According to Stuart hall, ‘the structuring principle of “the popular”...

is the tensions
and oppositions between what belongs to the central domain of elite or dominant
culture, and the culture of the “periphery”.’ (Hall pp. 234)

In response to Hall, consider:

(i) how he elaborates a theory, or definition, of popular culture

(ii) how one case study raised in the course so far, or one case study of your own
choosing, fits within aspects of Hall’s definition above, that is, has oscillated between
cultures of the dominant and periphery.

Stuart Hall contends that the starting point in any study of Popular Culture should be

“the double movement of containment and resistance” (Hall 198, p. 228), the

oscillating relations between social forces which are made clear during struggles over

culture, traditions and ways of life. This process of transformation is the key to Hall’s

‘structuring principle’ of the popular. Popular culture arises out of the transformation,

where mores and traditions are altered and adapted resulting in something different.

Hall reasserts that there is no “whole autonomous popular culture” (Hall 1981, p. 232)

independent to the relations of the dominant and the dominated classes; the central

domain of elite, and the culture of the periphery.

Towards the end of the nineteenth and into the twentieth century technology

innovation and rise of industrial and post industrial modernity led to the creation of a

new mass culture with a heightened relationship between the elite and periphery

classes. This is the basis for Hall’s study of Popular Culture and his belief that

cultural power and dominance has authority and results in real effects. In this lies

cultural struggle, ‘a constant battlefield’ (Hall 1981, p. 233), which reveals certain

forces aiming to maintain the division between ‘the people/not of the people’ (Hall

1981, p. 234).
As these power relations are constantly changing, Hall explains that the cultural forms

and the Popular Culture that result are dynamic. During these transformations in

power relations some objects of cultural form will cease to have value within it’s

social field and will be appropriated into the Popular (Hall 1981, p. 234). By looking

at these changing structures, we can see how as some things are preferred and others

pushed aside the dominant and dominated classes are distinguished. This struggle can

often occur when different traditional and cultural forms intersect where one will

“seek to detach a cultural form from its implantation in one tradition and to give it a

new cultural resonance” (Hall 1981, 236).

The birthing of Popular Culture in this instance routinely involves foundations of

recreation and recognition, the reconstruction or simulation of presence allowing the

spectator to witness “an objective science of authenticity” (Taylor 1998, p. 171). This

‘otherness’ as Taylor (Taylor, 1998) describes it is an ideal model for studying the

tensions of the dominate and subordinate cultures wherein lie Hall’s definition of

Popular Culture.

In the example of ‘otherness’ such as Barnum and his Ethnological Congress of

Strange and Savage Tribes (Poignant 2004) the dominant culture creates a reality (e.g.

Billy, Jenny and Toby), which the subordinate accepts as normal. These characters

perform stereotypical gestures drawn from (not always the subjects actual) native

history. Taylor recognizes these subjects not as types or people but as “likenesses of

particular people who were once alive” (Taylor 1998, p. 165). Their ‘otherness’ is

born from reducing cultural difference to live performance to a mere reconstruction

emphasizing the distinction between ‘them’ and ‘us’. The exoticism of Barnum’s
Strange and Savage Tribes satisfies the voyeuristic desire to see the ‘other’ through

the illusion of a natural reality. By doing this, the line between the periphery culture

and the dominated culture is clearly distinguished and the elite is able to remain in

superiority as stable, and reassured as a knowable self by the ‘other’. This is the

“arena of consent and resistance” (Hall 1981, p. 239) Hall identifies as the breeding

ground for Popular Culture.

Therefore, it is acknowledged that the cultural struggle separates people and gives

birth to the structure of Popular Culture. Signs which ought to have a undeviating

meaning are transformed and recreated disconnecting it from any relevant cultural

significance as seen in Barnum’s show where barbaric otherness passed as interest in

cultural difference.

Hall’s definition of Popular Culture stands today in many instances of otherness such

as Woodford Music Festival’s bizarre ‘Disturbia’ tent (see Frame A, B & C). A mini-

village where upon entering one is confronted with unknown creatures referred to as

‘Pigman’. Presented as a foreign species, spectators discuss amongst themselves what

they are: ‘are they real?’, ‘Are they acting?’, ‘I think they are cannibals?!’. The

‘Pigman’ are seen performing everyday tasks such as cooking, watching tv and

playing games however some take the a more questionable role, assuming the identity

of an asylum patient. Spectators are led to the next room which in fact, has seats

arranged for viewings of more asylum patients. The disturbing images, which are

presented, are mere representations of the outcast of modern day culture, the

medically dismembered, the emotionally challenged and the disabled: the there, the

them, the other. The objects of ethnography here are eventually accepted as real
people in a “freakshow tent” (Woodford Spectator, 2011). They are in fact a displaced

reality displayed as exotic. This human zoo reconstructs a recognizable presence

based on a spectator’s need for voyeurism leading to what is believed to be an

authentic experience.

The spectacle of otherness such as P.T. Barnums Ethnological Congress of Strange

and Savage Tribes and Woodford’s Disturbia Tent, can be described as “living proof

of radical difference… everything the spectator wanted them to be, except human”

(Taylor 1998, p. 165). This struggle between the periphery culture and the elite results

in a transformation of what was significant in meaning to a form of Popular Culture.

The structuring principle of the popular, is where this transformation occurs. When

indigenous and native tradition, or the outcast in a particular society, is dislocated,

removed, reinterpreted and recreated as an exhibiting manifestation of what that

cultural object was once thought to be by a far superior force.

List of References

Hall, S 1981, ‘Notes on Deconstructing the Popular’ in Raphael Samuel (ed.)

People’s History and Socialist Theory, Routledge, London.

McQuire, S 1998 Visions of Modernity, Sage, London.

Poignant, R 2004, Professional Savages, UNSW Press, Sydney.

Taylor, D 1998, ‘A Savage Performance’, The Drama Review, vol. 42, no. 2.

Sam Newton, Spectator, Woodford Music Festival January 2011

Figure A Figure B

Figure C

Figure A, B and C sourced from spectator.