Frye and Hoggart on Film and TV by Brian Graham 2

Frye and Hoggart on Film and TV by Brian Graham      the literature that demands the minimum of previous verbal experience and special education from the reader. In poetry, this would include, say, the songs of Burns and Blake, the Lucy lyrics of Wordsworth, ballads and folksongs, and other simple forms ranging from some of the songs and sonnets of Shakespeare to Emily Dickinson. Much if not most of this would be very unpopular in the bestseller sense, but it is the kind of material that should be central in the literary education of children and others of limited contact with words. (Frye 2006, 22)                In the view of both Frye and Hoggart, however, mass culture is worth a second consideration. Hoggart’s sharp distinction between mass culture and popular culture is something of a rhetorical flourish. Despite his critique of mass culture, he is ready to concede that some mass culture is valuable. He continues his diatribe with the admission that a critic must be more nuanced in his or her thinking: ‘That’s neat, quite helpful, but far too hard at the edges, unqualified. Mass culture isn’t quite that bad sometimes, and popular culture is only that good in parts and at times’ (Hoggart 1996, 102). Making a similar point, in ‘Language as the Home of Human Life,’ Frye refers to different levels of mass culture:  Most of our verbal culture, in books and magazines and newspapers, in movies and radio and television and comic books, is geared to the expanding rhythms of marketing. It flows out from the big distributing centres, New York or London or Hollywood, into smaller and more remote communities. […] This is the rhythm of what is usually called mass culture […]. Such phrases don’t imply any value judgment, because mass culture exists on every level of merit, from the best to the worst. (Frye 2000, 584)                 The two critics invite us to think of accomplished mass culture, including exemplary TV and film, on the one hand, and ‘poor’ mass culture, including less appealing movies and TV programmes, on the other. Bourdieuians would no doubt see a neat correspondence between the different levels of film and TV and different social classes. But of course a situation in which it is as if particular films and TV programmes are produced for particular social classes is not the ideal for either Frye or Hoggart. Hoggart’s, and no doubt Frye’s, ideal situation would be one in which we are provided with material which avoids populism and elitism. In other words, they stand for a culture that is suggestive of classlessness. Accomplished culture, then, would be the culture that avoids these extremes. Taking as his point of departure an idea of BBC broadcaster and executive Huw Wheldon, Hoggart provides us with a key insight into what might characterize the TV component of such a culture.  [  >>>>>  FORWARD ]       Share [Distillate © HA&L + Brian Graham {from the Greek bios} -- the course of a life.] [This article is sponsored by the Hamilton Public Library, acknowledged with thanks by the Editors and Samizdat Press.]