Unlimited Replays

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Gibbons
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Crossing Over ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Cultural Meanings ◽  
Film Scores ◽  
Concert Halls ◽  
New Perspective

This book explores the intersections of values and meanings in two types of replay: where video games meet classical music, and vice versa. From the bleeps and bloops of 1980s arcades to the world’s most prestigious concert halls, classical music and video games have a long history together. Medieval chant, classical symphonies, postminimalist film scores, and everything in between fill the soundtracks of many video games, while world-renowned orchestras frequently perform concerts of game music to sold-out audiences. Yet combining video games and classical music also presents a challenge to traditional cultural values around these media products. Classical music is frequently understood as high art, insulated from the whims of popular culture; video games, by contrast, are often regarded as pure entertainment, fundamentally incapable of crossing over into art. By delving into the shifting and often contradictory cultural meanings that emerge when classical music meets video games, Unlimited Replays offers a new perspective on the possibilities and challenges of art in contemporary society.

Disability, Global Popular Media, and Injustice in the Trial of Oscar Pistorius

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie Ellis ◽  
Gerard Goggin
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Cultural Meanings ◽  
Sociology Of Sport ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Sports Industry ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Depth And Complexity

Drawing on disability studies, media studies, and the sociology of sport, Katie Ellis and Gerard Goggin argue that the case of runner Oscar Pistorius's killing of Reeva Steenkamp reveals the range, depth, and complexity of the cultural meanings of disability in contemporary society. Examining press accounts, legal arguments, and popular responses to the killing, they situate discourses of disability within multiple contexts, including the global sports industry and the dynamics of race and gender in a transforming South Africa. The "Pistorius affair," they suggest, makes visible the normally submerged roles that disability plays within popular culture, with implications for the ways that bodies, identities, and indeed life itself are understood.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Gibbons
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Cultural Barriers

This brief conclusion brings together threads from several previous chapters. It begins with a consideration of the independent game The End Is Nigh, a recent postapocalyptic game that contains a soundtrack by the duo Ridiculon consisting of remixed classical works. It then reflects on ways in which the cultural barriers between classical music and video games have weakened in popular culture, emphasizing that games are increasingly recognized for their capability to tell meaningful stories, produce insightful political and cultural commentary, and make artistic statements. It closes by calling attention to the arguably elitist cultural spheres in which biases that favor classical music persist.

Moses and Popular Culture

2020 ◽  
pp. 30-45
Author(s):  
Linda S. Schearing
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Cultural Artifact ◽  
Religious Meaning

The story of Moses occurs in a plethora of popular culture mediums (fiction, songs, films, television, video games, comics, digital internet sources, etc.). This essay examines three themes in which Moses as a cultural artifact plays a crucial role in contemporary popular culture: visualizing Moses (Moses in film), learning from Moses (Moses as metaphor or analogy), and laughing at or with Moses (Moses in humor). Such a survey shows graphically the elasticity of Moses as a multivalent cultural artifact that has both influenced and continues to influence American culture. Indeed, while some extract religious meaning from the Moses story, others see parallels between Moses’ struggles and their own.

scholarly journals Representation and Agency of Aging Superheroes in Popular Culture and Contemporary Society

Societies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Kateřina Valentová
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Graphic Novel ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Social Events ◽  
Cultural Expressions ◽  
American Society ◽  
The Many

The figure of the superhero has always been regarded as an iconic representative of American society. Since the birth of the first superhero, it has been shaped by the most important historical, political, and social events, which were echoed in different comic issues. In principle, in the superhero genre, there has never been a place for aging superheroes, for they stand as a symbol of power and protection for the nation. Indeed, their mythical portrayal of young and strong broad-chested men with superpowers cannot be shattered showing them fragile or disabled. The aim of this article is to delve into the complex paradigm of the passage of time in comics and to analyze one of the most famous superheroes of all times, Superman, in terms of his archetypical representation across time. From the perspective of cultural and literary gerontology, the different issues of Action Comics will be examined, as well as an alternative graphic novel Kingdom Come (2008) by Mark Waid and Alex Ross, where Superman appears as an aged man. Although it breaks the standards of the genre, in the end it does not succeed to challenge the many stereotypes embedded in society in regard to aging, associated with physical, cognitive, and emotional decline. Furthermore, this article will show how a symbolic use of the monomythical representation of a superhero may penetrate into other cultural expressions to instill a more positive and realistic portrayal of aging.

“Stealing Stuff Is about the Stuff, not the Stealing”: Rick and Morty and Narrative Instability

2020 ◽  
pp. 83-94
Author(s):  
Łukasz Muniowski
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Video Games ◽  
The Third ◽  
Narrative Device ◽  
Cultural Texts

Rick and Morty, one of the most popular presently-airing American TV series, is deeply rooted in popular culture. Each episode is full of allusions and references to other cultural texts, accentuating the show’s own status as a pop cultural text. This article analyzes the third episode of the fourth season of Rick and Morty, “One Crew Over the Crewcoo’s Morty,” using Stefan Schubert’s concept of narrative instability. The episode mocks twist films by introducing a ridiculous number of twists, eventually making the viewer immune to the element of surprise usually brought on by what Schubert understands as unstable moments. In doing so, the episode also emphasizes the overuse of that narrative device in recent decades in films, TV series and video games. “One Crew Over the Crewcoo’s Morty” deconstructs twist films while sticking to the rules of the sub-genre and remaining entertaining in its own right. Instability can pose quite a problem for the showrunners, who usually have to adjust to the norms of serialized storytelling. By using Schubert’s theory of narrative instability to discuss a singular episode of a series, I hope to demonstrate the extent to which this quality has permeated modern storytelling. The episode highlights the effects of over-reliance on narrative instability as a tool, as even the most elaborate form is not enough to make up for the lack of essence. This is exactly what Rick criticizes in the episode, when he states: “stealing stuff is about the stuff, not the stealing.”

Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 32

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Jewish Music ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Jewish Involvement

With its five thematic sections covering genres from cantorial to classical to klezmer, this pioneering multi-disciplinary volume presents rich coverage of the work of musicians of Jewish origin in the Polish lands. It opens with the musical consequences of developments in Jewish religious practice: the spread of hasidism in the eighteenth century meant that popular melodies replaced traditional cantorial music, while the greater acculturation of Jews in the nineteenth century brought with it synagogue choirs. Jewish involvement in popular culture included performances for the wider public, Yiddish songs and the Yiddish theatre, and contributions of many different sorts in the interwar years. Chapters on the classical music scene cover Jewish musical institutions, organizations, and education; individual composers and musicians; and a consideration of music and Jewish national identity. One section is devoted to the Holocaust as reflected in Jewish music, and the final section deals with the afterlife of Jewish musical creativity in Poland, particularly the resurgence of interest in klezmer music. The chapters do not attempt to define what may well be undefinable—what “Jewish music” is. Rather, they provide an original and much-needed exploration of the activities and creativity of “musicians of the Jewish faith.“

Non-religious Players Asking Big Questions: Video Game Worlds Affording Affinities of Meaningful Encounters

2021 ◽  
pp. e20200012
Author(s):  
Heidi Rautalahti
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Qualitative Interview ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
Interview Method ◽  
Search For Self ◽  
Game Players

The article examines player narratives on meaningful encounters with video games by using an argumentative qualitative interview method. Data gathered among Finnish adult video game players represents narratives of important connections in personal lives, affinities that the article analyzes as further producing three distinctive themes on meaningful encounters. Utilizing a study-of-religion framework, the article discusses meaning making and emerging ways of meaningfulness connected to the larger discussion on the “big questions” that are asked, explored, and answered in popular culture today. Non-religious players talk about intricate and profound contemplations in relation to game memories, highlighting how accidental self-reflections in mundane game worlds frame a continuing search for self.

scholarly journals Manipulative Leadership and The Effect towards Its Subordinate as Portrayed in Orson Scott Card’s Novel

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 27
Author(s):  
Sharavina Delani
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Future Change ◽  
The Government ◽  
Undergraduate Thesis

Literary works, such as novel, usually comes from the writer’s feeling; it could be the feeling of love, frustrations, angers, satisfactions, disappointments, satire, and many other feelings towards an individual, social, organizations, even the government. A novel could also be some kind of warning towards the readers so that they could be cautious if there are any similar events happen in their real life. The main objective of this research explains the American manipulative leadership and the American cultural values seen in Ender’s Game and to analyze the effect of American Manipulative Leadership towards its Subordinate shows by Ender’s Game. The researcher uses the qualitative method to analyze the primary data and the supporting data using content analysis to interpret the images, symbols, and words.    This undergraduate thesis concludes two major points. Firstly, American manipulative leadership uses two values; which are risk-taking and the future, change, and progress and forgotten two other values, directness/openness/honesty and freedom of American Cultural values. Secondly, American manipulative leaderships also affect the subordinate psychological condition. And novel can also be called as a popular culture due to its enormous achievement and its consumption by the mass.

Video Games: A Popular Culture Phenomenon

Video Games ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 3-28
Author(s):  
Arthur Asa Berger
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Video Games
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