“Pop Culture Wars”Pop Culture WarsReligion & The Role of Entertainment In American LifeAs the title proudly blares, William Romanowski’s book is aninformative look at pop culture and how it relates to American society. The book begins with a passionate story about a town’s love for theirstatue of the popular character “Rocky”, a down & out boxer who makes itbig. The town became enraged and crying freedom of speech rights whenofficials attempt to move the statue to a local sports arena from themuseum where it rests.
. However, because the statue was in the image of alow-class movie hero, the museum insisted that the statue was not art, butrather an icon of sports and entertainment and should be moved. This upsetthe people of the city, who then petitioned until the statue was replacedon the museum steps. This is a great example to start off this book,because it reflects the cultural struggles between the “hi-class” and the”low-class” entertainment worlds in America throughout recent history. Entertainment.
The book approaches the subject from a mostly worldlypoint of view at first. It talks about ratings and labels forentertainment, but I must question if that is the way a Christian shouldlook at it. If a rating is placed on it, that will not make the problemgo away. As a Christian community, we should take up the fight to abolishthe problem. This is also tricky because what do we determine is “good” or”bad”? If we use previous examples from American history, as learned inthe first few chapters of the book, more problems will be created thansolved. In the first few chapters of the book, Romanowski gives awonderfully repetitive history of theater, vaudeville, and other forms ofthen “questionable” entertainment such as opera houses and beer gardens.
The conflict begins with the rise of “low culture” entertainment thatappeals to the working class, the immigrants, and the un-sophisticatedpopulace. This made the distinction between “high” and “low” cultures,”high” (symphonies, fine art, sculpture, etc. . ) being for the elite andwell-educated, while “low” was associated with the lower, working classthat included immigrants. Through the chapters, Romanowski illustrates theinflation of this division, as well as the conflict between the people andthe Church regarding entertainment.
Chapter three discusses how the peopleof America were searching for a unifying principle or common faith thatwould hold the nation’s people together. What they found instead was anuprise in “immorality” and a decrease in the “high culture”. This couldmean only one thing: “low culture was bad”. Theater, Opera Houses,Vaudeville, and Nickelodeons all got their “bad” connotations from this erabecause of their appeal to the “lower”, less moral people of society. Therefore, the Church had to place a moral stance against this apostasy ofthe holiness of American culture, and place a ban on all “low” forms ofentertainment.
“The church’s prohibition of amusements could not suppresspeople’s desire for it. ” (p 84) As hard as the Church tried, theirsuppression of the amusements didn’t stunt their growth in any way, in factit only made it worse. Eventually, the “high” forms of entertainment(theater, etc) were losing money and patronization began. More money wasgiven to the amusements than to the Church.
The entertainment of thesetheaters then had to stoop to the lowest moral level to appeal to thebroadest array of audience. Eventually, the Church gave up it’s fightagain the theater and began to use it as a tool for the Church, as theylater do with all forms of media that they have protested, such astelevision, radio, music, and even comics. Eventually, with all the “good”entertainment in the industry, other producers began to “clean-up” too, andeventually the industry was “decent” (even though it was still full ofinnuendos, double entendres, and suggestions of immorality), however it didnot last long and was over looked when the television and the radio emergedon the scene. Romanowski gives a great illustration of the Church’s struggle to stayinside the cultural movements of the day while still committed to Christianvalues that, more often than not, opposed society. The Church, afterforfeiting the uphill-battle against American culture, attempts to usepopular entertainment as a tool for ministry by “scrubbing it morally andspiritually clean by their standards.
” This refers to comics being used insalvation tracts, Christian or Biblical-themed motion pictures,contemporary Christian gospel music, and even radio broadcasts of sermons. Televangelists and “Church On TV” programs are included in this as well,even though television was a horrible trouble-causing empire out to getAmerican children’s morals. Romanowski’s overall view is that throughouthistory, we only focus on what is “bad” at the time until we get used tothe shock value or attention is diverted to another “evil” form ofentertainment. However, if we ignore it, will it go away?Romanowski gives me the impression that he feels we should just reallyignore what is going on around us because history has shown that we, theChurch/people upset about the lack of moral content in entertainment,cannot change the path of society. I beg to differ that we should ignorethe ills of society, however I do agree that the path of society is mostlikely not going to be altered by what the Church says, especially intoday’s American culture where the Church does not govern like it used to.
The second half of the book talks about the uprise of MTV, the changefrom records, movies, and radio to television, virtual reality, and videogames, and cable TV. Also, Romanowski discusses some major movie titlesthat have made an impact on American culture in recent years. His positionis that we should take all of the media in, analyze it with a Christianperspective, and filter out all the “bad stuff. ” This is easier said thandone.
Labels have been placed on music and movies, even books andconcerts, to help the American consumer decide the content value of theentertainment, but these labels only go so far. One could argue that it isa label on freedom of speech for the “lower” class of entertainment. Citizens that protested the moving of the “Rocky” statue referred to it asa ban on free speech and discrimination of the cinematic arts because itwas not “elite. ” Even today, popular culture entertainment such as movies,music, radio, and television are looked down upon by the “elite” asmindless forms of degenerative babble, devoid of creative intelligence orart application. With this, I disagree. I feel that all culture is art, but I believethat some of it, because of its popularity (i.
e. -pop music ; movies) shouldbe viewed in a different light as it is reaching a broader audience withit’s message. That’s not to say that the symphony shouldn’t be looked atwith discrimination, but should teen pop stars be able to anything theywant on stage in the name of “art” and “freedom of speech”? At this point,society as a whole must decide whether or not popular entertainment is avalid form of art and expression that should be exempt from all moral codesin the name of art. The entire film industry was created for the solepurpose of making money, not as an artistic venture, so should Americansplace a different set of discernment standards on movies since they have no”freedom of artistic liberties”? Perhaps not. This is a difficultquestion to answer because everyone has different morals and values fordiscernment. Romanowski’s method is an interesting approach to thissituation.
He believes that we should embrace all art and pop culture withthe same preconceptions and learn to filter out that which is “harmful” tous and grow artistically and spiritually from the “good stuff” we havefiltered out. He also gives me the impression that we should just ignoresome of the things that we disagree with because it’s art, it’s freedom ofspeech, it’s just a piece of entertainment. However if we ignore it, willit go away? Probably not. However, the problem of pop culture and societyversus the modern Christian will not solve itself, and will not go away inany short time.
