When I told friends and family I wanted to write a column about popular culture, I received polite but confused looks. Nicholas Kristof writes about international human rights abuses—Maureen Dowd opines on domestic issues. Why didn’t I write about something . . . important?
I understand the reasoning. Politics, philosophy, literature: These are subjects worthy of a column because these are subjects that influence and enrich. When President Obama makes a speech, or when Congress takes a vote, things change—jobs are lost or created, soldiers are deployed or demobilized, people live better or live worse. Who cares whether Jon and Kate decide to divorce? (Besides their children, maybe.)
Here’s the sobering thing about politics, though. Roughly half of the voting-age population goes to the ballots in national elections every four years. Midterm elections have even lower voter turnout. According to recent Pew studies, 42 percent of Americans knew Israel and Iran did not share a border, 38 percent knew Nicolas Sarkozy is the president of France, and 33 percent knew the approximate Dow Jones Industrial Average. Blame it on the fact that 34 percent of Americans read a newspaper every day, either in print or online.
Yet the 99 percent of Americans who own a television watch approximately 153 hours of it every month. About 29.8 million people tuned in to this season’s premiere of American Idol on FOX—that’s roughly 1.3 million more viewers than C-SPAN receives all week. Susan Boyle of “Britain’s Got Talent” had over 120 million people watch her audition on YouTube—numbers not even President Obama’s State of the Union Address can match.
And I have more staggering news: You probably have a bigger say in who is crowned the next "American Idol" than in Senate proceedings on C-SPAN. In fact, pop culture might be the strongest manifestation of our democratic society. You affect it directly, without buffers like the Electoral College. You don’t cast a ballot every four years but every day by deciding what to spend money on, what songs to download, and what TV shows to watch on Hulu. These results, whether in record sales or Nielsen ratings, are our nation’s pulse.
So our country is more interested in Tiger Woods’ affairs than in international affairs. That’s okay. Pop quiz: Who raised more awareness for domestic violence this year—Washington or Hollywood? The Chris Brown and Rihanna saga wasn’t just tabloid fodder—it engaged us in a very real, much-needed national dialogue on domestic abuse. As Rihanna acknowledged during a “20/20” interview, her decision to break up with Chris Brown after the assault was made in part because of her consciousness of her status as a role model for other women. She was aware that her “selfish decision for love could result into some young girl getting killed.”
Chris Brown’s assault of Rihanna was one of the year’s biggest stories. It was salacious and shocking. But it was also immeasurably important in terms of the issues it brought to our society’s forefront. We were given a common language—it became a part of our collective knowledge. The lessons were painfully clear to us. Even dimple-faced 20-year-olds could be violent. Not even super-successful, sexually liberated women deserved it. We, as a nation, changed.
The proof? Chris Brown’s post-Rihanna CD, “Graffiti,” sold just over 102,000 copies in its first week. That’s only about a third of the sales that his previous record, “Exclusive,” saw in its first week.
Some more questions: Who sparked more debate over gay marriage—the Senate or former Miss California Carrie Prejean? What’s going to get more people talking about colonialism—Frantz Fanon’s “The Wretched of the Earth” or James Cameron’s “Avatar”?
What I am proposing is to look at pop culture not as some isolated or cancerous phenomenon, but as a legitimate field of study. For all of its so-called corruptive forces, pop culture can also be a tool for effecting good. It can spread awareness and educate. It can give us something to talk about at parties and bring us closer together, and it can pose questions and challenge us. It can inform and shape our ideals and values.
This is why I write about pop culture.
Aarti Iyer is a Columbia College junior majoring in creative writing. She is the editor-in-chief of The Fed. Culture Vulture runs alternate Fridays.
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