Cliff's Notes Final

I have really wanted to end this all-too-short series regarding the birth of what Chomsky has called the "Public Relations" industry, and specifically the way in which one arm of it, in particular the media, has grown by leaps and bounds both in power, and more recently in stupidity. However, conducting any more research on a topic that has such a glut of opinion from the liberal side of the spectrum, and yet so little from the conservative side, seems ultimately pointless. I feel my first two threads pretty well exhibited the general pattern that documents the birth of what I sometimes call the fourth tier of our government, "the Mediaocrity" branch.

I really want to take the time to show an era in which pop culture and high-brow culture came to a synthesis. This is, in my opinion, is basically ground zero in solidifying the point at which the pop-culture, the public fascination with glam, glitz, and everything regarding celebrities reached a point of no return.

Art was traditionally used for either simple communication
of the basest kind in the Stone Age, for religious iconoclasm
in the Middle Ages and before, and for both secular and
religious, but neverthless commissioned and usually
high-brow work during the Reneaissance. During the
Baroque period of Fragonard and others, and even on through
Manet's genre-bending "Luncheon on the Grass" which was
seen as lewd, art remained the realm of the landed gentry, or at
least of the prvilidged academic. This began to change with the
art of Toulous-Lautrec, but the point at which the lines between
high- and lowbrow art became fully blurred was during the lives
or Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and the birth of Pop Art. Warhol's
naming of his studio as "The Factory," should tell us something
here.

It was no longer out of the question for art to be "pop," or to be mass produced. Some still feel he cheapened a sacred trade, but I like it.

The point remains that these works represent a seminal crystallization of the synthesis of the "sacred" and the "profane." By this I mean, for example, that artists became just as, if not more likely, to depict Marilyn Monroe as they were to paint Kings or Saints. Pop culture had become a venerable institution.

I'm a pop culture connosieur and so I have no real beef with this. I feel perfectly comfortable simultaneously decrying how far pop culture has gone in infiltrating our lives, and yet championing pop culture as a vital art form and cultural weathervein in itself. Yes it distracts us more than it should these days, monopolizing what should be important and vital hard news outlets and the public's attention. Yet I also can't help but snuggle up in a bean bag with a stack of my childhood's comic books or find a guilty pleasure of reading about how far from reality Michael Jackson has really drifted. I too am enamored with pop art, superheroes, video games, and retro graphics that seem churned out as if by assembly
line reproducing everything from the look of pulp magazines as book covers to Hanna Barbera lunchboxes. And how far is this stuff, really, from watching E! "News." Some may argue my fantastical tastes in fantasy, science fiction, and pop art are a more vital cultural treasure trove which should be preserved, while there is nothing vital or historical about "Paris Hilton's hang nail." To an extent I agree. However, we must also remember that just forty years ago, our parents may have been reading about Jackie K's wardrobe and dreaming about Paul McCartney.

In conclusion, I believe there is middle ground to wanting an informed (and therefore healthy) public and yet being a consumer of the "crude" or the more "entertaining" elements of the world. We just haven't found it yet.