Or, global Americanization?
Is a globalised popular culture "multicultural"?
The book is 160 pages in length and composed in an experimental, collage style with text superimposed on visual elements and vice versa. Some pages are printed backwards and are meant to be read in a mirror. Some are intentionally left blank. Most contain photographs and images both modern and historic, juxtaposed in startling ways.
The title is a play on McLuhan's oft-quoted saying "The medium is the message". The book was initiated by Quentin Fiore. McLuhan adopted the term "massage" to denote the effect of each medium on the human sensorium, taking inventory of the "effects" of numerous media in terms of how they "massage" the sensorium.
According to McLuhan biographer W. Terrence Gordon, "by the time it appeared in 1967, McLuhan recognized his saying was a cliché, and welcomed the opportunity to throw it back on the compost heap of language to recycle and revitalize it. But the new title is more than McLuhan indulging his insatiable taste for puns, more than a clever fusion of self-mockery and self-rescue — the subtitle is 'An Inventory of Effects,' underscoring the lesson compressed into the original saying."
However, the FAQ section on the website maintained by McLuhan's estate says this interpretation is incomplete and makes its leap of logic for McLuhan to leave it as-is:
"Why is the title of the book The Medium is the Massage and not The Medium is the Message? The title is a mistake. After the book came back from the typesetter's, it had on the cover 'Massage'. The title was supposed to read The Medium is the Message, but the typesetter made an error. After McLuhan saw the typo, he exclaimed, 'Leave it alone! It's great, and right on target!' Thus, there are four readings for the last word of the title, all of them accurate: Message and Mess Age, Massage and Mass Age."
A correlation of popular culture with "mass culture" and ideas associated with a consumer oriented society is viable. This is seen as a commercial culture, mass-produced for mass consumption by mass media, and from a Western European perspective, this may be compared to American culture.
Richard Hamilton's collage:
Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?
Alternatively, "pop culture" can be defined as an "authentic" culture of the people, but this can be problematic as there are many ways of defining the "people." There is a political dimension to popular culture; neo-Gramscian hegemony theory
"... sees popular culture as a site of struggle between the 'resistance' of subordinate groups in society and the forces of 'incorporation' operating in the interests of dominant groups in society." A postmodernist approach to popular culture would "no longer recognize the distinction between high and popular culture."Perhaps it is the non-hierarchical approach of postmodernism that is among one of its most useful methods, other criticisms not withstanding. Such criticisms include the assertion that postmodernism promotes obscurantism. For example, Noam Chomsky has argued that postmodernism is meaningless because it adds nothing to analytical or empirical knowledge. He asks why postmodernist intellectuals do not respond like people in other fields when asked:
"what are the principles of their theories, on what evidence are they based, what do they explain that wasn't already obvious, etc.?...If [these requests] can't be met, then I'd suggest recourse to Hume's advice in similar circumstances: 'to the flames'."Christian philosopher William Lane Craig has noted:
"The idea that we live in a postmodern culture is a myth. In fact, a postmodern culture is an impossibility; it would be utterly unliveable. People are not relativistic when it comes to matters of science, engineering, and technology; rather, they are relativistic and pluralistic in matters of religion and ethics. But, of course, that's not postmodernism; that's modernism!"Is a globalised popular culture necessarily a culture shaped by "American Culture"? Is this where, and when, the notion of cultural hegemony comes in to play?
In a foreword to the book, Martin Scorsese calls Variety "the single most formidable trade publication ever" and says that the book's content;
"makes you feel not only like a witness to history, but part of it too."
On page 131 of The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects we read again a headline from Variety magazine, a publication famous for its iconic headlines, preceded by McLuhan's assertion that:
Movies are better than ever! & Hollywood is often a fomenter of anti-colonialist revolutions.
from the show business paper:
Sukarno: "The motion picture industry has provided a window on the world, and the colonized nations have looked through that window and have seen the things of which they have been deprived. It is perhaps not generally realized that a refrigerator can be a revolutionary symbol - to a people who have no refrigerators. A motor car owned by a worker in one country can be a symbol of revolt to a people deprived of the necessities of life . . . [Hollywood] helped build up the sense of deprivation of man's birthright, and that sense of deprivation has played a large part in the national revolutions of postwar Asia."
Sukarno was the leader of Indonesia's struggle for Independence from the Netherlands. He was a prominent leader of Indonesia's nationalist movement during the Dutch colonial period, and spent over a decade under Dutch detention until released by the invading Japanese forces. Sukarno and his fellow nationalists collaborated to garner support for the Japanese war effort from the population, in exchange for Japanese aid in spreading nationalist ideas.
Upon Japanese surrender, Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta declared Indonesian independence on 17 August 1945, and Sukarno was appointed as first president. He led Indonesians in resisting Dutch re-colonization efforts via diplomatic and military means until the Dutch acknowledgement of Indonesian independence in 1949. Author Pramoedya Ananta Toer once wrote "Sukarno was the only Asian leader of the modern era able to unify people of such differing ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds without shedding a drop of blood."
In his practice, as a young architect, Sukarno was an admirer of modernist design, but his love of things "modern" did not extend to Indonesian pop music.
American music styles and influences, such as rock and roll, jazz, rock, techno, soul, country, hip-hop, blues, and music based on them can be heard all over the world.
The music of the United States reflects the country's pluri-ethnic population through a diverse array of styles. It is a mixture of music influenced by West African, Irish, Scottish and mainland European cultures among others. The country's most internationally renowned genres are jazz, blues, country, bluegrass, rock, rhythm and blues, soul, ragtime, hip hop, barbershop, pop, experimental, techno, house, dance, boogaloo, and salsa. The United States has the world's largest music market with a total retail value of 4,898.3 million dollars in 2014, and its music is heard around the world. Since the beginning of the 20th century, some forms of American popular music have gained a near global audience. So, music in the U.S. is diverse, but not necessarily multi-cultural, but it includes African-American influence in the 20th century, a century famous for jazz, a form of expression introduced to USA and the world by African-Americans. According to music journalist Robert Christgau;
"pop music is more African than any other facet of American culture."Christgau, Robert (September 11, 2018). "The Village Voice (1955-2018)". Artforum International. Retrieved September 16, 2018.
Whitney Elizabeth Houston (August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012) was an American singer and actress. She was cited as the most awarded female artist of all time by Guinness World Records and remains one of the best-selling music artists of all time with 200 million records sold worldwide. Houston was a mezzo-soprano, and was commonly referred to as "The Voice" in reference to her exceptional vocal talent.
Stephen Holden from The New York Times, in his review of Houston's Radio City Music Hall concert on July 20, 1993, praised her attitude as a singer, writing, "Whitney Houston is one of the few contemporary pop stars of whom it might be said: the voice suffices. While almost every performer whose albums sell in the millions calls upon an entertainer's bag of tricks, from telling jokes to dancing to circus pyrotechnics, Ms. Houston would rather just stand there and sing." With regard to her singing style, he added: "Her [Houston's] stylistic trademarks – shivery melismas that ripple up in the middle of a song, twirling embellishments at the ends of phrases that suggest an almost breathless exhilaration – infuse her interpretations with flashes of musical and emotional lightning."
Houston's first film role was in The Bodyguard, released in 1992 and co-starring Kevin Costner. Houston played Rachel Marron, a star who is stalked by a crazed fan and hires a bodyguard to protect her. USA Today listed it as one of the 25 most memorable movie moments of the last 25 years in 2007. Houston's mainstream appeal allowed people to look past the interracial nature of the relationship between her character and Costner's. However, controversy arose as some felt the film's advertising intentionally hid Houston's face to hide the film's interracial relationship. In an interview with Rolling Stone in 1993, Houston commented that "people know who Whitney Houston is – I'm black. You can't hide that fact."
The edit of the video for the song "I Have Nothing" references scenes from the film The Bodyguard.
The X Factor Indonesia is an Indonesian reality television music competition to find new singing talent, contested by aspiring singers drawn from public audition. The show that was adopted from the British The X Factor with the show is produced by FremantleMedia and Cowell's production company Syco. It is broadcast on the RCTI. In 2014, X Factor Indonesia won the Panasonic Gobel Awards for the category Talent and Best Reality Show.
As part of the British The X Factor franchise, the show's format has numerous differences from rivals such as Indonesian Idol. The competition is open to both solo artists and groups and has no upper age limit. Each judge is assigned one of four categories—boys between 15 and 25, girls between 15 and 25, individuals 26 and over, or groups (some of which may be formed from rejected soloists after the audition process). Throughout the live shows the judges act as mentors to their category, helping to decide song choices, styling and staging, while judging contestants from the other categories; they also compete to ensure that their act wins the competition, thus making them the winning judge.
The original judging panel was Ahmad Dhani, Rossa, Anggun, and Bebi Romeo, with Robby Purba as the host.
Desy Natalia was a contestant in the 2015 Series 2 of X Factor Indonesia in the "over 26" category, and came third overall in the competition.
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