I think it's always important for academics to study popular culture, even if the thing they are studying is idiotic. If it's successful or made a dent in culture, then it is worthy of study to find out why.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Popular culture is simply a reflection of what the majority seems to want.
And so popular culture raises issues that are very important, actually, in the country I think. You get issues of the First Amendment rights and issues of drug use, issues of AIDS, and things like that all arise naturally out of pop culture.
Culture is important. Wars are fought over culture. It's not just about folks showing up and being hoity-toity. Culture is about definition.
If you want to know what's important to a culture, learn their language.
My working hypothesis is that stupidity in popular culture is a constant. Popular culture cannot get more stupid.
The point of my work is to show that culture and education aren't simply hobbies or minor influences. They are hugely important in the affirmation of differences between groups and social classes and in the reproduction of those differences.
Popular culture has become engorged, broadening and thickening until it's the only culture anyone notices.
Every high school and college graduate in America should, I think, have some familiarity with statistics, economics and a foreign language such as Spanish. Religion may not be as indispensable, but the humanities should be a part of our repertory. They may not enrich our wallets, but they do enrich our lives. They civilize us. They provide context.
The idea of taking what people call the 'entertainment culture' as a focus of study, including historical perspective, is not a bad idea.
Popular culture is a contradiction in terms. If it's popular, it's not culture.