Adam Glasgow

Romanticism and Modern Popular Culture

            The Romantic period began in the 1700s and blew up in the 1800s. Its peak is generally considered to be in the mid-1800s, although I’m not sure if I agree with the idea that it “peaked.” I think, perhaps, Romanticism has simply been absorbed into culture and the arts to such a degree that we accept it as having peaked. The alternative to accepting its peak would be to continue to label everything with Romantic characteristics as such, which would quickly wear thin. I think that this is a possibility because of the pervasiveness of the major romantic figures like Beethoven, but also because it feels like the building blocks that were used during the Romantic Era, like a focus on everyday language, appeals to common emotion, etc, are still commonly used in popular culture today.  At this point these thoughts are simply conjecture and could prove wrong, but I am curious: is Romanticism as present as ever? Or did it really peak in the mid 1800s?

            In order to answer this question with any kind of credulity, I must first establish a systematic approach to the research. I plan on briefly analyzing the contents of the most popular films of all time – films being one of the most common and persistent examples of modern art and entertainment. The easiest way to determine popularity, according to my logic, is to find a list (adjusted for inflation whenever possible) of the highest grossing modern films. The more money it made/continues to make, the more popular it is. Do the items that appear on this list exhibit characteristics of Romantic art? Seems like an easy enough question, but I need to hone in on what those characteristics are. Here are some examples I will be looking out for: a focus on the beauty of nature, a general tendency to prefer emotion over reason, a focus on the exceptional (especially when it comes to the hero and genius archetypes), a focus on tradition and folk culture, and an interest in the strange, mysterious, monstrous, and occult. How much of this list will we find in modern pop culture?

            The medium of film is much younger than literature, art, or music. Popular films (as we think of them today), did not appear until the early 1900s and did not contain audio tracks until the 1920s. It can be argued, and with good reason I think, that the modern film was born around 1940 with the release of Citizen Kane. Film is an excellent place to begin when talking about modern pop culture, because the more recent the medium, perhaps, the more it reflects the interests and values of the current era. If Romantic characteristics are prevalent in film, it could go a long way to answering the question I posed with the writing of this essay. Here are the top ten highest grossing films of all time, adjusted for inflation.            Gone with the Wind, Avatar, Star Wars, Titanic, The Sound of Music, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, The Ten Commandments, Doctor Zhivago, Jaws, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Even a passing glance over this list when compared to the characteristics of Romanticism reveals how much Romanticism there is in popular film. E.T., for example, exhibits the interest in the strange, mysterious, and even monstrous at times. Avatar’s draw also lays in the appeal of the mysterious and strange. The Sound of Music focuses heavily on emotion over reason (think about Maria singing about her favorite things instead of focusing on the horrors of the world around them), and has a very clear love of the beauty of nature. The film Jaws is so interested in the monstrous that it can appropriately be called a monster movie. The origins of a few of these stories, specifically The Ten Commandments and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves pre-dates film by quite a long time (especially The Ten Commandments), but both stories are overflowing with examples of the Romantic. The Ten Commandments puts a hero – Moses – front and center of the story, and as we remember a focus on heroism is a feature of Romanticism. A love of folklore is also a feature of Romanticism, so it says a lot when we realize that Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is itself folklore. The fact that these stories are so old but have persisted may in and of itself show how popular Romantic ideals continue to be.

The following is a chart displaying which of these films have examples of given Romantic ideals. Green indicates that the film predominantly focuses on these ideals, yellow means they are exhibited but to a lesser extent, and red means that they are minimal to non-existent. Keep in mind that I am the one putting together this chart, and my knowledge on a few of these films is less than perfect. Furthermore, I acknowledge that some of these characteristics could easily be argued one way or another. Still, I think this is useful as a quick visual guide showing how pervasive these attributes are.

            It turns out to be much more difficult to find examples of popular movies that don’t display many examples of Romanticism. The answer to my question seems relatively clear – while the rise of Romanticism certainly did begin in the 1700s-1800s, its influence has persevered even today, and not in an in-the-background kind of way, either. Romanticism is so interwoven in modern popular culture that it might even be possible that we don’t label it thusly because almost everything would be called Romance if we did.

References: 

Paragraphs 1 and 2:

Information on the definition and characteristics of Romantic art, music, and literature was found from these two sources:

http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/terms/R/Romanticism.htm

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/508675/Romanticism

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Data on highest grossing films adjusted for inflation originally from the 2012 Guinness Book of World Records, but accessible for free via Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films#cite_ref-72

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Plot details for the films that I was less familiar with were pulled from http://imdb.com