You either love it, hate it, or love to hate it. Either way you've heard of it. It's everyone's favorite example of low culture: The Hills.
If low culture (or popular culture) can be defined as culture "supplied mainly by the mass media and other consumer goods industries," (Gans, Intro, 3) then the Hills could serve as its template. When these girl aren't sitting around talking about their latest dates, they're acting as giant advertisements. They work for Teen Vogue, they party at Les Deux, they drink Starbucks and they talk on Iphones. Every time these companies are shown on the Hills, it generates publicity for them and makes the people watching want the items more and more. Gans states that "the mass media are ever-present... and they may be expressing or reflecting what at least some members of the media audience are thinking and dreaming about (Preface, xiii). I mean, isn't that the point of the show? To make the audience envious of, while still striving to achieve the lives that these untalented, uninteresting people have seemingly fallen into ?
Sort of the perfect example of an "aspirational" television show.
ReplyDeleteSo low culture, but SO addicting. Is it bad that I'd rather model myself after Lauren Conrad rather than most stuck up "higher culturally esteemed" people? haha
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