Mass culture Lion King

Mass culture theory can be interpreted as seeing the audience as a passive, vulnerable, manipulable, exploitable and sentimental mass. It is resistant to intellectual challenge and stimulation but easy prey to consumerism and advertising and the dreams and fantasies they have to sell. It has little awareness of good taste and is devoted to the repetitive formulas of mass culture. (Strinati, 2004, p.42) This can be seen in the blockbuster animated film The Lion King (1994) produced by Disney who use movies as mass culture tools to sell their products to consumers of western society in a myriad of ways. This essay will analyse The Lion King for its mass culture aspects

Mass culture also known as popular culture, represent products that are of mass consumption. This is in contrast to High culture in western society as a standardised formulaic approach to selling products to a large market. The difference being high culture represents work created with artistic integrity and not solely for the purpose of mass consumption. It also takes the ideologies that the market the corporations are selling to are willing to purchase products with similar structures and repetitive aspects and focusing on the surface elements over depth “Mass culture is imposed from above. It is fabricated by technicians hired by businessmen; its audience are passive consumers, their participation limited to the choice between buying and not buying” (Macdonald, 1957, p.60). This being mainly in the form of films and television programs at a time when technology had begun advancing and mass manufacture and distribution of items became cheap to produce to a large market. It often also relies on high culture in the production of material. “Extracting [high cultures] riches and putting nothing back. Also as [mass culture] develops, it begins to draw on it’s own past, and some of it evolves so far away from high culture as to appear quite disconnected from it.”(Macdonald, 1957, p.60) Mass culture has produced a homogenised culture as “it break(s) down the old barriers of class, tradition, taste and dissolving all cultural distinctions. It mixes and scrambles everything together…It thus destroys all values, since value judgements imply discrimination.” (Macdonald, 1957, p.62) Mass culture is democratic in its approach as it “refuses to discriminate against, or between, anything or anybody. (Macdonald, 1957, p.62)
Mass culture is not considered an art form but a “manufactured commodity, it tends always downward, toward cheapness, and so standardisation of production.” (Macdonald, 1957, p.72) This standardisation of products can be compared to pop music, as pop songs tend to use the same structure. “Standardization extends from the most general features to the most specific ones. Best known is the rule that the chorus consists of thirty two bars and that the range is limited to one octave and one note.” (Adorno, 2002, p.438) Films also follow a standardized three-act structure beneath their glossy exterior, giving the audience a common experience each time they watch a film.

Regardless of whether it is a comedy, drama, thriller, horror, sci-fi, fantasy, or romance [every movie] is telling exactly the same story… this story is more of a set of guidelines than a specific series of characters, locations, and details that must happen a certain way. Every film is supposed to take a main character, with obvious flaws, and send him or her on a quest for something that is deeply, passionately desired. The main character must go through a really rough time in pursuing this goal. (Wilcock D. 2013, p.176)

While not all films follow these concepts, mass culture films always keep to this standard of familiarity for the sake of profit. The theory of mass society describes people as atomized, “people who lack any meaningful or morally coherent relationships with each other…not conceived as isolated atoms, but the links are said to be purely contractual, distant and sporadic rather than close, communal and well integrated.” (Strinati, 2004, p.5) This leaves the individual more to their own devices as they have less “communities or institutions to find identity or values by which to live, and has less and less idea of the morally appropriate ways to live” (Strinati, 2004, p.6) This directly relates to Disney as people who become familiar with Disney products can relate to other Disney followers who could otherwise have nothing in common. There is more underlying concepts in mass culture theory such as “the potential for elites to use the mass media to more systematically and pervasively cajole, persuade, manipulate and exploit people. ” (Strinati, 2004, p.8) This can be viewed as underlying themes and messages prevalent in films and the like, which are being used to shape peoples views of the world. This is done inadvertently as the surface product will not make these implications obvious and are done in a questionable manner to disguise intent. With Disney, this is achieved through the use of animation in their films as it distracts the viewer from the deeper narrative, focusing on the shallow surface.

Disney can be considered a perpetuator of mass culture as their products follow consumerist agendas. They use a film as a focal point for merchandise to be sold.

“the mass audience is there to have its emotions and sensibilities manipulated, to have its needs and desires distorted and thwarted, to have its hopes and aspirations exploited for the sake of consumption, by the meretricious sentiments, the surrogate fantasies, the false dreams of mass culture. In effect, mass society delivers up people to mass exploitation by mass culture.” (Strinati, 2004, p.12)

it does not demand that its audience thinks for itself, works out its own responses, and entertains responses which are intellectual and critical. In this sense, it begins to define social reality for the mass public. It therefore tends to simplify the real world and gloss over its problems. If these problems are recognised, it usually treats them superficially by presenting glib and false solutions. (Strinati, 2004, p.13)

References

Adorno, T. (2002). Essays on music: selected, with introduction, commentary and notes by Richard leppert. California, USA: The regents of the university of California

Wilcock, D. (2013). The synchronicity key: the hidden intelligence guiding the universe and you. New York, USA: The Penguin Group

http://pro-ex.org/books/archive/files/2e413ecca2f2790464dce1399980dc8d.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_culture

http://www.henryagiroux.com/online_articles/animating_youth.htm

http://people.wku.edu/barry.kaufkins/276/The%20Lion%20King%27s%20Mythic%20Narrative.pdf

https://sites.google.com/site/envs160hlp/situated-synthesis

http://www.worldcat.org/title/mouse-that-roared-disney-and-the-end-of-innocence/oclc/669514749/viewport

http://www.badnewthings.co.uk/papers/The%20Circle%20of%20Life.pdf nature and representation

http://archive.is/4rvgM patriarchy in the pride lands

References: Adorno, T. (2002). Essays on music: selected, with introduction, commentary and notes by Richard leppert. California, USA: The regents of the university of California Wilcock, D. (2013). The synchronicity key: the hidden intelligence guiding the universe and you. New York, USA: The Penguin Group http://pro-ex.org/books/archive/files/2e413ecca2f2790464dce1399980dc8d.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_culture http://www.henryagiroux.com/online_articles/animating_youth.htm http://people.wku.edu/barry.kaufkins/276/The%20Lion%20King%27s%20Mythic%20Narrative.pdf https://sites.google.com/site/envs160hlp/situated-synthesis http://www.worldcat.org/title/mouse-that-roared-disney-and-the-end-of-innocence/oclc/669514749/viewport http://www.badnewthings.co.uk/papers/The%20Circle%20of%20Life.pdf nature and representation http://archive.is/4rvgM patriarchy in the pride lands