Popular Culture Now Becomes Inescapable

A Marvelously Dire Addiction:

From television to movies to music to the internet, pop culture is everywhere and causes a craze amongst young adults across the country. So why do many people look at pop culture with a negative connotation? Is it because it constantly surrounds us and we are consumed by it? Or does popular culture act as the necessary evil to balance things out in our lives? The lyrics from the song Capitalism Stole My Virginity by The International Noise Conspiracy come to mind: Robbed out of our bleeding hearts, smashed our illusions, tore them all apart, now we are unsentimental, unafraid, to destroy this culture that we hate.

As the author of Bitch on Heels: Confessions of a Pop Culture Junkie, Lisa Miya-Jervis discusses the reasons she can not stop indulging herself in the wonderfully appalling world of American popular culture.

Her first and foremost argument is that popular culture is inescapable. No matter where you go or what you do, advertisements are everywhere, continually providing the unnecessary desire for someone or something.

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It is almost impossible to shelter yourself from these things. Miya-Jervis explains The mass media are collectively compelling, repulsive, horrifying, and maybe the best fucking thing about being sentient. They hold an inescapable power over me that makes them all the more seductive (Miya-Jervis 283). She is placing the blame on the media because they are the ones instigating every fashionable thing that is put at our fingertips. The media targets everyone in one way or another, and once we are engaged, eventually we succumb to all of the materialistic things that they are marketing.

There is no way to avoid all of the advertisements that are laid before your every step.

Throughout her, work Miya-Jervis hints at how feminism is portrayed in popular culture. It is the stereotypical female character that she focuses her attention on. She describes their role with the following; men saving the world while the women are left home to do nothing but serve as their motivation to return (Miya-Jervis 284). It is clear that in American popular culture the dominant male figure goes out and saves the world and ends up getting the girl in the end. Is this truly what Americans want to see? For the majority of Americans, based on the type of films that come out and are successful, the answer to that question seems to be yes. However, the author does express her own opinion on the matter by stating, More than anything I want action movies with real (and really important) women characters, female secret agents who are more than high-priced whores (MiyaJervis 284).

Aside from all of the temptations and advertisements that are set before her in an attempt to make her buy into things without questioning them, Miya-Jervis considers herself to be a cultural critic. Her indulgence into the world of popular culture is just to sample what it has to offer to accurately critique, or complain really, about all of its manipulative methods to lure people into consumerism. How could I discourse on how our desires are taken, re-formed, exquisitely packaged, and then sold back to us for huge profits, without opening the box? (MiyaJervis 284). As a result of being a cultural critic, she is forced to sample parts of popular culture. This again shows that no matter what she does Miya-Jervis is in some way involved in dealing with pop culture, even if it is just critiquing.

The fact that Miya-Jervis considers herself a cultural critic is just an excuse. She is just as wrapped up in popular culture as any other person; the only difference is that she is aware of it. Perhaps that means that she is consumed by popular culture and is undesirably controlled by it. Whether or not she wishes that things about her decision-making have nothing to do with popular culture, the fact remains that they do. She is so absorbed with it, that there is no other choice but to enjoy it. The other truth is that I love every minute of my immersion in the sick world of pop culture. There's a delicious tingle that I get from every overproduced, manipulative slice of the mainstream (Miya-Jervis 284). If you can't beat them, join them the type of attitude is probably what the majority of Americans surrender to. In reality, the message Miya-Jervis is trying to convey is compromised by her mixed feelings about whether or not you should buy into consumerism.

I'mMiya-Jervis is stuck between how she should feel and what she really feels about popular culture. When she says Does that mean Im gonna shut my legs tight and refuse the pleasure of it all? clearly says that she is not willing to give up popular culture even though she has all of the knowledge about how she is being manipulated (Miya-Jervis 285). However, perhaps that is the point of her essay. That no matter what your opinion of popular culture is, in some way you are affected by it. It is an oxymoron to say you hate popular culture.

Works Cited

1. Miya-Jervis, Lisa. Bitch on Heels: Confessions of a Pop Culture Junkie. The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order. Penguin New York, 1999.