Popular Culture in The Nineteenth- And Early-Twentieth-Centuries - Essay Example

Popular Culture In The Nineteenth- And Early-Twentieth-Centuries Analysis This essay presents an analysis of the Americanpopular culture in the 19th century with a particular focus on how Native Americans and the African Americans were represented in the popular culture and the American mainstream at the time. The essay looks at various writings, movies, television shows, and events that were popular in the 19th century in order to determine the role of Native Americans and African Americans in reinforcing American beliefs, values and narratives that have hither to shaped how people perceive America and its culture as well as reinforcing the American identity to the world. The essay analyzes the popular Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, world fairs, the memory of the Civil War and Reconstruction, and other popular representations of the west in the 19th century. Popular or pop culture in America plays big role in shaping values and beliefs of Americans and the whole world to some extent. A majority of the players in American popular culture are men of the White race. This fact is important in understanding trends in popular culture since the 19th century. This is because most of these trends seem to reinforce stereotypes that reinforce superiority of white males over other people. Native Americans and African Americans have either been left out or played a minimal role in contributing to some of the popular narratives and values that help to define America’s greatness and the country’s promises to the world. America is portrayed through pop culture as a perfect place full of promises and prosperity to the American people and visitors. Pop culture, therefore, is important to development of American values and ideals to the entire world. In the 19th century as well as during the first part of the20th century, pop culture played a very significant role in representing Native Americans and African Americans as either heroes or villains and as threatening figures, or nonthreatening, depending on the circumstances. Most of the elements of popular culture such as music, movies, and magazines for the greater part of the 19th century presented minority groups like African Americans and Native Americans as objects of derision and sympathy. These minority groups have, therefore, for the large part been exiled from some of the popular narratives that have shaped the perception of American and the American culture to the world. a) Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show The Wild Wide West show was a popular traveling theatre performance led by Buffalo Bill. The show, which ran between 1833 and 1913, was very influential at the time, both in the US and in the East in terms of shaping the perception of America and the American culture (Blackstone, 41). Buffalo Bill was an influential in American pop culture in the 19th century. The main objective of the Wild West Show was to promote the American culture as the ideal culture and the best lifestyle. The show introduced many different American performers to a global audience through tours across Europe into the East, where the show has a large following. The show is engraved in American history for the role it played in enforcing a positive image of America and the West to the world (Blackstone, 63). The content of the show portrayed life in the West as exciting, outright wild and adventuresome. In fact, the image of the West as it is known today owes a lot to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Basically, the show ran for about 3-4 hours and consisted of various parts that focused on reenactment of history, as well as displaying showmanship (Karson, 21). The show included common elements of the American lifestyle and culture during the 19th century such as racing, sharp shooting, hunting, and racing. The performers acted various historical scenes such as early settlers defending their homesteads, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Most of the performers were cowboys, Indians, scouts, Mexicans, and a few other men from other backgrounds (Karson, 38). Buffalo Bill’s show is very notable for its incorporation of Native Americans, African Americans, Mexicans and people from other heritages. The show gave a platform to people all races to play a role and display the way they lived in the US. However, the role played by Native Americans and African Americans as well as that of other races was mostly that of villains (Karson, 71). Buffalo Bill glorified himself and the white race through the performances while presenting other minority races as villains, losers, and the bad guys. When performing some of the historical events such as wars between settlers and natives, Buffalo Bill used his poetic license to portray himself as the hero while the other acts were villains. African Americans and Native Americans often took roles of outlaws or the bad guys. This helped to promote the belief that Indians and African Americans were bad people; villains while the whites were righteous, powerful and superior (Karson, 116). These race representations in Buffalo Bill’s shows became an integral element of the popular culture in many other forms of art and has continued until today. b) Popular memory of the Civil War and Reconstruction The American Civil War was a very divisive conflict that resulted in over 750,000 casualties in the US and altered the country’s destiny. The civil war greatly affected social, economic and cultural structures in the US and remains the country’s most devastating and largest internal conflict. Memories of the war remain fresh in popular culture through songs, books, movies, and other cultural elements in the US. The war rose from growing differences between the cultural aspects in the North and the South America during the mid 19th century. While the Northern part of the US had rapidly industrialized, the Southern part was still reliant on Agriculture. The differences in political opinion in relation to the abolition of slave trade also became the center of the conflict. The North was more inclined towards abolishing slave trade while the South wanted to maintain the status quo. After four years of the civil war, Americans embarked on reconstruction to restore peace and economic and political stability in the country. Events of the civil war and reconstruction as well as eventual assassination of President Abraham Lincoln were captured in the Birth of a Nation, a 1915 movie directed by D. W. Griffith. The Birth of a Nation became a very successful film with unprecedented commercial success. The movie was intended to detail the events of the civil war as well as the subsequent reconstruction. However, the film was very controversial for its portrayal of African Americans. In the film roles for African Americans are played by White people, who propagate stereotypes against African Americans. The film portrays African Americans as sexually aggressive especially towards white women and also shows African American as less intelligent beings. Race representation in the movie drew public outrage in various parts of the country. The stereotypes about African Americans that are shown in the Birth of a Nation created a foundation for a similar trend ion subsequent films in popular culture. This movie was instrumental min propagating stereotypes as well as evoking racial memories of the civil war era. c) World’s Fairs World’s fairs or expositions emerged in the late 19th and early 20th century to exhibit different elements of trade and culture in the world. During this initial phase of these expositions, the focus was mostly on trade, science and technological developments in the wake of the industrialization period. Land mark expositions took place in various pars of the world including London (1851), New York (1853), Paris (1889), and Chicago (1893, and 1933-34), among others. Significant inventions like the telephone were first presented at these global conventions. The events were officially opened by a public address which welcomed the visitors to view the different things that were on display. The visitors often wrote letters to their friends informing them of the events explaining how they felt about the trade fair. Some of these letters found their way in the public after being published in various books and contributed towards shaping American culture. One such letter is a letter from an altrurian traveler addressed to Cyril, her dear friend. In the letter, the writer explains to the recipient how she was perplexed to find Chicago more interesting than what she thought before. Having stayed in New York, she regarded New York as the epitome of human civilization, but a visit to the World Fair City in Chicago changed all that. To her, Chicago is the new version of New York, which she referred to as the Newer York. The author of the letter was astonished at the inventions and the culture present at the exhibition. Given that most of these inventions were made by Whites, the author felt like the experiences in at the Chicago World’s fair would result in the whites exerting their influence in other major cities around the world. She refers to foreigners and their cultures as ills that would be washed away through the influence of the west. She asserts that” I feel as though I had caught a glimpse of the glorious capitals, which will whiten the ills and shores of the East and the borderless plains of the West” (William, 20) This reference indicates the significance that the author of the letter attributed to the Western culture over the culture of the East. Such sentiments only help to promote the view that American, and indeed, Western culture is superior and that other races are inferior. References Blackstone, Sarah J., "Review of Buffalo Bills Wild West: Celebrity, Memory, and Popular History By Joy S. Kasson". Great Plains. Quarterly, 2002. Print. Karson, S, Joy. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West: Celebrity, Memory, and Popular History. Hill and Wang, 2001. Print. The Birth of a Nation. Directed and produced by D. W. Griffith, 1915. Film. William Deans Howells, “Letters from an altrurian traveler,” 82nd September, 1893, reprinted from Clara, M. Kirk and Rudolf Kirk, eds. Letters from an altrurian traveler. (Gainesville, FL: Scholars Facsimiles and Reprints, 1961), 20, 24. Read More