There are several narrations when it comes to popular culture. The first one promotes the notion of mass culture and uses a highly critical language inherited from the Frankfurt school. It disparages almost all popular artefacts and texts. Pop culture, as opposed to art, is viewed as manipulation and slander, an anti-democratic force which enslaves the Western mind and starts colonising more and more areas within the global village. You prefer The Bold and the Beautiful to a new performance by Sarah Kane? Then you are done for; you have fallen into the pop-cultural trap. The second narration is more neutral; pop culture has both positive and negative aspects. It is hard to say what is worse: the furious attacks on the culture industry or the watered-down ambivalence. However, there is one more, newer version of this story, which admits that popular culture indeed used to lack in quality but today we are witnessing a rebirth in mass entertainment. This claim is usually supported by the example of TV series connected with the phenomenon of the so-called quality TV. Is there even one person left who did not watch at least one episode of Desperate Housewives, Lost or Ally McBeal? Well, we still have to say that none of these three narrations is adequate. Why? This is the main topic of this issue of ‘MOCAK Forum’.

Samuel Nowak

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