushing for. Here we can see Gramsci’s theory come alive.