AMERICAN CULTURE AND

SOCIETY

LECTURER: HONG THI PHUONG ANH

CULTURE OF THE US
American culture is more often defined by its
popular and democratically inclusive
features.
 FORCES THAT SHAPED AMERICAN CULTURE

The European root

1
The
Consumerism American
5 2 Dream
AMERICAN
CULTURE

4 3
Mass media Immigration
 THE EUROPEAN ROOT
From the colonial times to the Civil war,
American art, architecture, music, literature,
and fashion were strongly influenced by
European ideas, traditions, and trends.
What was fashionable in European cultural
centers such as London, Paris, Rome, or
Vienna usually set the pattern for Boston,
New Orleans, New York, and Philadelphia.
Portraits by John Singleton Copley
The Death of General Wolfe by Benjamin West
 George
Washington by
Gilbert Stuart
In search of the American self
• As part of their revolution, many
Americans also wanted a cultural break
with Europe.

• Americans viewed European culture as

decadent, corrupt, torn by wars, and
rotten.
 Who create art and culture?
To the European elites and aristocrats,
America was “a mob of mixed races,” and
could not possibly support the finer things in
life.

"Civilization has always been furthered and

preserved by a ruling elite. The rise of the
common man could only mean a decline in
art and culture."
 Who create art and culture?
On the side of the newly revolutionized
America, European art, culture, and society
were attacked as being "aristocratic."

"Art and culture are not the property of a

privileged few."
 FRONTIER AND
THE AMERICAN DREAM
• In the early decades of the nineteenth
century, Americans sought to develop an
art, literature, and music that met their
idea and sense of being “American.”
• However self-consciously, a specific
American direction was being followed:
West.
“Eastward I go only by force;
But westward I go free.”
The vast land scattered settlements and
made it difficult to enforce traditional
European social conventions.

Eg: primogeniture, religious institutions

 DEMOCRACY OPPORTUNITY
EQUALITY LIBERTY INDIVIDUALISM
• From the middle of the nineteenth century,
American literary expression was filled
with clear American dialects in the works
of Cooper, Thoreau, Emerson, Dickinson,
and Twain.
• Opposition to authority, institutional power
and conspiracies have remained at the
heart of American literature for over 150
years.
 Freedom of creativity
Many Americans tend to see culture and the
arts as areas that the government should
not interfere with. They do not see
government as the patron of the arts.
 Opportunities for creativity
• Open-air concerts
• School and university ensembles and
orchestra --> university-sponsored
concerts and recitals
• Street art
• Independent studios
 IMMIGRATION & DIVERSITY
• American culture, like America itself, can
be all things to all people.
• Culture varies widely by locale, region,
ethnicity, and race.
• In America there is a compromise among
languages, faiths, and nations.
• America is an “idea state” held together as
much by a promise as by geography and
law.
 IMMIGRATION & DIVERSITY
• Artists changed the core of American
experience by incorporating their various
immigrant origins into its cultural vision.
The Migration series by Jacob Lawrence
Death of Rubén Salazar by Frank Romero
MASS MEDIA
 MASS MEDIA
• While mass media made entertainment
available to more people, it also began to
homogenize tastes, styles, and points of
view among different groups in the United
States.
Movies
For over 50 years, American movies have
continued to grow in popularity throughout
the world. Television has only increased this
popularity.
Hollywood gives life to the American Dream
and, particularly, to the American dreaming
to recreate and reinvent life as seen in the
movies.
• Hollywood films have always functioned to
help ethnic Americans assimilate.

• Today this assimilation is played out

increasingly on a world scale.
 Popular music
• More than perhaps any other medium,
American popular music has become the
leading agent of globalization and cultural
imperialism as the world is tuned in to
American rhythms.
MICHAEL
JACKSON
• In contemporary America, music is
everywhere, assimilating the people or
shaping them as surely as does the
English language.
• During the 20th century, mass
entertainment extended the reach of
American culture, reversing the direction
of influence as Europe and the world
became consumers of American popular
culture.

 American entertainment is probably one

of the strongest means by which American
culture influences the world.
 The Internet
• The internet has spread American culture
faster than ever.
• The internet claims to democratize
information, knocking down the walls of
class, caste, and nationalism.
 While international, the internet feels
awfully American.
 CONSUMERISM
“The American citizen’s first importance to
his country is no longer that of citizen but
that of consumer.
Consumption is a new necessity.”
(Lynd, 1929: 88)
The role of advertising
• The absolute commercialization of
American culture came with WWII and the
shift of the consumer marketplace from
city centers to suburban shopping centers
to malls.
• Regional cultures gave way to national
conformity in the realm of materialism.
• Americans often seek self-fulfillment and
status through gaining material items.

• Products consumed and owned, rather

than professional accomplishments or
personal ideals, are often the standard of
success in American society.
• Portrayed as a dizzy cycle of induced
desire, consumerism seems to erode older
values of personal taste and economy.
Despite this, the mass production of goods
has also allowed more people to live more
comfortably and made it possible for anyone
to attain a sense of style, blurring the most
obvious forms of class distinction.
 American life is marked by a psychology
of abundance that turns aristocratic dreams
into democratic consumption as all classes
can afford to purchase from the same
stores.
 FORCES THAT SHAPED AMERICAN CULTURE

The European root

1
The
Consumerism American
5 2 Dream
AMERICAN
CULTURE

4 3
Mass media Immigration
 “It won’t stay American.”
American popular culture is usually quite
rapidly adopted and then adapted in many
other countries.
E.g. Music, Food & Drinks, Clothing
 “It won’t stay American.”
American popular culture is usually quite
rapidly adopted and then adapted in many
other countries.
E.g. Music, Food & Drinks, Clothing

 Popular & Democratically inclusive

 WAYS OF LIFE
LIVING PATTERNS

A fundamental element in the life of the

American people was the enormous
expanse of land available.
The great distance between neighbors
creates a desire for residential privacy.

Americans are committed to living in

private dwellings set apart from neighbors.

The suburban sprawl

Americans choosing to live in the suburbs
 Shopping malls
IN THE CITIES
Today, many suburban areas have added
other kinds of housing in response to the
needs of single people and people without
children.
As a result, apartments and townhouses
have become familiar parts of suburban life.
 FOOD AND CUISINE
The United States has rich and productive
land that has provided Americans with
plentiful resources for a healthy diet.
 abundance

health
consciousness diversity

convenience
 Trends connected with food
1. The increase in the number of reasonably
priced restaurants which offer specialty foods.
2. The growing numbers of Americans going
out to eat and taking up cooking as a hobby
3. Health and fitness movement: Americans in
general are eating a much lighter diet.
4. The international trend to "fast food" chains
 SPORTS AND RECREATION
• Americans love sports and have actively
participated in organized games since the
middle of the nineteenth century.
 Sport activities are deeply ingrained in
American life.
 Roles of sports
Americans use sports to express interest in
health and fitness and to occupy their leisure
time.

Sports also allow Americans to connect and

identify with mass culture.
Popular sports
• Sports has been central to definitions of
American masculinity and has long been
seen as crucial to the development of
manliness.
Keeping fit
With sedentary urban activities replacing
rural life, Americans used sports and
outdoor relaxation to balance lives that had
become hurried and confined.
IRONMAN TRIATHLON
 Celebrations and Holidays
Americans celebrate an enormous variety of
festivals and holidays.

They also celebrate holidays specific to the

United States that commemorate historical
events or encourage a common national
memory.
• Holidays in America are often family or
community events.
• most commemorative federal holidays are
celebrated on Mondays so that
Americans can enjoy a long weekend.
New Year in Times Square (NY)
Fourth of July parade
• Because the United States is a secular
society founded on the separation of
church and state, many of the most
meaningful religiously based festivals and
rituals are not enshrined as national
events, with one major exception:
Christmas
Christmas, and the holiday season surrounding it,
is an enormous commercial enterprise, a fixture of
the American social calendar, and deeply
embedded in the popular imagination.