Template talk:In popular culture

TfD

After seeing it misused, I think this template is prejudicial in its premise. Because an article has an "In popular culture" section, does not in itself make it either long or trivial. This issue can be discussed, decided and even deleted on an item by item basis far better than a blanket statement that decides the meaning of the section by its title or even by a superficial look at the content. I put this comment here in anticipation of taking this to a TfD. Trackinfo (talk) 03:02, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

See above. DreamGuy (talk) 17:29, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Above what? Anyway, yeah, the template is pretty POV in that it calls out popular culture specifically. Some problems with that are:

1) There isn't so much of a divide between popular and elite as might have been in previous centuries. For instance even a rich or educated or even classically educated persons (those who are left) will also listen to folk music, watch Hollywood movies, read modern popular novels, and so forth.

2) And the top end of elite culture, classical culture, is falling away -- fewer people can even read Greek and Latin. And the day of the foxhunt and the masquerade ball are over -- rich people nowadays, I don't know, hold raves and hire Trent Reznor for private concerts and like that, I suppose, same as normal people. Granted you have opera and the symphony and the ballet holding on.

3) But anyway it's hard to define what is "popular" and what is "elite". Is Shakespeare popular culture? It was when it was written, and hella people watch his movies even today. But he's from olden times, does that make him elite culture? Some would think so. Chaucer. Rabelais. The Magic Flute. Supposing opera is elite culture, well Jesus Christ Superstar -- that's an opera, is it popular or elite? Where are you going to draw the line?

4) And the whole thing is shot thru with class bias. I mean, what is the converse of "popular culture" -- I don't think we have an agreed-on one. "High culture"? "Elite culture"? "Refined culture"? "Unpopular culture"? "Haute Bourgeois culture"? If we don't have that, why the distinguishing adjective? We don't have "Pigs who don't fly" because we don't have a balancing "Pigs who fly"; it's just "Pigs". It's just "culture.

We're not supposed to express a POV on that. We're not supposed to have an opinion on whether Terrence is more worthwhile than Phillip Roth. Or Kurt Vonnegut, or Carl Banks, or Neil Diamond. Or imply that we do. The dogwhistle meaning of "popular culture" is "prole (sniff) culture", that is, stuff the maid reads. Or can be taken that way. I do. I'm not alone. We're not supposed to express class bias here, so let's don't. Herostratus (talk)

Actually, there's another weird thing about this template. It says

This article may contain irrelevant references to popular culture. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help Wikipedia to improve this article by removing the content or adding citations to reliable and independent sources.

OK. So, it may contain irrelevant references... and the solution is to remove them (fine) or else cite it. But how does adding a citation make it more relevant? (Uncited material is a different issue altogether). Right? I have "In The Turn of the Screw a portrait of Churchill is briefly seen in the great hall" or whatever, irrelevant and uncited. I add a citation to some article that mentions it. Does that make it automatically relevant now? I guess it could... if somebody said it some article, that does make it more wikinotable and so suddenly relevant. Reasonable.

But works of art and literature are their own citations. Almost all of the instances will be from works of art and literature. So they don't usually need a citation...

What I am thinking is (changes bolded) is:

This article may contain irrelevant references to popular culture. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help Wikipedia to improve this article by removing the content or adding citations to reliable and independent secondary sources.

Not that most people know what is meant by "secondary source" I guess, but whatever.

Any objections? Herostratus (talk) 06:28, 29 October 2024 (UTC)