Why popular culture
is sinking so low

Decline in shared high culture elevates
universal appeal of low humour

GERRY BOWLER
Special to CW Life

When the history of North American culture at the end of the 20th century is written, a handful of names will stick out as being influential in defending traditional values and proclaiming uncomfortable truths that ran contrary to the perceptions of the opinion-making classes.

Among these are Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, whose Atlantic Monthly article ("Dan Quayle Was Right") and book (The Divorce Culture) exposed the horrible damage to children and society that easy divorce had brought about; Christina Hoff Sommers, whose current work (The War Against Boys) reveals the campaign to make masculinity seem a social disease; and William Gairdner, whose The War Against the Family placed the culture wars in a Canadian context.

Probably the most effective voice in asserting the need to challenge the values of popular culture was that of film critic Michael Medved. His Hollywood Versus America drew public attention to the sleazy, irreligious and shabby content of contemporary films and music and succeeded, to some extent, in changing the portrayal of religion in the American media.
Medved is now a syndicated columnist and radio host and is still a man to pay attention to. His latest Internet column examines the surprising success of quiz shows such as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and Win Ben Stein’s Money, concluding that there are hopeful signs here of a return to respect for intelligence--that it is "suddenly cool to be smart and knowledgeable."
Medved links this phenomenon to the explosion of the information technology and the new economic power of bespectacled computer geeks.

Canadian content

If Medved (whom I honour just this side of idolatry) is right about the American situation, this is a trend that has yet to reach Canada, where dumb and dumber, coarse and coarser are still the order of the day. Intellectual power, wit and verbal agility are not assets in the public life of this nation--one has only to look at our national leadership and the abysmal level of political debate:
"Racist!"
"Am not"
"Are too!"
"Have you got the &@$! to repeat that?"
"Oh, shut up, you %#$@**!"
"For me, da pepper is somet’ing I put on my steak!"
In fact Canadians are among Hollywood leaders in lowering the tone of popular entertainment--we are, after all, the nation who gave the world the immortal (and immoral) hit film Porky’s. Canucks Jim Carrey and Mike Myers make funny but very coarse movies where jokes about bodily fluids and wastes are standard fare. Meanwhile, the execrable Tom Green of Ottawa has a continent-wide following for a television program whose rancid contents are far beyond the scope of this publication’s ability to describe truthfully.
Why has popular culture, especially comedy, sunk so low? Partly because low humour has a more universal appeal (and thus a bigger potential audience) than higher forms. Once Mel Brooks discovered that film-makers could get away with fart jokes (in his 1974 comedy Blazing Saddles), there was no place to go but down.

The disgraceful behaviour of Bill Clinton has also contributed--when semen-stained dresses are topics of national concern one must not be surprised to find talk show hosts and comedians addressing topics hitherto taboo.
Fragmented culture
The more significant reason, however, has to do with a decline in a shared higher culture. Earlier in the 20th century anyone who had finished high school would have been exposed to an education that united him with previous generations and which gave people a pool of common cultural references, based on three primary sources: the Bible, Shakespeare and world literature.

This provided the basis of much comedy in the form of puns, parodies, satires and pastiche. Where would Wayne and Shuster’s Shakespearean baseball sketch or their version of Julius Caesar have been without this?
But as educational standards declined and cable television multiplied entertainment choices, what became of higher culture? What common references do the young now share? Not the Bible, Shakespeare, hymns or poetry, that’s for sure. In the 500-channel universe all that contemporary youth have to share culturally are The Simpsons, advertising catch-phrases and the plots of a very few sitcoms.

With this as one’s cultural heritage is it any wonder that below-the-belt comedy predominates? So, sadly, I am not as confident as Michael Medved about a return to respect for intelligence. When I see Jim Carrey in my line at the unemployment office or The Complete Works of G. K. Chesterton at the top of the best-seller list, there may be reason to laugh again without feeling guilty.

Gerry Bowler is a Winnipeg-based writer and historian. Contact him by email: gbowler@videon.wave.ca