Carol Magee
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617031526
- eISBN:
- 9781617031533
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617031526.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This chapter introduces the intrinsic purpose and aim of the book: the imagining of Africa through popular culture. The book focuses on three case studies, each of which has repackaged African visual ...
More
This chapter introduces the intrinsic purpose and aim of the book: the imagining of Africa through popular culture. The book focuses on three case studies, each of which has repackaged African visual culture for the American consumer. These cases involve Mattel’s world of Barbie, the 1996 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, and the Walt Disney World Resort. The study focuses primarily on the way in which visual culture reinforces, challenges, and represents social relations, especially as they have been articulated around racialized identities in the past twenty years. The first task in this study, then, is the analysis of how three companies used African visual culture, and how they have generated ideological understandings of Africa for an American public. The second task involves the investigation of the way that African visual culture focuses Americans’ understanding of themselves, particularly around black and white racialized identities.Less
This chapter introduces the intrinsic purpose and aim of the book: the imagining of Africa through popular culture. The book focuses on three case studies, each of which has repackaged African visual culture for the American consumer. These cases involve Mattel’s world of Barbie, the 1996 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, and the Walt Disney World Resort. The study focuses primarily on the way in which visual culture reinforces, challenges, and represents social relations, especially as they have been articulated around racialized identities in the past twenty years. The first task in this study, then, is the analysis of how three companies used African visual culture, and how they have generated ideological understandings of Africa for an American public. The second task involves the investigation of the way that African visual culture focuses Americans’ understanding of themselves, particularly around black and white racialized identities.
Carol Magee
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617031526
- eISBN:
- 9781617031533
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617031526.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
In the American world, the presence of African culture is sometimes fully embodied and sometimes leaves only a trace. This book explores this presence, examining Mattel’s world of Barbie, the 1996 ...
More
In the American world, the presence of African culture is sometimes fully embodied and sometimes leaves only a trace. This book explores this presence, examining Mattel’s world of Barbie, the 1996 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, and Disney World, each of which repackages African visual culture for consumers. Because these cultural icons permeate American life, they represent the broader U.S. culture and its relationship to African culture. This study integrates approaches from art history and visual culture studies with those from culture, race, and popular culture studies to analyze this interchange. Two major threads weave throughout. One analyzes how the presentation of African visual culture in these popular culture forms conceptualizes Africa for the American public. The other investigates the way the uses of African visual culture focuses America’s own self-awareness, particularly around black and white racialized identities. In exploring the multiple meanings that “Africa” has in American popular culture, the book argues that these cultural products embody multiple perspectives and speak to various sociopolitical contexts: the Cold War, Civil Rights, and contemporary eras of the United States; the apartheid and post apartheid eras of South Africa; the colonial and postcolonial eras of Ghana; and the European era of African colonization.Less
In the American world, the presence of African culture is sometimes fully embodied and sometimes leaves only a trace. This book explores this presence, examining Mattel’s world of Barbie, the 1996 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, and Disney World, each of which repackages African visual culture for consumers. Because these cultural icons permeate American life, they represent the broader U.S. culture and its relationship to African culture. This study integrates approaches from art history and visual culture studies with those from culture, race, and popular culture studies to analyze this interchange. Two major threads weave throughout. One analyzes how the presentation of African visual culture in these popular culture forms conceptualizes Africa for the American public. The other investigates the way the uses of African visual culture focuses America’s own self-awareness, particularly around black and white racialized identities. In exploring the multiple meanings that “Africa” has in American popular culture, the book argues that these cultural products embody multiple perspectives and speak to various sociopolitical contexts: the Cold War, Civil Rights, and contemporary eras of the United States; the apartheid and post apartheid eras of South Africa; the colonial and postcolonial eras of Ghana; and the European era of African colonization.
Carol Magee
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781617031526
- eISBN:
- 9781617031533
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781617031526.003.0007
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This chapter summarizes the implications and insights that have been explored throughout the book with regard to the way that Disney, Mattel, and Sports Illustrated have incorporated African visual ...
More
This chapter summarizes the implications and insights that have been explored throughout the book with regard to the way that Disney, Mattel, and Sports Illustrated have incorporated African visual culture into their own culture products. These three major American popular culture icons have repackaged and re-presented this visual culture to American consumers in such a way that it produces certain meanings and implications about America itself. This African visual culture in American popular culture produces understandings and imaginings about both Africa and America, in that Disney and Sports Illustrated present the visual culture in its original African form — although positioned in new (American) contexts. Disney, for example, through its “it’s a small world” ride, offers a microscopic representation of the world, depicting children from a myriad of cultures, but at the same time it creates different explicit and implicit ideas and ideologies. Primarily, they help to define America in opposition to the differences in other cultures.Less
This chapter summarizes the implications and insights that have been explored throughout the book with regard to the way that Disney, Mattel, and Sports Illustrated have incorporated African visual culture into their own culture products. These three major American popular culture icons have repackaged and re-presented this visual culture to American consumers in such a way that it produces certain meanings and implications about America itself. This African visual culture in American popular culture produces understandings and imaginings about both Africa and America, in that Disney and Sports Illustrated present the visual culture in its original African form — although positioned in new (American) contexts. Disney, for example, through its “it’s a small world” ride, offers a microscopic representation of the world, depicting children from a myriad of cultures, but at the same time it creates different explicit and implicit ideas and ideologies. Primarily, they help to define America in opposition to the differences in other cultures.
