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Pop Culture
Pop Culture
1. What types of pop culture exist in your target country? Find video/photo examples of your target country’s pop culture and add brief explanations.
Music, fashion, visual art, cinema, and sports.
2. Choose two different types of pop culture from your target country and answer the following questions.
Fashion
(a) How did the pop culture start? Who created/started it? When did it start?
Italian fashion started after the 11th century when cities in Italy started to produce luxury goods, hats, cosmetics, jewelry, and rich fabrics. Italian fashion then declined for centuries because of the dominance of Spanish fashion, which moved the spotlight from Italian fashion. Italian fashion was then revived when Count Giovan Battista Giorgini started the ‘Italian Fashion’ craze when he held the first fashion show in Florence on February 25, 1951. The fashion show became overnight success and he continued to present shows in his palace yearly.
(b) What influenced the pop culture?
Italian fashion was influenced by the finely dressed women in Italy. Education and the culture of Italy also had great influence over the fashion scenario of the country. Italian fashion reflected Italy as a land of art, beauty and love. The fashion in Italy is also influenced by the philosophy of la bella figura which means “the beautiful impression” and it is “a way of life emphasizing beauty, good image, aesthetics, and proper behavior.” La bella figura requires Italians to present their best possible appearance at all times because a good image is important to Italians.
(c) How did the pop culture become popular in your target country?
Italian fashion is an instrument of social redemption whereby class is determined according to what one wears; fashion is only a tool for confirming social status. Italian fashion changed in the 1960s as Italian fashion designers began to create clothes that were still uniquely arty but more street savvy. The Made in Italy fashion style of the 1960s reached new heights culminating in the Prêt-à-porter look of the 1970s and 1980s. The popularity of Italian Fashion can be seen in the development of Milan as a fashion hotspot. Italian fashion has also influenced many costumes and dresses in Italian cinema.
(d) Has the pop culture been globalized? If so, what are the reasons for its international popularity?
Italian fashion has been globalized. Italian fashion differs from the world fashion in a way, where Italian fashion determines the class to which a person belongs unlike fashion of other places, like New York, London and Paris. Today, Milan is regarded as the Fashion Capital of the World, and the phrase Made in Italy is universally recognized as meaning 'high quality', and 'high fashion.'
Cinema
A scene from the film Toto Favrizi and the youth of today
(a) How did the pop culture start? Who created/started it? When did it start?
Italian cinema started just a few months after the Lumière brothers had discovered the medium, when Pope Leo XIII was filmed for a few seconds in the act of blessing the camera. The Italian film industry was born between 1903 and 1908 with three major companies: the Roman Cines, the Ambrosio of Turin and the Itala Film. In a short time these first companies reached a fair producing quality and films were soon sold outside of Italy too.
(b) What influenced the pop culture?
The great strength of the Italian industry was historical epics, with large casts and massive scenery such as Giovanni Pastrone's two-reel la Caduta di Troia (The Fall of Troy) in 1911. One of the first Italian filoni (sub-genres) was the historical film: Filoteo Alberini's La presa di Roma ("The Capture of Rome") filmed in 1905. Other films portrayed famous historical figures such as Nero, Messalina, Spartacus, Julius Caesar and Cleopatra.
(c) How did the pop culture become popular in your target country?
Actresses Lyda Borelli, Francesca Bertini and Pina Menichelli were the first "divas" (stars), specializing in passionate tragedies and Francesca Bertini became the first "star" of cinema. Comedies, such as La Grande Guerra or Amici Miei, also became popular in Italy.
(d) Has the pop culture been globalized? If so, what are the reasons for its international popularity?
I don’t believe that Italian cinema has been globalized to a great extent. One genre that was globalized was the Spaghetti Western, which was popular throughout the world in the mid-1960s; the genre marries the traditional western ambiance with the comic tradition. Also characters such as Toto with his sidekick Peppino de Filippo, and Franco e Ciccio, their popularity and fame traveled from the Middle-East to Russia and they even extended their talents to India.
(e) Compare the two types of pop culture. What similarities and/or differences do you find?
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