How does Robert Snyder or Lawrence Levine see popular theater changing near the turn of the 20th century? What kind of social groups identify with the changes? Does one of the sheet music covers or songs posted on the syllabus support the arguments of Snyder or Levine? Don’t feel obliged to address all of these questions in your post.
9 thoughts on “Highbrow/Lowbrow/Middlebrow: Amusement and Cultural Hierarchy”
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The sheet music cover for Charles Johnson’s “The Kissing Bug” is clearly representative of the broad cultural transition away from Victorian era concepts of leisure towards more playful and expressive brands of entertainment. The girl’s face in the center of the cover is subtly seductive, remaining well within the boundary of social acceptability, yet simultaneously challenging the Victorian values of conservatism and virtue. Additionally, the winged suitors flying after the girl establish the theme of sexual pursuit, which is also evident in the piece’s title. While the cover is not outwardly “risqué”, it promotes a certain type of sexual fantasy that is distinctly non-Victorian.
All of you above have raised fair points about the cultural changes in forms of entertainment occurring near the turn of the 20th century; however, many of you focused on the dramatic changes that were occurring, and I would argue, as well as Synder would that these changes were much more subtle and telling of the ubiquitous tension found within American urban centers. Several times throughout his piece, Synder refers to the transformation in Vaudeville theaters as “straddling the rough and refined”. Vaudeville’s appeal depended on the audience recognizing the sentiment between old and new standards without completely overthrowing ideals of genteel and Victorian culture. None of this vaudeville or change in music appeared to be a dramatic and swift as cultural ideology seemed to be in a limbo between the old and genteel and the new and extravagant. This change occurred gradually and through many different mediums of entertainment.
Snyder and Levine highlight the growing disparity between “high-brow” and “low-brow” theatre towards the end of the 19th century and into the 20th in the broader context of social changes that were simultaneously occurring. The middle class, who wished to find entertainment and a release from their taxing jobs, embraced the “risque” and controversial performances that were popularized on Vaudeville stages. Vaudeville showcased female bodies, jokes, and songs in ways that undermined the longstanding Puritan, and Victorian traditions. Just as the middle class felt they could relate to the social commentary and expressive performances that came about at the time, they also began to stray away from the drawn out, proper Shakespearian performances that were popular for most of the 19th century. “Low-brow” Shakespearian plays customary of the lower and middle classes involved crowd interference, as well as divertissements that arguably took away from the pure traditional plays. On the other hand, the upper class, who was disgusted by “low-brow,” performances, separated themselves from the middle and lower classes by attending proper and traditional Shakespearian performances. The middle and upper classes divided themselves at the turn of the century through the type of theatre they embraced. As the upper class remained committed to the victorian, “high-brow” theatre, the middle and lower classes embraced “risque” and anti-puritanical performances, and abandoned Shakespearian plays. This division shows the progressive disparities between middle and upper class culture moving into the 20th century.
Shyder argues that Vaudeville emerged out of a restricted, sentimental Victorian Middle class, who often would escape the imperfections and stress of reality to escape into sentiment. Vaudiville, which slowly included more risque elements and “real” elements of life portrayed as a man-made creation on the stage, an outlet for Middle and Lower class people of both sexes to leave the world of “decency” and into a world of fantasy leisure. Expression, sexuality, and individual desire were played out on the stage, and represented the depart of Victorian control towards the new age of popular culture.
The cover for the song “Won’t You Fondle Me” is probably the most glaring example of newfound sexual expression in popular culture, referencing implied sexual acts and blatant flirtation that would have been scorned by the Victorian gentility of years past. This is, indeed, a departure from the restraint and formality of the “Thee and Me” duet presented a few slides earlier. In both packaging and message, these two songs highlight the cultural shift at the turn of the century, and ushered in a new American Middle Class identity.
Levine sees entertainment, and in particular the theater, as separating along a highbrow-lowbrow divide toward the end of the 19th Century. In particular, Shakespeare loses his mass popular appeal and is claimed exclusively as an elite entertainment. This change resulted from gradual changes in the American theater. Notably, the actual spatial division between rowdy, lower-class concert halls (in line with the vaudeville described by Snyder) and more refined, restrained theaters separated out classes, whereas rich and poor alike would mix in early 19th-century theaters. The rise of visual entertainments that appealed to non-English speaking immigrants spelled the death of oratory. An increase in literacy made the recitation at the core of Shakespeare’s popularity less relevant. And the romantic and melodramatic styles that made 19th-century Shakespeare so distinctive just gradually went out of fashion.
What resulted was a Shakespeare that could not be accessed by poorer, less-educated Americans. More broadly, art could no longer both be widely popular and appreciated as high culture; this reinforced class divisions and the separate social spheres the educated elites carved out for themselves.
In terms of the sheet music covers and songs, I see some of the lyrics of these popular songs lacking the highbrow literary tradition that Shakespeare followed. The lyrics are rather simple and align with Levine’s comments about the decline in the oratorical mode and elaborate recitation.
While reading Robert Snyder’s “Respectable Thrills,” I realized that through my eyes the transition in American Culture that took place around the turn of the 20th century boils down to class and gender.
Class
Snyder tells the reader through Hiram Moderwell’s article in The New Republic that, “If elite and ordinary New Yorkers could both enjoy ragtime, then some of the nineteenth-century’s cultural divisions between rough and respectable were being redrawn.” This statement goes beyond the idea that whoevers culture was considered “rough,” or “risque” was gaining popularity. Moreover, Mordwell is noting that there are different classes that are witnessing and enjoying this together. Classes, albeit in a new structure, were clearly changing and being redefined. But the class mixture, while still moderate, was so noteworthy because of the lack of historical existence of any class mixture.
Gender
What was significant to me about gender in this article was that Snyder discussed the increased role of women in theater – particularly Vaudeville. At a time when women’s roles were changing from a working member of the home, to a family support role, their role in popular culture was changing as well. The idea that a woman should perform, look good, and entertain, seems fitting with the change from a functional role in the home to a support role. With middle class men working, the role of women was increasingly more focused on leisure.
In Snyder’s essay, he highlights the shift in vaudeville theatre in the twentieth century from “puritan” to more a more risque type of music and theatre experience. He claims that the “changes that separate us from the Victorians date to the turn of the century, and they were acted out on the vaudeville stage.” These changes were largely reflections of the changing leisure activities of the middle class during early 20th century. People were becoming more relaxed about what they were doing than the reputations they were trying to uphold. People started to expand beyond their neighborhood and social group and were able to just go and enjoy a show with people that did not come from similar circumstances. Many times in the shows humor was used that “skirted Victorian codes of behavior without risking confrontations over the issue of sex.” These things started to allow for more of a release of stress from people’s everyday lives as opposed to “discipline, self-improvement, and self-control” that was vaudeville in the 19th century. Vaudeville both started and reflected an escape from the stringencies of social class and reputation that was so prominent during the later half of the 1800’s.
From the articles written by Levine and Snyder their explanations of entertainment in the turn of the century are very similar. Where Levine uses the parodies of Shakespeare as a prime example, Levine describes the use of the Vaudeville theaters, however, they both describe the change of popular theater as a rebellion against the Victorian ways. Levine describes how the theater was a way for working and middle class people to shed the stress of their normal routine off and end their night being entertained and amused. Levine states that the theaters were not limited to men as many entertainment venues once were, but that they were open to men and women and at times the family as a whole. Snyder’s explanation of Shakespeare parodies clearly showed the resistance to the Victorian ways. Both forms of entertainment in the turn of the century were a chance for people to create a new popular culture that paralleled their leisure desires. From the lyrics in the prominent songs of the time, one can pick up on the plot that is relevant in each song. The songs are describing leisurely activities as well as fantasies of many for example, “Trail of the Lonesome Pine,” conveys a man’s desire of leisure times and of love. Both working and middle class citizens were able to use these forms of entertainment as an aversion from their everyday routine and the strict Victorian ways and to feel a sense of uniformity amongst each other.
Robert Synder sees popular theater, in particular vaudeville, as a catalyst of the dramatic cultural change near the turn of the 20th century. Associated with the working middle class, vaudeville represented the shift from Victorianism, a “culture of industriousness, self-control, and moral integrity,” to a newer, more expressive culture that encouraged the release from society’s strict disciplines. The middle class began to lift their self-imposed restrictions on leisure, and adapted to the new, more exuberant style of entertainment. Vaudeville teetered on the edge of sexuality, rowdiness, and the boundary of acceptability. It provided an escape from the drudgery of the monotonous work environments of the middle class, and provided a thrill and a slight shock to those who desired a break from the Victorianism culture of self-control.