POPULAR CULTURE AND METHODOLOGY

By Donald Dunlop

riting on the occasion of t h e Journal of Popular

Cultures fifth anniversary (1972), Bruce Lohof
briefly sized u p the state of the study and laid
down a challenge t o analysts o f popular culture.
He pointed t o t h e question of method that has
preoccupied American Studies scholars since Henry
Nash Smith asked his now famous question, Can
American Studies Develop a Method? Lohof asserted that
they have yet t o find a n answer that suits them, but we have
yet t o even ask.
Clearly we must begin assessing strategies
that will enable us to analyze popular culture more coherently
and more systematically than, for the most part, has been the
case.
The first approach t o developing a method is t o define the
scope of t h e area t o be studied. Any number of popular culture
analysts have attempted definitions of t h e term, popular culture.
Ray Browne , for example, concludes that a viable definition
for Popular Culture is all those elements of life which are not
narrowly intellectual or creatively elitist and which are generally
though not necessarily disseminated through the mass media.
Popular Culture consists of the spoken and printed word, sounds,
pictures, objects and artifact. Lohof offers a shorter, though
similarly broad definition: cultural artifacts which reach and
are recognized by a significant percentage of the population.
Arthur Asa Berger maintains that popular culture is the culture
o f the people-their behavior, values, and, in particular, their
entertainments, and not just certain art forms which appeal to
large numbers of p e ~ p l e . ~Surely popular culture is all these
things, but for the sake of this discussion I shall limit m y exploration t o the popular arts.
Stuart Hall and Paddy Whannel define t h e nature of
popular art as essentially a conventionalized art which restates
in an intense form, values and attitudes already known; which

W
0
7

j3

375123

376124

JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE

reassures and reaffirms, b u t brings t o this something of the surprise of art

Hall and Whannels distinction beas well as the shock of recognition.
tween mass art and popular art, however, may not be as clear cut as they
seem t o suggest: Ray Browne, for example, points out that all elements in our
culture (or cultures) are closely related and are n o t mutually exclusive one from
another. They constitute one long continuum. Perhaps the best metaphorical
figure for all is that of a flattened ellipsis, or a lens. In the center, largest i n bulk
and easiest seen through is Popular Culture, which includes Mass Culture.6
Browne places High Culture and Folk Culture on either end of the lens . . . both
looking fundamentally alike in many respects and both having a great deal in
common, for b o t h have keen direct vision and extensive peripheral insight and
acumen. All four derive in many ways and t o many degrees from one another,
and t h e lines of demarcations between any two are indistinct and mobile.
Hall a n d Whannels observation suggests a fundamental consideration that
most popular culture analysts are aware of but needs t o be stated clearly. Any
systematic analysis of the popular arts must involve a t least three factors: the
artist, the artifact, and the audience. I propose a rudimentary scheme that illustrates the relationships among the three and suggests more clearly the areas t o be
studied:
ARTIFACT
The relationship between
the popular artist and t h e artifact is two-fold. First, t h e artist
acts upon the artifact by creating
it. Second, the formula within
which the popular artist works
helps shape the artists conception
of the artifact. T h e popular artist
probably will not have invented
the artifact: he will have produced
an artifact which has simARTIST
F~
ilarities
t o other artifacts of
A
which he is more or less aware.
Jack Schaefers Shane (1949),
AUDIENCE
for example, belongs t o a series
of artifacts called Westerns,
which evidence certain formulaic conventions and have a long tradition and history, going back t o Zane Greys stories, Owen Wisters The birginian (1902), and
ultimately t o James Fenimore Coopers stories involving Hawkeye and Chingachgook. The Western is a type, a genre, o r a formula, which Cawelti defines as a
conventional system for structuring cultural products: he distinguishes the
formula invented structures, which are new ways of organizing art.9 According t o Cawelti, cultural products contain both inventions and conventions. Conventions are elements which are known t o both the creator and his audience
beforehand-they consist of things like favorite plots, stereotyped characters,
ideas, or linguistic forms. Inventions, on the other hand, are those elements
uniquely imagined by t h e artist. Convention and invention, Cawelti points o u t ,
~

POPULAR CULTURE AND METHODOLOGY

377125

have quite different cultural functions. Conventions represent familiar shared

images and meanings and they assert an ongoing continuity of values; inventions
confront us with a new perception or meaning which we have not realized before. The distinction between convention and invention is neither sharp nor
clear: as Cawelti notes, all cultural products contain a mixture ofl conventions
and inventions. Ray Browne makes the same point; and both Cawelti and
Browne a ee that the elements of convention and invention constitute a continuum.

IF

The formula, then, is a genre within which the popular artist works. The
formula consists of recognizable conventions which give rise to certain expectations. N o matter whether we are talking about the literary formula of the Western, the cinematic formula of the gangster film, the radio formula of the soaps,
the country music formula of the Nashville sound, the pulp formula of the confession, the comic book formula of the costumed superhero, each formula will
evidence certain conventions. Incumbent upon the popular culture analyst is
the identification of these conventions which make up the formula. He can begin by examining various examples of what he takes t o be a certain formula, and
by abstracting from these examples what he takes to be the various conventions
characteristic of the formula. Since one can locate similar conventions in a number of artifacts created at various times, one can say that the formula has a tradition, a history. The popular culture analyst must consider the tradition and the
history of the formula and its conventions. He must frame questions whose
answers will account for the continuities and discontinuities within the formula.
Caweltis study of the Western formula, The Six-Gun Mystique (1971), provides
a model for analysis; he considers its history and locates certain conventions in
the type of setting, the types of situations and patterns of action.
The popular artist may modify or alter some of the conventions within a
formula, but rarely does he change them. To change them would be to create a
new formula, or at least a variation o n the old one. In the early 1920s, Arthur
Knight tells us, when William S . Harts Good Bad western hero was dismissed
as old-fashioned, the formula was altered to that of the Good Good western
hero, played by Tom Mix, Hoot Gibson, and others.I4 The popular culture analyst must try to trace the evolution of the formula over a period of time, placing
the formula within an historical context and asking questions such as, Who first
created what has become the formula? What conventions within the formula
have remained constant? What alterations or modifications have been made in
the formula? How and i n what ways has the formula been altered? How can the
popular culture analyst account for these changes? Who, for example, dismissed the Good Bad western hero as old-fashioned? Why? Since the artist,
the artifact, and the audience do not exist in a historical vacuum, the popular
culture analyst must try to account for the social, political, economic, or technological factors that might have brought changes in the formula.
Just as the relationship between the popular artist and the artifact is not
simply a one-way relationship, neither is the relationship between the artist and
the audience a one-way relationship. The popular artifact is the product of many
hands, and its success is determined by its popularity, by its ability t o turn a

378126

JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE

profit. Interposed between the popular artist and the audience is a whole host
of what I shall call middlemen (MM in the diagram below): producers, technicians, distributors, and the like. Middlemen are often faceless. They are also
powerful, for they exert controls
ARTIFACT
over the popular artist and the
artifact. Their success depends
in no small way o n their ability
t o read the pulse of mass society,
t o feel the same things as mass
society feels, t o enlarge the audience, or to create a new audience
that previously did not exist. In
the first instance, for example,
Norman Lear, the producer of
televisions All in the Family,
M
has proved particularly adept at
AUDIENCE
ART1
Second,
S as Andrew Bergman asserts, One can take
reading
the perfectly
the pulse defensible
of mass society.
posi-

lMj

tion that in any period of stress (Weimar Germany, Depression America), there
are certain tensions which permeate a society and affect the majority of its functioning members, artists and moviemakers included. Bergman argues the premise that moviemakers did not simply intuit the yearnings of a national unconscious during the Depression, but rather that they felt the same tensions everyone else did and wanted to represent them in various ways.15 An example of
the third instance would be what Paramount studios did in the early twenties:
By combining the stars and production values that assured big-city box office
appeal with the sure-fire small-town pull of any western, Paramount had come
up with a new kind of western-the big Western. I6 The Covered Wagon (1923),
Arthur Kni ht writes, remained for years among the top money makers in the
business. The recent spate of Black films (Cotton Comes to Harlem, Shaft,
Superfly, and Blacula), which have had long runs in previously vacant inner-city
theaters, illustrates the fourth instance; middlemen created a new audience that
previously did not exist.
Box office receipts, sales figures, and Nielsen ratings are among the factors
used by middlemen to determine the success and profitability of popular artifacts, formulas, and conventions. The controls and workings of this group of
middlemen may be difficult to infer, let alone analyze. The popular culture
analyst need not be thrown back on his own resources; he might begin by asking
questions directly of the popular artist, as Bruce A. Lohof suggests, and of the
middlemen whom he can identify. He can ferret out information in trade publications such as Advertisirg Age, Cask Box, Motion Picture Herald, and Variety.
The audience for the popular artist is a vast, undifferentiated mass; yet t o
speak of a mass audience is to speak of a nonexistent group. There are many
audiences and many individuals who make up these audiences. Andrew Bergman
is correct in observing that it is impossible to say with any certainty that a
straight line can be drawn from films [or, one might add, any cultural artifact]

POPULAR CULTURE AND METHODOLOGY

379127

t o popular thought. Popular thought is t o o private, t o o diverse, t o o affected

by regional differences. Nevertheless, the popular artifact must be addressed
t o a common denominator; it must, as Russel Nye points o u t , confirm the expenence of the majority: The popular artist corroborates (occasionally with great
skill and intensity) values and attitudes already familiar t o his audience; his aim
is less t o provide a new experience than t o validate an older 0ne.l9
Not only does the popular artist act upon his audience, he is acted upon
by that audience. The audience determines the success of a formula or the conventions within it. When a particular formula proves successful, there will be
attempts t o duplicate it. T h e success of a formula accounts for various movie
cycles such as t h e gangster, monster, and screwball comedy films of t h e thirties,
and the Kung F u and heroin-heist films of the early seventies. Family situation
humor has been around for many years; recall George McManuss comic strip
Bringing Up Father ( 1 9 1 3 ) and Clarence Days Life With Father ( 1 9 3 5 ;dramatization, 1939; film version, 1947). Recently Norman Lear hit upon a successful
series of family situation conventions with All in the Family (based o n t h e BBCs
television serial Till Death Us Do Part), and went on t o repeat the formula, with
certain alterations in the conventions, i n Sanford and Son, Maude, and, more
recently, Good Times. Other popular artists and middlemen have attempted t o
capitalize on Lears successful formula, as witnessed by Wait Ti1 Your Father
G e t s Home and Lotsu Luck.
The audience can and does help determine modifications and alterations
in a formula. Public response t o Robert E. Burns I A m a Fugitive From a
Georgia Chain Gang! during its serialization in True Detective Mysteries in 1931,
convinced Macfadden Publications t o change the formulaic endinga0 Readers
expressions of concern over the stagnating relationship between Peter Parker and
his girl friend Gwen undoubtedly convinced Marvel Comics that something
needed t o be done; in a recent issue of Amazing-Spider hfan, they had the Green
Goblin kill off Gwen-thereby altering one of the comic books standing conventions.21 When, therefore, the formula or certain conventions within the formula
fail t o attract or satisfy the audience, t h e popular artist and the middlemen attempt t o modify o r alter the formula or its conventions.
Popularity is measured not only by successful formulas and conventions,
but also by personalities: actors, actresses, and singers, for example, who help
convey the popular art. Many members of the audience which goes t o see a
John Wayne western are attracted not so much t o the formula of the western as
they are t o John Wayne. The off-screen relationship between Katherine Hepburn
and Spencer Tracy undoubtedly accounted in part for the audiences favorable
reception of their on-screen relationships in such films as State o f t h e Union
(1947),AdumsRib ( 1 9 4 9 ) ,a n d P a t and Mike ( 1 9 5 2 ) . O n the other hand, the
replacement of Raymond Burr by a younger, unknown actor in the television
series Perry Mason precipitated a large decline in the viewing audience, which
saw Raymond Burr and Perry Mason as one and the same.
The medium is that channel of communication which conveys the sensory
impressions of the popular artifact t o the audience. Marshall McLuhan asserts
that:

380128

JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE

ARTIFACT

the medium is the message because

it is the medium that shapes and
controls the scale and form of human
association and action. . . . For any
medium has the power of imposing
its own assumption on the unwary. . . .
[ O ]ur human senses, of which all
media are extensions,are also fixed
charges on our personal energies, and
. . they also confgure the awareness
of each one of us. . .22

------4

ARTIST
~~

An example from Edmund

Carpenters The New Languages
makes. Anthe
illustrates
immigrant
points McLuhan
couple

living in Toronto for many years still retained many of their homelands customs.
The father refused his sons suggestions to buy a suit in style, and the mother
took little interest in Canadian life. The son bought them a television set, and
in a matter of months, Carpenter tells us, a major change took place. One
evening the mother remarked that Edith Piaf is the latest thing on Broadway,
and the father appeared in the kind of suit executives wear on TV. For years
the father had passed this same suit in store windows and seen it both in advertisements and on living men, but not until he saw it on TV did it become meaningful. This same statement goes for all media: each offers a unique presentation
of reality, which when new has a freshness and clarity that is extraordinarily
powerful.23 Carpenters example may not be typical, but it does illustrate a
mediums power t o shape attitudes. Experiments with various media have convinced Carpenter that each communication channel codifies reality differently
and thus influences, t o a surprising degree, the content of the message communicated. A medium is not sim ly an envelope that carries any letter; it is itself a
major part of that message. >%I
Differences in media, Carpenter maintains, mean that its not simply a
question of communicating a single idea in different ways but that a given idea
or insight belongs primarily, though not exclusively, to one medium, and can be
gained or communicated best through that medium.25 There is at least some
truth t o his assertion. Arthur Knight points out that the humor of Will Rogers
became more popular when the verbal medium of the sound film replaced the
visual medium of the silent picture; on the other hand, those who had been successful radio personalities-Amos h Andy, Jack Benny, Fred Allen, and Kate
Smith-were, Knight states, notably unsuccessful when they tried the screen.%
The television cartoon version of Spider-Man, to cite another example, contains
none of the love interest or concern with social problems such as marijuana that
the comic book version contains. That the television program attracts a younger
audience than the comic book attracts should come as no surprise. These examples suggest that the popular culture analyst cannot concentrate o n the content of an artifact to the exclusion of the medium through which it is conveyed.

POPULAR CULTURE AND METHODOLOGY

381129

Just how popular art accomplishes the dual function of reflecting and
shaping attitudes a n d values is one of t h e most important and difficult questions
with which the popular culture analyst has t o deal.27 Caweltis The Six-Gun
Mystique, while it largely ignores differences in media, attempts t o analyze t h e
social and psychological dimensions of t h e Western formula presented in b o t h
literature and film, and suggests a model for the study of the relationships between the audience and the formulaic conventions of a popular artifact. Caweltis
thesis is that t h e dramatic pattern of the Western formula grows out of a conflict
between types of characters who represent various value systems associated with
society and savagery, with the resolution (though sometimes ambiguous) in favor
of society. The social and psychological dimensions of the Western formula,
according t o Cawelti, are those of game, ritual, and collective dream.
T h e game dimension involves opposing sides whose relations dominate the
action, a set of rules i.e., a particular pattern of expectations), and a field of
action (the setting). In the Western formula a three-sided game is played out.
The townspeople are associated with civilization, the villains with savagery. The
hero is the man in t h e middle; he possesses or comes t o possess the savage skills
of violence and lawless individualism of the villain grou but h e is needed by and
finally acts o n the side of the group of townspeople.28Resolution of the conflict is the goal of the game. The Western ends with the hero getting killed,
riding off, o r marrying the ranchers daughter and becoming a leading citizen.
Changes in the resolution have appeared at various times in the history of t h e
formula. These changes, Cawelti infers, represent important differences in
.30 After WW 11, for example, the most significant Westcultural attitude.
erns have dealt with the gunfighter whose violence defeats evil, b u t nonetheless disqualifies him for the civilized society which he is saving.31 The townspeople are presented ambiguously, as if there were some question whether they
merited the heros ~ a c r i f i c e . ~ ~
The changing resolutions i n the Western game suggest t o Cawelti that
popular formulas can be partly understood as social rituals. T h e Westerns
dramatic structure of resolution and reaffirmation indirectly confronts those
values which have always existed in American culture, but have become increasingly strong in the twentieth century.33 T h e hero is confronted with a choice
between civilization and savagery, between civilizations ideals of progress a n d
success o n t h e one hand, and savagerys spontaneity and freedom o n the other.
The corruption of the ideals of progress and success and the actual experience
of failure are n o t faced directly by writers of popular adventure fiction, Cawelti
maintains, but are resolved in fantasy in t h e Western formula by t h e creation of
the marginal hero whose predicament reflected the ambiguities of those ideals.34
Whereas the earlier Westerns of Owen Wister, Zane Grey, and Harold Bell Wright
express the sense that there is a real synthesis possible between social progress,
success, a n d t h e heroic virtues of individual honor and masculine independence,
Jack Schaefers gunfighter Western, Shane (1949), presents the ritualistic affirmation of progress and success as more ambiguous and ~ t r a i n e d . ~ The Wild
Bunch (1969) and Butch Casidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) reversed t h e
usual pattern of the formula Western by presenting outlaw-heroes; . . . since

..

382130

JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE

they represent a more spontaneous, individualistic, and free way of life, their
destruction by brutal massive and corrupt agencies of the state is presented
critica11y.j~~~
Beginning with the presumption that all works of art have latent psychological implications, Cawelti maintains that invented artistic structures express
and explore these latent meanings more consciously than conventionalized artistic
formulas, which tend to disguise and conceal these meaning^.^' In order to
carry out their primary function as sources of artistic pleasure for a wide popular
audience, conventionalized formulas must not make people overtly aware of
motives or conflicts that endanger their conventionalized view of themselves and
their culture. The disguise of psychic conflict is not the primar cause of popular
formulas, but may be an important condition of their success.8 The successful
adolescent Western, The Lone Ranger, presents a masked man who often assumes
disguises of older men, helps the townspeople by ridding them of the evildoer,
and rides away at the end. Cawelti sees this pattern as a symbolic expression of
the conflict between a fascination with the adult world and a real hesitation to
become committed to it.39 The Lone Ranger and other Western heroes disguise this fear of the complexities and corruptions of adult life by combinin
moral purity and separation from society, with adult power and p ~ t e n c y . ~ In
the more subtle adult Westerns, too, Cawelti maintains, this pattern of psychological fantasy operates and provides a source of tension for adults as well.41
In our culture, the fantasy of the hero who reluctantly, but nobly aids the cause
of social order by acts of individualized violence probably corresponds t o a
widespread fantasy of legitimated a g g r e s ~ i o n . By
~ ~ preserving the cultural
self-image of America and disguising the heros aggressive impulses, the Western,
Cawelti concludes, presents a formulaic fantasy of legitimated moralistic aggression. 943
Caweltis study is not without faults. Although he provides useful appendices listing scores of Western films and stories, his discussion of the evolution of
the Western formula is marred by a lack of specific support. The connections he
draws between the Western formula and American history are inadequately developed and fail to account for long periods of time (the 1930s, for example).44
Cawelti is not the f i s t analyst t o ride down the Western
He was able to
build and improve upon those who went before; he has left a foundation and
framework for those who will come later. His discussion of social and psychological dimensions provides us with a rough map into territories beyond the West.
If we can follow that map, then Caweltis dimensions of game, ritual, and dream
will not prove peculiar t o the Western alone.
NOTES
Bruce A. Lohof, Popular Culture: Thelournal and the State of the Study,]ournal
of Popular Culture, 6 (Winter 1 9 7 2 ) , 456.
2Ray B. Browne, Popular Culture: Notes Toward a Definition, in Browne and Ronald
J. Ambrosetti, eds., Popular Culture and Curricula (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green
University Popular Press, 1970), p. 11.
3Lohof, p. 458.
4Arthur Asa Berger, Pop Culture (Dayton, Ohio: PflaumlStandard, 1973), p. 8.

POPULAR CULTURE AND METHODOLOGY

383131

5Stuart Hall and Paddy Whannel, The Popular Arts: A Critical Guide to the Mass Media
1964; rpt. Boston: Beacon Press, 1967), p. 66.
6Browne, p. 10.
Ibid.
John G. Cawelti, The Six-Gun Mystique (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1971), pp. 99-101.
9Cawelti, p. 29.
Cawelti, p. 27.
Cawelti, p. 28.
UCawelti, p. 27; Browne, p. 10.
Cawelti, p. 27.
14Arthur Knight, The Liveliest Art: A Panoramic History of the Movies (1957; rpt. New
York: Mentor Books, 1959), p. 120.
15Andrew Bergman, Were in the Money: Depression America and Its Films (1971; rpt.
New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1972), p. xiv.
Ibid.
*Bergman, p. xiv.
16Knight, p. 121.
19Russel Nye, The UnembarrassedMuse: The Popular Arts in America (1970; rpt. New
York: The Dial Press, 1971), p. 4.
%,ee William Stott, Documentary Expression and Thirties America (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1973), pp. 41-44.
Amazing Spider-Man, No. 1 2 1 (June 1973) and No. 122 (July 1973).
zMarshal McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964; rpt. New
York: Signet Books, 1966), pp. 24, 30, 35.
Z3Edmund Carpenter, The New Languages, Carpenter and Marshall McLuhan, Explorations in Communications (Boston: Beacon Press, 1960); rpt. in Francis and Ludmila Voelker,
eds., Mass Media: Forces in Our Society (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972),
pp. 66-67.
xCarpenter, p. 67.
%Carpenter, p. 59.
%Knight, p. 163.
nIn a recent article John G. Cawelti attempts t o analyze various formulas embodying
moral fantasies which carry o u t particular wishes of the audience for victory (the Adventure story), love (the Romance story), or knowledge (the Mystery story); moral fantasies
which counter some of our deepest fears (stories of Imaginary beings or states); and moral
fantasies which heighten feeling and moral conflict and create a sense of the rightness of
the world order (Melodrama), in Notes Toward a Typology of Literary Formulas, Indiana
Social Studies Quarterly, 26 (Winter 1973-74), 21-34.
=Cawelti, Tke Six-Gun Mystique, p. 71.
29Cawelti, p. 72.
Bibid
lCawelti, pp. 72-73.
=Cawelti, p. 73.
31bid.
3cawelti, p. 77.
35Cawelti, pp. 78-79.
%Cawelti, p. 79.
-Cawelti, p. 81.
=1b id.
3Cawelti, p. 82.
@Cawelti, p. 83.
41Cawelti, pp. 83-84.
42Cawelti, p. 84.
43Cawelti, p. 85.
44Zane Grey was one of the most widely read writers in the 1930s, according t o James
D. Hart, The Popular Book: A History of Americas Literary Taste (1950; rpt. Berkeley and
Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1963), pp. 248-249. For a brief discussion of the
Western film in the 1930s, see Bergman, pp. 88-91.
45See Robert Warshow, Movie Chronicle: The Westerner, The Immediate Experience,
pp. 135-154; Peter Homans, Puritanism Revisited: An Analysis of the Contemporary ScreenImage Western, Studies in Public Communication, No. 3 (Summer 1961), pp. 73-84; and
Caweltis bibliography, Studies of the Western Novel and Film, The Six-Gun Mystique, pp.
125-34.
D o n a l d Dunlop is a member of the English f a c u l t y at I o w a S t a t e University,
Ames, I o w a .