The Greenwood Encyclopedia of World Popular Culture, Vol. 4: North Africa and the Middle East 9780313332746, 0313332746

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THE GREENWOOD

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF

WORLD POPULAR CULTURE

i

The Greenwood Encyclopedia of World Popular Culture General Editor GARY HOPPENSTAND

Volume Editors MICHAEL K. SCHOENECKE, North America JOHN F. BRATZEL, Latin America GERD BAYER, Europe LYNN BARTHOLOME, North Africa and the Middle East DENNIS HICKEY, Sub-Saharan Africa GARY XU and VINAY DHARWADKER, Asia and Pacific Oceania

THE GREENWOOD

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF

Gary Hoppenstand General Editor

Lynn Bartholome Volume Editor

GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Greenwood encyclopedia of world popular culture / Gary Hoppenstand, general editor ; volume editors, John F. Bratzel... [et al.]. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-313-33255-5 (set: alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-313-33316-3 (North America : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-313-33256-2 (Latin America : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-313-33509-9 (Europe : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-313-33274-6 (North Africa and the Middle East: alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-313-33505-1 (Sub-Saharan Africa : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-313-33956-1 (Asia and Pacific Oceania : alk. paper) 1. Popular culture—Encyclopedias. 2. Civilization, Modern—Encyclopedias. 3. Culture—Encyclopedias. I. Hoppenstand, Gary. II. Bratzel, John F. III. Title: Encyclopedia of world popular culture. IV. Title: World popular culture. HM621.G74

2007

306.03—dc22

2007010684

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2007 by Lynn Bartholome All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2007010684 ISBN-13: 978-0-313-33255-5 (Set) ISBN-10: 0-313-33255-X ISBN-13: 978-0-313-33316-3 (North America) ISBN-10: 0-313-33316-5 ISBN-13: 978-0-313-33256-2 (Latin America) ISBN-10: 0-313-33256-8 ISBN-13: 978-0-313-33509-9 (Europe) ISBN-10: 0-313-33509-5 ISBN-13: 978-0-313-33274-6 (North Africa and the Middle East) ISBN-10: 0-313-33274-6 ISBN-13: 978-0-313-33505-1 (Sub-Saharan Africa) ISBN-10: 0-313-33505-2 ISBN-13: 978-0-313-33956-1 (Asia and Pacific Oceania) ISBN-10: 0-313-33956-2 First published in 2007 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.com Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984). 10 987654321

I

To Becky and Hop, who love me no matter what And to my sister SueSue, who arrived just at the right time

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Foreword: Popular Culture and the World

ix

Gary Hoppenstand Introduction: Popular Culture in North Africa and the Middle East

xi

Lynn Bartholome

Architecture

1

Matthew R. Hackee

Art

27 Rosemary Gallick

Dance

45

Stasia J. Callan

Fashion and Appearance

61

Elizabeth D. Johnston

Film

95 Susan Booker Morris

Food and Foodways

107

Heather L. Williams

Games, Toys, and Pastimes

133

Mary Findley

Literature

157

Kathryn Knight

Love, Sex, and Marriage

187

Rihab Kassatly Bagnole

Music

205

Rihab Kassatly Bagnole

Periodicals

225

Lynn Bartholome

Radio and Television

245

Rihab Kassatly Bagnole

VII

Contents Sports and Recreation

263

Kathleen J. O’Shea Theater and Performance

287

Ann Tippett and Michael Doolin Transportation and Travel

307

Holly Wheeler General Bibliography

3 51

About the Editors and Contributors

353

Index

357

WORD

Popular culture is easy to recognize, but often difficult to define. We can say with authority that the current hit television show House is popular culture, but can we say that how medical personnel work in hospitals is popular culture as well? We can readily admit that the recent blockbuster movie Pirates of the Caribbean is popular culture, but can we also admit that what the real-life historical Caribbean pirates ate and what clothes they wore are compo¬ nents of popular culture? We can easily recognize that a best-selling romance novel by Danielle Steel is popular culture, but can we also recognize that human love, as ritualistic behavior, is popular culture? Can popular culture include architecture, or furniture, or auto¬ mobiles, or many of the other things that we make, as well as the behaviors that we engage in, and the general attitudes that we hold in our day-to-day lives? Does popular culture exist outside of our own immediate society? There can be so much to study about popular culture that it can seem overwhelming, and ultimately inaccessible. Because popular culture is so pervasive—not only in the United States, but in all cultures around the world—it can be difficult to study. Basically, however, there are two main approaches to defining popular culture. The first advocates the notion that popular culture is tied to that period in Western societies known as the Industrial Revolution. It is subse¬ quently linked to such concepts as “mass-produced culture” and “mass-consumed culture.” In other words, there must be present a set of conditions related to industrial capitalism before popular culture can exist. Included among these conditions are the need for large urban centers, or cities, which can sustain financially the distribution and consumption of popular culture, and the related requirement that there be an educated working-class or middle-class population that has both the leisure time and the expendable income to sup¬ port the production of popular culture. Certainly, this approach can encompass that which is most commonly regarded as popular culture: motion pictures, television, popular fiction, computers and video games, even contemporary fast foods and popular fashion. In addi¬ tion, this approach can generate discussions about the relationship between popular culture and political ideology. Can popular culture be political in nature, or politically subversive?

IX

Foreword Can it intentionally or unintentionally support the status quo? Can it be oppressive or express harmful ideas? Needless to say, such definitions limit the critical examination of popular culture by both geography and time, insisting that popular culture existed (or only exists) historically in industrial and postindustrial societies (primarily in Western Europe and North America) over the past 200 years. However, many students and critics of popular culture insist that industrial production and Western cultural influences are not essential in either defining or understanding popular culture. Indeed, a second approach sees popular culture as existing since the beginning of human civilization. It is not circumscribed by certain historic periods, or by national or regional boundaries. This approach sees popular culture as extending well beyond the realm of industrial production, in terms of both its creation and its existence. Popular culture, these critics claim, can be seen in ancient China, or in medieval Japan, or in pre-colonial Africa, as well as in modern-day Western Europe and North America (or in all contemporary global cultures and nations for that matter). It need not be limited to mass-produced objects or electronic media, though it certainly does include these, but it can include the many facets of people’s lifestyles, the way people think and behave, and the way people define themselves as individuals and as societies. This six-volume Encyclopedia of World Popular Culture, then, encompasses something of both approaches. In each of the global regions of the world covered—North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia—the major industrial and postindustrial expressions of popular culture are covered, including, in most cases, film; games, toys, and pastimes; literature (popular fiction and nonfiction); music; periodicals; and radio/television. Also examined are the lifestyle dimensions of popular culture, including archi¬ tecture; dance; fashion and appearance; food and foodways; love, sex, and marriage; sports; theater and performance; and transportation and travel. What is revealed in each chapter of each volume of The Greenwood Encyclopedia of World Popular Culture is the rich complexity and diversity of the human experience within the framework of a popular culture context. Yet rooted within this framework of rich complexity and diversity is a central idea that holds the construct of world popular culture together, an idea that sees in popular culture both the means and the methods of widespread, everyday, human expression. Simply put, the common¬ ality of national, transnational, and global popular cultures is the notion that, through their popular culture, people construct narratives, or stories, about themselves and their communi¬ ties. The many and varied processes involved in creating popular culture (and subsequently living with it) are concerned, at the deepest and most fundamental levels, with the need for people to express their lifestyle in ways that significantly define their relationships to others. The food we eat, the movies we see, the games we play, the way we construct our build¬ ings, and the means of our travel all tell stories about what we think and what we like at a consciously intended level, as well as at an unintended subliminal level. These narratives tell others about our interests and desires, as well as our fundamental beliefs about life itself. Thus, though the types of popular dance might be quite different in the various regions of the world, the recognition that dance fulfills a basic and powerful need for human commu¬ nication is amazingly similar. The fact that different forms of popular sports are played and watched in different countries does not deny the related fact that sports globally define the kindred beliefs in the benefits of hard work, determination, and the overarching desire for the achievement of success. These are all life stories, and popular culture involves the relating of life’s most common forms of expression. This Encyclopedia of World Popular Culture offers many narratives about many people and their popular culture, stories that not only inform us about others and how they live, but that also inform us, by comparison, about how we live. X

POPULAR CULTURE IN N THE MIDDLE EAST ;