Originally I was just going to leave this as a REmark, but I thought it may be valuable to make it a RECord to open up a discussion and possible REmixes.

Warning: Long text RECord ahead:) Even if you just want to skim and reply, that's cool, but I wanted to get all these thoughts out there.

One of the questions that was discussed on the college tour, apparently, was "What is the difference between art and pop culture?" This conversation really intrigues me and I'd love to explore it more fully on here. It mostly fascinates me because I don't know my answer to it. I have a lot of thoughts, but I would really like to flesh out those thoughts by hearing what you guys all have to say (plus I'm a nerd and really enjoy discussing "philosophical" things like this with a bunch of people with different opinions. And I haven't gotten to write an essay kind of thing in awhile and I miss school).

At this point, my opinion kind of lands with the girl who talked about intention. I think pop culture is something that is done to appeal to the masses. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't, but the intent that the artist had when creating it was to appeal to a lot of people. This often means something that doesn't create a lot of questions, that doesn't cause a lot of controversy, and doesn't really make you think (because I feel like media thinks the general public is pretty dumb, but then again the "dumb" things make money so maybe they know the formula). Not to say these things are bad - sometimes I love to just sit and watch a "low comedy" movie to just laugh. And they make money, so I can't fault anyone for that. But art on the other hand is done with the intent to make people feel something, experience something, question something, learn something new, etc. Sometimes those things are liked by a lot of people and sometimes they're not. But that doesn't really matter... I HATE HATE the notion that if something is popular, that automatically makes it bad. Like people who say, "Oh I liked that band, but then they got popular." If their music didn't change, why the hell did you stop liking them?! Isn't that an extreme example of letting your opinion be dictated by the masses? Sorry, just a little rant there:)

Since musical theatre is the art form I know best, I'll use that as my example. So take a musical like Elf that's currently on Broadway. Now, nothing against Elf, I'm sure it's really fun and cute. But I guarantee the person who came up with that idea was not thinking, "lets make a musical that will evoke emotion and make people think!" They were thinking, "Hey, if we make a musical of Elf then all the families who visit NYC around Christmas will want to see it. That's gonna make a lot of money." That's pop culture. Then you have something else like Spring Awakening which is this highly evokative show with nudity and teenage pregnancy and profanity and everything and it's SO WELL DONE (I don't think it's on Broadway anymore but it's touring. If you get a chance to see it, please do). I would imagine when the writers and composer and director created that show they were thinking, "We want to make a point, we want to make a musical we love, and we want to invoke emotions in people. If people are offended by it or don't like it, oh well." (incidently it did do well on Broadway... not GREAT, but pretty well). So that's art. But then again, once in awhile, you can find this great marriage of art and pop culture. Lion King is a perfect example. Lion King is a Disney musical, and that just by it's nature, is pop culture. But instead of making Lion King just look like a big parade at Disney World, they hired the amazing Julie Taymor. And she did this beautiful, artistic job with puppetry and very minimalistic scenery and African art and everything. But, Lion King is one of the biggest grossing musicals ever on Broadway and the story itself is based on a cartoon movie and appeals to a lot of people. So is it art or pop culture?

And speaking of musical theatre, there's a line in a song in an awesome musical that never made it to Broadway (but should have:) called [title of show] that goes, "I'd rather be nine people's favorite thing than 100 people's ninth favorite thing." I like that distinction between art and pop culture.

I feel like this opinion is pretty centered on American art v. pop culture, so I'd really love to hear what people from other parts of the world think. And I'd love to hear if you disagree with me and why so I can learn something new.

Maybe I'll make something about this. I dunno. I just thought it could be a good discussion that may lead to some sort of documentary type vid or something.