Popular Ideologies: Mass Culture at Mid-Century

by Susan Smulyan

In Popular Ideologies, Susan Smulyan demonstrates that popular culture represented more than just escape during the twentieth century's formative period. Far from providing an ideology-free zone, popular products and entertainments served (and continue to serve) as an arena where producers attempt to impose notions of race, class, gender, and nationhood, and consumers react to such impositions.From popular minstrel skits performed by middle-class families, to women rioting to experience the technological wonder of nylons, to Hollywood-starved post-World War II Japanese film fans eager to see American screen stars, to dissatisfied advertising men who wrote best-selling novels, people used mid-century popular culture to reinforce their status while claiming their place in a newly commodified and increasingly mass-produced world of leisure activities. Smulyan also tracks the ways popular culture, over time, became less and less open to audience input and more an expr

208 pages, Hardcover

First published August 6, 2007

Reviews

[Cassidy]

My undergrad advisor, Susan, is the coolest person ever. I can't wait to read her new book.