Carnival Culture: The Trashing of Taste in America

By James B. Twitchell and James B. Twichell

Book Overview

This study examines how the changes in publishing, movie making and television programming since the 1960s have affected taste, particularly what is considered vulgar. Show businesss, the industry of American culture, wreaks the most havoc on American taste by pandering to what most paying customers want to see. Twitchell's expose comes not to celebrate popular or carnival culture, as much as to answer questions about it: is vulgarity the result of repression or of freedom?; what is the relationship between machine-made entertainments and aesthetic values?; does television carnivalize or exalt cultural norms?; why do certain stories get told, and why do certain stories get told too often?; why are some of the most consistently profitable industries in the world those that transport audio and visual sequences we claim we can do without?; and why are today's A movies really yesterday's B movies dressed up with $50 million budgets?

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0231078315
• ISBN13: 9780231078313
• Release Date: April 1992
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Length: 306 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Brilliantly perceptive

There's very little written on this subject-the steady decline and vulgarization of taste values in mass media. As Mr Twitchell states, the word 'vulgar' is losing it's meaning due to the tidal wave of vulgarity which inundates our culture. The trends which now dominate American culture were presciently beheld when they were still far more difficult to perceive in the early 90s, when the book was written. This is, by far, the best book on the subject I know of. It was written before the muzzle of PC was strapped onto American discourse.

A Must Read for Pop Culture Aficionados

This is a fantastic book for those interested in the forgotten, often-belittled world of mainstream popular culture. Although at times Twitchell seems to have a negative take on the world of Stephen King, the WWF, and Barnum himself, I found this world fascinating, even, strangely, inspiring.