Race And Cultural Practice In Popular Culture

This book is an innovative work that takes a fresh approach to the concept of race as a social factor made concrete in popular forms, such as film, television, and music. The essays push past the reaffirmation of static conceptions of identity, authenticity, or conventional interpretations of stereotypes and bridge the intertextual gap between theories of community enactment and cultural representation.

The latest publication in the award-winning Discussions in Contemporary Culture series, Black Popular Culture gathers together an extraordinary array of critics, scholars, and cultural producers. 30 essays explore and debate current directions in film, television, music, writing, and other cultural forms as created by or with the participation of black artists. 30 illustrations.

Race has always been America’s first standard and central paradox. From the start, America based its politics on the principle of white supremacy, but it has always lived and dreamed of itself in color. The truth beneath the contradiction has finally emerged and led us to the threshold of a transformation of American identity as profound as slavery was defining. We live in a country where the “King of Pop” was born black and a leading rap M.C. is white, where salsa outsells ketchup and cosmetics firms advertise blond hair dye with black models. Whiteness is in steep decline as the primary measure of Americanness. The new, true American identity rising in its place is transracial, defined by shared cultural and consumer habits, not skin color or ethnicity. And this unprecedented redefinition of what “American” sounds, looks, and feels like is not being driven by the politics of protest or liberal multiculturalism but by a more basic American instinct: the profit motive. Smart marketers discovered that the inherent, subversive appeal of transracial American culture was the perfect boombox for breaking through the noise of a crowded marketplace: Nike and the NBA used unambiguous black style to create modern sports marketing; Pepsi validated Michael Jackson as a superstar while adding millions to its own bottom li≠ Hollywood turned a taboo into a lucrative cliché with black-white buddy films; Oprah Winfrey created the model for the ultimate individual corporate br∧ and Budweiser created a signature series of commercials built around four ordinary black men signaling something ineffably American with one word—“Wassup?” In the end, this is a hopeful but clear-eyed argument that while we fall short of true equality, we are opting to carry on that struggle together within a common American cultural skin. "There’s been a radical shift in the place of race and ethnicity in America. Near revolutionary developments in advertising, media, marketing, technology, and global trade have in the last two decades of the twentieth century nearly obliterated walls that have stood for generations between nonwhites and the image of the American dream. The mainstream, heretofore synonymous with what is considered average for whites, is now equally defined by the preferences, presence, and perspectives of people of color. The much-maligned melting pot, into which generations of European-American identities are said to have dissolved, is bubbling again, but on a higher flame; this time whiteness itself is finally being dissolved into a larger American identity. On its surface, this book tells the story of how and why big business turned up that flame, and a brief history of race and pop culture leading up to this watershed. But at its core American Skin is about the revolution that higher heat on American identity is bringing about: the end of ‘white’ America. This book begins, and my arguments and insights ultimately rest on, one premise and guiding belief about this country: We have always been, and will ever be, of one race—human—and of one culture—American." —From the Introduction

As before, the book presents a clear and critical survey of competing theories of and various approaches to popular culture. Its breadth and theoretical unity, exemplified through popular culture, means that it can be flexibly and relevantly applied across a number of disciplines. Also retaining the accessible approach of previous editions, and using appropriate examples from the texts and practices of popular culture.

An exclusively Canadian textbook, this collection investigates the relationships between identity, geography, and popular culture that are produced and consumed in this sprawling country. Expanding beyond the clichés of friendliness and snow, this text provides a fresh perspective on what it means to be Canadian, both nationally and transnationally. Scholars look at historical subjects like Québécois identity and Indigenous self-representation and explore issues in contemporary media, including music, film, television, comic books, video games, and social media. From Drake to the Tragically Hip, Trailer Park Boys to The Amazing Race Canada, and poutine to maple syrup, mainstream icons and trends are studied in the interdisciplinary context of race, gender, sexuality, politics, and patriotism. Contributing to the location of Canadian popular culture, this unique resource will engage students and scholars of communication studies, cultural studies, and Canadian studies. FEATURES - Includes key concepts and theories and a glossary - Engages students with relatable historical and contemporary examples of Canadiana through a breadth of media, including television shows, websites, journals, celebrities, newspapers, literature, comic books, video games, music, and films - Ensures equal representation of a national and transnational Canada, which includes examples of race, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity, with particular attention to geographical intricacies that contain all provinces and territories

Racism, Culture, Markets explores the connections between cultural representations of `race' and their historical, institutional and global forms of expression and impact. John Gabriel examines the current fixation with market place philosophies in terms of the crisis in anti-racist politics and concern over questions of cultural identity. He explores issues such as the continuing relevance of terms like `black' as a basis for self definition; the need to think about identities in more fluid and complex ways, and the need to develop a much more explicit discussion of the construction of whiteness and white identities. Racism, Culture, Markets brings together a range of historical and contemporary case studies including the Rushdie affair; the Gulf War; debates around fostering, adoption and domestic violence; separate schooling; the service economy and its employment practices; tourism in the Third World; the Bhopal chemical disaster and racism in the new Europe. His case studies also consider the role played by contemporary media and popular culture in these debates, including film, television, music and the press.

Studies of race and media are dominated by textual approaches that explore the politics of representation. But there is little understanding of how and why representations of race in the media take the shape that they do. How, one might ask, is race created by cultural industries? In this important new book, Anamik Saha encourages readers to focus on the production of representations of racial and ethnic minorities in film, television, music and the arts. His interdisciplinary approach combines critical media studies and media industries research with postcolonial studies and critical race perspectives to reveal how political economic forces and legacies of empire shape industrial cultural production and, in turn, media discourses around race. Race and the Cultural Industries is required reading for students and scholars of media and cultural studies, as well as anyone interested in why historical representations of 'the Other' persist in the media and how they are to be challenged.