highbrow Vs. lowbrow culture

Different forms of cultures are all around us, whether it is in music or films or even our everyday life. Recently I began to pay attention to how different classes are perceived in media, specifically in television series. Whether they are part of the highbrow or lowbrow class, the group of people are shown as being differently dressed and they behave in a different manner.

One major example of displaying class differences in films is James Cameron's Titanic where Rose, a girl coming from the upper class, falls in love with Jack, who is part of the lower class. They try to go beyond their class differences and become involved in activities that occur throughout both the highbrow and lowbrow cultures. The wealthy people are located on the upper decks and they enjoy lavish accommodations and dine in expensive clothing on a regular basis. While the "lower class" are not allowed to go into the upper decks and they are confined to their smaller, much more simple rooms. They still enjoy themselves as they dance and feast together.

Today's television shows still tend to show differences in cultures as well and it was not until I began to look for specific examples that i began to notice how low and high culture is represented.

I began to examine two very different television shows, Gossip girl and True Blood and I noticed that there were class differences in both television shows. Whether this was done intentionally or accidentally is of interest to me.

Gossip girl revolves around a group of young adults who go through different stages of their life as a mysterious person creates drama by sending out texts about the main protagonists. There are six main actors in this series and most of them are depicted as spoilt rich people who live in Manhattans upper east side. Most of their houses are either located on the pent house of some expensive building or in the hotels they own. Their houses are decorated with expensive furniture and several famous paintings are hung in the house. While most of the characters live in the upper east side, there are two characters who are siblings in the television show, who live in Brooklyn. They all go to the same private school in Manhattan but the characters that live in the Brooklyn are constantly mocked because of their much less extravagant lifestyle and because they don't live in the upper east side.

The other show I chose to study is True Blood which is a great vampire series that shows the struggles that vampires have to go through to get their rights. It could be argued that the vampires in this television show are representing the lower class in society who are trying to get their voice herd.

Academy Awards - Highbrow Culture Awards?

The months of January and February are usually known as award season in Hollywood, due to the numerous film awards that take place. It starts off with certain critic awards such as the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards or the Chicago Film Critics Association. Then perhaps the most acclaimed critics awards the Golden Globes, hosted by the Hollywood Foreign Press. These awards are decided upon by critics, who tend to fall under the lowbrow culture. These awards are followed by more presitigious awards such as the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards or Directors Guild of America followed by the most prestigious film awards The Academy Awards (The Oscars). These awards are voted by industry professionals such as very successful directors, actors, producers, in essence people into highbrow culture.

The winners of the various guild awards are usually great indications as to who will win the Oscars, since the members tend to overlap. Interestingly, the highbrow tastes of the members of the Academy is very evident by looking at the various Oscar winners. The year of 2009, Avatar was the most successful and critically acclaimed movie of the year. The movie won best picture in various critic awards such as New York Film Critics Online, the Critics Choice Award and The People's Choice Awards. However, it lost the Academy Awards to a much more highbrow film, The Hurt Locker, critics and people called it a huge upset. Avatar was a fantasy film revolving around aliens and magical creatures, not exactly highbrow culture, meanwhile The Hurt Locker, revolved around the struggle soldiers, mainly bomb defusers, face in Iraq, much more highbrow. In the past the last, and only, fantasy film to win the Best Picture Awards was The Lord of the Rings - Return of the King in 2003 and even that was sort of highbrow culture since it was adapted from a book.

Most recently, The Social Network , in my opinion best movie of the year, lost to The King's Speech, which was a very good movie however not as good as The Social Network, it was much

more suited for highbrow culture than the Social Network. The Social Network won most critic awards as well as the Golden Globes, during all of January and half of February it was the clear frontrunner. It was almost a sure thing. Then, the Guild Awards rolled in, with every guild award it seemed The King's Speech was gaining support and The Social Network was losing it. The Social Network wasn't Highbrow enough.

Therefore, once again highbrow culture seems to get more recognition then lowbrow with little regard to quality and more to taste.