Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It may well be, of course, that America's pop culture is on balance better than our high art. I don't think so, but you can certainly make a case that the best of it aspires to a degree of aesthetic and emotional seriousness that is directly comparable to all but the very greatest works of high art.
Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Rihanna, all of these artists that we do love - you see so much of what we do, the personas, makeup, hair, fashion - like, all of is now incorporated in pop culture, and a lot of it has to do with drag, because we over-exaggerate everything, right? We take it out to the next level.
'Smart Funny and Black' is basically a live black pop culture game show that I created. We have a live band. We have two contestants that we call 'blacksperts.' They come on stage and compete in games that I've created that test their knowledge of black culture, black history, and the black experience.
I think pop culture is the greatest subject matter out there - 'Other People's Lives,' as we wrote about on the last Duran Duran album. Most ideas for great songs come from real situations, something your friend said to you the night before, the girl that just left, or something traumatic in your life.
We have to train our kids better and really enforce in them that no matter what mainstream media and pop culture and all of the terrible things around us say - that it's OK to tear people down, that somehow it will make you feel better, and it's OK to gossip about people - it won't make you feel better.
'We Are Pop Culture' is my clothing line for women that started with just T-shirts. The clothing line is urban street wear. It's for women that feel confident in their own skin and want to express themselves. The whole idea is to play with modern pop culture and previous pop culture using art and sayings.
One thing I found very interesting about comedians around the world was their knowledge of stuff outside of their own culture and comfort zone. That's not very common in the States. We produce our own soft power, which is pop culture, but we rarely try to absorb and learn information from other cultures and countries.
I try to look at the films as I make them from a distance, in a way. I think of them as kind of pop culture artefacts. I'll often make posters and tag lines as I'm working on them, and not just conceive of them as a story I'm going to tell, but as a whole, a piece - a whole object that exists in the pop culture realm.
Like many other touchstones of twenty-first-century pop culture, 'The Sopranos' was hatched in the late Nineties, predicting a future that never arrived. It was designed for a decade that would be just like the Nineties, except more so, in an America that enjoyed seeing itself as smarter and braver and freer than ever before.
That's one thing brands are understanding is, I'm the blogger who's not writing about fashion. I'm not writing about beauty. I'm not writing about gossip. I'm not writing about politics. I'm writing about all of that. I'm the person they can come to if they just want to reach people who care and have their fingers on pop culture.
When I left teaching, I don't think anyone I worked with necessarily understood what I did or the level at which I did it but I think they all do now. I think its Bullet Club stuff and what we're doing now in wrestling is, honestly, such a big part of pop culture that it's kind of hard to avoid, even if you don't follow wrestling.
Because I was such a student of pop culture growing up, I love that on the list of things that I got to work on in my first years out of college were 'Scream' and 'Dawson's Creek' and, ultimately now, 'The Vampire Diaries,' which generations below me grew up on and can quote. I love that. I think that is the coolest thing in the world.
I'm not at the hoarder stage, but there are two or three storage units here and there. I have things that a lot of people put a lot of heart and soul into, a lot of mental energy. I'm good at keeping those things. When it comes to pop culture, as you move through this fast lane, you wonder where it all goes and how you can hold onto it.
I think it is harder to scare young people because there is an ironic hipster stance that you have to take in relation to pop culture. You know you're being manipulated. People are so aware of the manipulation. We're all aware that movies toy with us and pull our strings. There was a time when people just didn't acknowledge that as much.
Since we launched the original 'Pop Idol' in England, I've remained close with Simon Fuller. Working as executive producer on 'American idol' for its first seven years not only was an inspirational journey into the heart of American pop culture, it opened my eyes to the untapped potential of the incredibly dynamic young people in this world.
I really feel that I had a genuinely diverse, multicultural upbringing, and I just don't find New York to be quite as diverse. Maybe I'm romanticising, but I feel that I was exposed to a real melting pot in terms of culture and pop culture. My kids are essentially middle-class, but I do try to remind them that they come from humble beginnings.
'Catfish' is a great project that we have a blast doing, and it's really fun and at the zeitgeist in the world - certainly in the U.S., hopefully in the U.K. and I imagine the rest of the world. Being at the centre of this discussion and this subject has been really incredible as both a filmmaker and someone who likes to participate in pop culture.