In “Literature into Culture” by Joe Moran, Richard Hoggart’s perspective is raised for his attempt of a “new field of contemporary cultural studies… the historical-philosophical; the sociological; and the literary-critical, the later being ‘the most important’” (Moran 50). Hoggart’s project endeavored to stop the separation in Britain between high culture and “real life”, he himself a scholarship boy from a very poor home in Leeds who always had to see the Americanized mass culture of tabloid newspapers and more, according to “Richard Hoggart- Obituary” on the Telegraph. Though Hoggart urged the literary-critical for Britain in 1982, it can be applied to any day and place. Hoggart believed literary criticism, or “the evaluation, analysis, description, or interpretation of literary works” (“Literary Criticism”), was the most important because people have to be analytical. It is imperative that people keep an eye out for exaggeration. Without any disparaging judgment, people would walk around naïve and blind, all like Oedipus only they have seen too little of the world. Without the literary-critical aspect of cultural studies, the world would believe that the life portrayed glossy and perfect on magazines is the life everyone should live.
Hoggart’s attempt “offers unique insights into the nature of society… because ‘literature’ is uniquely concerned with total human response, with ‘the quality of life’ in the fullest sense we are able to imagine’ (Moran 50-51). What is the fullest sense of life? To me, this means complete; you have everything you could possibly dream of from life. Over the years obtaining your dreams have become obtaining as many material objects as possible for some. When I was in middle school and living in a small, suburban town in Massachusetts, I read the Clique series by Lisi Harrison. Not exactly books of literary merit, but that’s beside the point. The Clique is a series that takes place in Westchester, describing the lush, rich lives of a group of twelve-year-old girls who all live in mansions with designer clothes galore. I bring this book up because up until I ironically moved to Westchester when I was thirteen, I thought that life for anyone who lived in that county was for the rich. I lacked any sense of being a literary critic, the very thing Hoggart emphasizes. Instead, I believed that these girls represented reality. Rather, Harrison wrote a highly dramatized series that only filled my head with air.
I’ve gotten much better at viewing popular culture with a grain of salt in the past seven years, needless to say. Cliffhanger endings only fill me with annoyance now; this is literature that is trying to get me to have such an emotional response that I buy the next book, as Hoggart warns. Television shows like Gossip Girl and 90210, though highly entertaining, inflate viewers’ ideas of the quality of life. Life should be filled with spending inordinate amounts of money, just as the rich do in movies; that’s what popular culture says. That is how your life can be full. Though an eighteen-year-old might see through this façade, it truly gets to the eleven-year-olds of the world. The youth is overwhelmed with ideas of consumption as the norm. Censorship can’t be employed because of freedom of speech. I still can’t believe that the Nancy Drew mysteries I loved to read as a child weren’t available at some public libraries because they didn’t have literary value. That isn’t helping anyone. But neither is the fact that youth isn’t as analytical as others and therefore more corruptable. A 2006 survey done by USA Weekend found that thirteen percent of teens had dieted to make themselves look more like a celebrity. Forget teens. Even college students adapt their lives because of popular culture, as research from the University of Calgary found that sixty percent of college students admitted a celebrity had influenced their beliefs, attitudes, and personal values.
Popular culture can’t be taken away, nor should it be. All people need is to take a lesson from Hoggart’s book and to turn toward studying culture with literary criticism. It is undeniably important, as not everyone’s life is like the portrayal in books and movies.