You Said a Bad Word

During our initial class meeting, we started to talk about the idea of mass culture, and to be honest I did not find it to be a horrible concept, or at least it was an understandable one. I can understand how someone can theorize about the masses being unable to control themselves in their role as a consumer.  However, continuing with this weeks reading, the ideas of mass culture are explained more in depth, and while the concept still make sense to some degree to me, the term mass culture comes across more like derogatory term to describe to the general population.

My understanding of mass culture, as described by Adorno and Horkheimer, is basically that the general population almost mindlessly accepts what the dominant ruling class produces. The idea from these theorists are "the cultural industry produces culture which the 'masses' consume unthinkingly and are thus confirmed as unthinking" (56). This whole idea of the population being "unthinking" (56) reminded me of one of my favorite movies Shaun of the Dead. The opening scene of the movie shows people moving through their lives mindlessly, almost zombie-like. They shop or work at the grocery store, they wait in line while focusing on their phone, and they listen to music on their iPods. This is the image that came to mind to me when reading this text, and maybe an extreme version, but this is the image I got when reading the Adorno and Horkheimer ideas on mass culture.

                                          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuhfEjYS3qc

So yes, the term mass culture to me sounds like a bad word to describe the general population as opposed to the dominant ruling class because the definition sounds like theorist believe that we have no control over our role as consumers. However, from our previous reading, not everything that gets put out for consumers takes off, so that proves that the masses must have some control. What is concerning is the perception that the popular culture is dependent on the dominant group, and that the masses will follow whatever idea is put out for them without much questioning.