Advertising Through Commercials
Numerous books and articles have been written about American commercial television and its programs, their quality or lack of it, their effects, symbols and power. Commercials take up about ten minutes of every 60 minutes during “prime-time” viewing ( roughly 20% of the broadcasting time). Every performance, except the sacred baseball match commentaries, is interrupted by commercials. Even the News is shown in parts.
Commercials range from witty, well made, and clever to those that are dull, boring, and dumb. Advertisers have learned that unless their commercials are amusing, viewers will either switch to another channel or use commercial “breaks” to get up and do something else. Many Americans, who pay no fee for either commercial or public TV, simply accept commercials as the price they have to pay if they choose to watch certain programs.
The money for the advertising, which is a fine art in the USA, is provided by the manufacturers of cars, soap, cigarettes, spaghetti, cosmetics, etc. Advertisements are often short plays with actors and minimoviemakers command of: famous actors and actresses. Commercials are declaimed in prose and recited in verse, sung by soloists and choirs, persuading, cajoling, threatening, warning and ordering people to buy X underwear or Y canned beans. Every performance, except the sacred baseball match commentaries, is interrupted to tell you that you will become reach and beautiful if you eat Z cheese or else you die young, poor and neglected. Once during a performance of King Lear, the tragedy flowed on in its majesty until at its climax King Lear broke loose in a ferocious malediction, condemning all his daughters for not drinking ‘Optimus’ orange juice for breakfast. Freedom of speech means: freedom of great commercial firms to pull down all the rest of the people to their own intellectual level. News is free; commercials are sacred.
“The best brains in our country go into salesmanship,-said one American.-. Any fool can make a thing. What takes real brains is to sell it when the customer has got one already and doesn’t want another.” Advertising makes you feel that you really must have it. To do this a number a different effects are used:
-The snob effect. This tells you that the product is most exclusive and of course rather expensive. Only the very best people use it.
-The scientific effect. A serious-looking man with glasses and a white coat, possibly a doctor or a professor, tells you about the advantages of the product.
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-The words-and-music effect. The name of the product is repeated over and over again, put into a rhyme and sung several times, in the hope that you won’t forget it. The sung rhyme is called a “jungle”.
-The ha-ha effect. The advertiser tries to make you laugh by showing people or cartoon figures in funny situations.
-The VIP (Very Important Person) effect. Well-known people, like actors or football-players, are shown using the product.
-The super- modern effect. The advertiser tries to persuade you that his product is a new, sensational breakthrough.
-The go-go effect. This is suitable for the teenage market. It shows young people having a party, singing, laughing, having a wonderful time, and, of course, using the product.
Television and Children
What children watch on TV change the way they think about the world. There are excellent television programs for children. These programs include valuable lessons about good and bad things, and about positive and negative actions.
There are also terrible, upsetting programs on TV made with violence, sex, or horror as the main subject. Children who watch violence every day on TV begin to think that violence is normal. And one day, these children will become violent, too.
The effect of violent TV shows on children is an important issue in the United States. Most research (one study proved that the average American child will have watched 8,000 murders on television by the age of twelve) has shown that watching violent TV shows often leads to more violent behavior of children.
How can violence on TV be reduced? One solution is for the government to regulate the content of television programming. However, this is not a popular solution. In general, Americans do not like government regulation. They do not like laws that tell them how to behave; instead, they prefer individual choice. Some people think that if you don’t want your children to watch violent TV shows, you should simply turn off the TV.
Some groups, particularly civil liberties groups (groups that try to protect the rights of American that are set forth in the US Constitution), say that government control of TV program content may be a violation of the First Amendment right to free speech..
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In general, the television industry agrees with civil liberties groups. In addition, industry leaders fear that the ratings system will have an impact on the number of viewers watching certain shows. As a result, industry profits will be reduced. Television program writers feel that the ratings system will affect the creativity and content of their work. Pressured by the ratings system, they may produce shows that are less interesting, less entertaining, and less provocative.
So how can TV violence be controlled without the government censoring TV content? This is an issue that concerned parents, the television industry, the federal government, and civil liberties groups. The problem must be resolved.
Soap Operas and Teenagers
Soap operas are plays that originally were sponsored by soap advertisers, hence the name. They are called “operas” because they present highly emotional situations like European operas. Over the past few years, television soap operas have attracted a larger audience. Approximately thirty million people watch soap operas, 70 percent of them female.
Once thought of as entertainment for lonely housewives, dull melodramas that featured depressed middle-aged characters engaged in long conversations over cups of coffee, the soaps have become popular with a new group of younger viewers. Millions of American teenagers are “hooked” on soap operas. “General Hospital” has been the number one soap for several years among teens – partly because its 3:00 airtime means they can dash from school bus to the living room in time to tune in.
Just like many others teens, Christie Clark gets home at 3:00 and turns on her TV set to one of her favorite soap operas “The Guiding Light”. During the one-hour show, she tapes “General Hospital” on her new video tape recorder, a birthday gift from her parents. She then watches another soap for a half an hour. At 4:30 she plays a tape “As the World Turns” which her machine recorded while she was at school. After dinner with her family, Christie plays the “General Hospital” tape. At 8:30, she calls her best friend Tina, to tell her all about the soaps Tina missed. Afterward, Christie does a few hours of mathematics, history, and psychology homework and goes to bed at 11:00.
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All the programs began to feature teenagers in important roles. Soon, the young characters became involved in the plot lines that make up the world of soaps. Next, they were involved with some every adult problems, among them pregnancy, drugs, and almost every possible aspect of sex and romance. How could teenager viewers resist such thrills? They couldn’t – and they didn’t.
The reason for the soaps’ success in winning the teen audience is clear: they offer escapist entertainment featuring young characters with which teens would like to identify theseves. The serials provide an escape from the routine of school, family life and homework. Christie Clark says, “When I’m bored, I come home from school and it’s fun to watch them”. The years from twelve to nineteen are ones of great questioning of identity. It’s also a time of communication breakdown with authority figures. Soap operas serve as model for situations teens might face. Some of them say that watching a soap character deal with a difficult situation has helped them work out problems in their own lives.
Studies among teens in the US Northeast have yielded some surprising conclusions. One is that teens who watch soaps tend to take fewer drugs than those who don’t. In the long run, soap operas with all the shortcomings uphold many traditional American values. Despite the scandals, the good guys always win in the end, and villains repent, die, or are banished to a prison or a mental hospital.Some phychiatrists think that soaps bridge the gap between generations. Grandparents and parents can watch the serials together and talk about difficult problems with their kids.
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Based on “What it is like in the USA” by Natalia Tokareva and Victor Peppard.. 1.Read the texts and express your opinion on the context and ideas:
Products and Commercials
Take any commercial with a simple message, repeat it again and again, and the product, if it’s good, will sell, even if the spot is mindless and annoying. It’s fixing the name of the product in the consumer’s mind with a quick, catchy phrase that’s important.
The moral, delivered, is plain: “Ladies, who’ve learned - buy…” This is very much the rule for women’s portrayals in thirty-and sixty-second spots, which occur with alarming regularity during the daytime hours, when stations may sell up to sixteen commercial
The cumulative effects of commercials are awesome. An endless procession of commercials on the same theme, all showing women using household products in the home, raises very strong implications that women have no other interests except laundry, dishes, waxing floors, and fighting dirt in any form. Seeing a great many such advertisements in succession reinforces the traditional stereotype that women’s place is only in the home.
Ask anybody in advertising why commercials still show a woman bumbling around in a fearful daze, and you’ll find always the same answer: “Because our research tells us it is so”. Agencies devote hundreds of thousands of dollars to find out who’s buying their client’s stuff and why. Marketing researchers dissect and analyze the buying habits, educational and income levels of every member of the family. They even know what we do with our leisure time, our. life-style data- activities, interests, and opinions. All these serves to get inside women’s heads in order to get inside their pocketbooks.
You are probably quite sure that commercials have absolutely no effect on you. Maybe they don’t. But a shaken agency copywriter told me the first word his child spoke was “McDonald’s”.
From “Literary Portraits»
On Advertisements
I am ready to bet that in your naivety you believe that advertising is the art of keeping certain brands permanently in due public eye. This is a misconception. Advertising - as I read somewhere - is the art of convincing people that they want certain things they do not want at all, of making them dissatisfied with everything they have; of making them thoroughly unhappy.
Advertisements in America are ubiquitous. They fill the newspapers and cover the walls; they are on picture- cards and in your daily post, on pamphlets and on match boxes. They are shouted through loud speakers And shown in the cinemas. They are flashed electrically and written on the sky by airplanes and whispered in front of your window while you sleep so that you should dream of toothpaste, shoe polishes and soap flakes.
What are the special ways of making people particularly unhappy?
Repetition. If you hear these 5 letters: L.S.M.F.T. for the first time in your life, you remain cool and unimpressed L.S.M.F.T(Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco). “And what then?” you say. It is not funny, it is not witty, and in fact it is simple, silly and flat. Then you try to find the President’s latest speech in the newspaper but you cannot find it. You find these 5 letters instead, L.S.M.F.T. You travel on the subway and try to think of a reply to an important and annoying letter you have received but you cannot think of anything, because wherever you look you see only 5 letters: L.S.M.F.T. Then you take a walk in comparative solitude, thinking of your beloved, and suddenly a neon advertisement flashes into your eyes: L.S.M.F.T. You want to write a poem on the uselessness and vanity of worldly pleasures but you only write down 50 times: Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco.
If you try to recite the alphabet you are sure to slip up: g, h, I, j, k, l, s, m, f, t…At this stage the advertisement has achieved its purpose. You will then and there take a solemn oath that whatever should happen in the future, however long you may live, you would do without smoking altogether than put one single Lucky Strike into your mouth.
Logical ConclusionsU.U Advertisements have a special logic of their own. They tell you by implication that if you use a certain orange squeezer in your kitchen, you remain young, lovely and beautiful; if you wash with a certain soap, you become rich; if you wear a certain type of underwear you inherit a large sum from a wealthy uncle and if use only a special kind of tomato ketchup you learn foreign languages more easily.
The Empire of Soap Operas
Every country has the radio and t.v. service it deserves…American radio and television is the reverse of the Shakespearean stage. In Shakespeare’s time the world’s greatest dramas were acted with the most primitive technical arrangements; on the American air the world’s most primitive writing is performed under perfect technical conditions.
. Public opinion, taste and culture are led and directed by laxative, cigarette, and soap and cheese companies, which buy the time on the radio and television, during which they try to convince you that their laxative is tastier, more efficient, cheaper and more beautiful to look at than any other laxative in the world. To fill up time between two commercials, they hire some comedians who crack a number of stale jokes and laugh at them themselves, loudly and heartily. Of course, some of them are funny and amuse you most of the time, but these are very rare exceptions.
This system was hailed as the real freedom. No state control, they boasted, no censorship. Some keen observers, however, noticed the real aim of laxative firms was not to raise the cultural standard of the nation but to sell more laxatives to people whether they needed them or not. In this they succeeded; and the result is American broadcasting.
Everybody and everything is ‘Hooperated’. All radio performers and writers depend on Mr. C.E. Hooper’s Hooper Ratings. Hooper speaks on behalf of thirty-five million American families, and has nearly thousand employees who ring up people, trying to find out what they listen to. America is a scientific country. Mr. Hooper’s assistants ring up people day and night, collect answers to relevant and irrelevant questions put in a skilful or clumsy way, issue statistics by the score and state extremely scientifically that a song called Open the Door Richard is 137 times more popular than Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and chats on ‘How I like my cheese and why’ are 217.08 times better liked than A Midsummer Night’s Dream by W. Shakespeare.
One of the popular programs is Quiz. A few t.v. viewers make fool of themselves in one way or another and in return they receive prizes. And what prizes! Whenever you see a person carrying a refrigerator or a piano on his back or leading a camel through the streets of New York, you may rest assured that he has just won a quiz prize
A special feature in American broadcasting is the soap opera. One of the most popular example is the Romance of Helen Trent. Miss Trent is just an average American girl. She has been thirty-two for the last two decades. She is intelligent, beautiful and employed as a designer by one of the Hollywood film companies. In spite of the fact that she is begged every week to become a film star she has never been. She solves life’s problems for anyone who happens to come near her or pass down the street in front of her window. These are usually grave and momentous problems. There is for example a young man who has charming manners and an admirable character. He is a graduate of Princeton University, has an income of four million dollars per year, loves Helen Trent’s colleague madly. She loves him too, and their parents agree to the marriage – what are they to do? Everybody is at a loss until Helen, with a few simple, calm, wise words arranges their lives and separates them forever.
From George Mikes “ How to Scrape Skies”
Answer the questions.:
1.What are the major broadcasting networks in the USA?
2.Which American newspapers and magazines do you know?
3.Do you think that now people get more news from the Internet than from traditional sources?
4.How much of TV and radio air time is given to commercials in the USA and in Russia?
5.What is the main function of commercials?
6.Why is advertising called a fine art sometimes?
7.What effects do TV commercials use?
8.What is the origin of “soap-operas”?
9.Is there anything positive about soaps?
10.What do you think of the T.V. and internet influence on young children?
2. Find the English equivalents corresponding to the Russian ones:
1. Oсвещать какое-либо событие в прессе; 2. представлять новости объективно и в ясном изложении; 3. малоформатная газета со сжатым текстом и многими иллюстрациями; 4. аудитория, имеющая одинаковые возрастные и социальные характеристики; 5. место (в газете), отводимое рекламе; 6. занимать позицию по какому-либо вопросу; 7. обеспечивать объективное освещение событий; 8. предоставлять одинаковое время (на радио и телевидении).
3. Discussion problems:
1.Television and radio are one of the most powerful forces for good or evil in modern life.
2. “Detailed information about television content can help us make informed choices”.
3.The televiewers have a right to control television content if the content is harmful to society.
4.Television, internet and young generation.
Chapter VIII. LIFESTYLES
 
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Read and translate the following words and word combination:
to make generalization about to make observations on
a forbear to bear witness to
the melting pot to save face
the need for self-reliance newlyweds
daily essentials amenities
economically pressured battered
need for self-reliance home chores
to meet challenges hectic life
a groundbreaker willy-nilly
new means of locomotion to wind up driving
to be renowned gentility
understated quip a pun (on)
to give ample proof two-tiered highways
kindly quip
It is very difficult to make generalizations about American characters or lifestyles, as the diversity of patterns of American life is really great. Very many things account for this: ethnic and social background, immigration date of their forbears, religion and other factors.77% of the USA population lives in urban areas, 23% - in rural areas. The population of the USA represents cultures from around the world. The largest minority group consists of Afro-Americans who make up about 12% of the population. Spanish-speaking people from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba and other Hispanic countries form another group, which equals 6% of the population. Native Americans are less than one half of I% of the total. Minorities of Asian descent include Chinese, Japanese, Indochinese and others. It is now estimated that by the year 2050 half of Americans will be Hispanic, Black, or Asian by ethnic background. For many immigrants America seemed to be the only place to fulfill their dreams. Before the late 1960s, immigrants were expected to become part of the mainstream of American culture – the idea of “the melting pot”.
Trying to make some general observations on the American character one should again remember the history of the USA.
What is the American Frontier?
The frontier experience began when the first colonists settled on the east coast of the continent in the 1600s and ended about 1890 when the last western lands were settled. Americans have always tended to view the frontier as the purest examples of hard work of the people, who turned the wilderness into towns, and towns into cities. The need for self- reliance on the frontier encouraged a spirit of inventiveness. Frontier men and women not only had to provide most of their daily essentials of living, but they were constantly facing new problems and situations, which demanded new solutions. The willingness to experiment and invent led to another American trait, a “can-do” spirit, and a sense of optimism that “every problem has a solution”. Americans take pride in overcoming challenges and obstacles. As American historian Frederick Jackson Turner wrote, Americans see themselves as ground - breakers in all areas of industry, science, and technology. They consider it natural that they should constantly create new ways of life, new means of constructing houses, new appliances,. new cars,etc.
The frontier provided conditions for strengthening the American ideals of individual freedom, self-reliance and equality of opportunity. Later many of the frontier values became national values. Emphasis on individual personality rather than collective identity or responsibility is one of the most important features of the American character.
Another distinctive American characteristic is pragmatism. This means that emphasis on achievement and success is understood first of all as material prosperity. Americans are fond of common sense; they are not particularly interested in theory, abstract reasoning, or philosophy. If something works, do it; if it does not, try to do something else.
Generally speaking, Americans are open and friendly people. The public behavior of Americans is less reserved than that of English, e.g.. It is normal for Americans to speak loudly, joke and laugh in public. Americans tend to be informal and unceremonious in both their public or private lives, although they are not absolutely uniform in their outward behavior. It seems, that people from the Northeast are more reserved than Midwesterners, who are very direct and especially famous for their friendliness. The South has long been renowned for the value it places on hospitality, gentility, and manners. Westerners are probably more informal than all the rest. The rules, which parallel this informality are generally established and understood. There are topics –wages, income, religion, politics, – that many Americans try to avoid in casual conversation. Those who insist on formal address or titles or take themselves too seriously are often targets for humor.
Like the British, Americans have a love for the intricate practical joke, the pun, and the understated quip (clever remark). Newspapers headlines bear witness to the second, and the very subtle humor of “The New Yorker” is an example of the third. There is also a tradition of “slapstick”, the pie-in-the face, and the banana peel on the floor. A different type of the American humor is called “kidding around”. It is part of the daily life of many Americans, and often serves as background to normal conversations. In many cases if something is conveyed indirectly, through joking or other “light” humor, face can be saved or arguments prevented.
Marriage and Dating
Marriage in the U.SA is considered a matter of individual responsibility and decision. Marriage is preceded by dating – one of the most prominent cultural rituals in America. Casual dating usually begins in the early teens. It is quite respectable for a young man to call up a young girl, introduce himself by telephone, and arrange a date. Usually they have a friend in common. It is equally acceptable for a friend to arrange a “blind date’ that is a date between two young people who have not met before. Steady dating is sometimes followed by marriage.
.After marriage the young couple is free to decide where to live. Most newlyweds try to set up their own household immediately. The familiar structure in present-day America is the so-called “nuclear family”. It is unusual for members of the family other than the husband, wife, and children to live together. But the forgotten term “extended family” is coming back again. The marriage age is rising. A high divorce rate and a declining remarriage rate are sending economically pressured young people to parental shelters. For some, the expense of an away-home college education has become too exorbitant and many students now prefer to attend local universities. Even after graduation some young people find “their wings Clipped” by the housing costs. According to the US Census Bureau, today 59% of men and 47 % of women between 18 and 24 depend on their parents despite all traditional patterns of behavior, at least for housing
The lives of most Americans revolve around their homes and houses. Home ownership is one of the definitions of success in the USA. Generally people are judged by the house they live in, not only by its size and architecture but also the type of neighborhood and the distance from different amenities. The percentage of Americans owning houses (and apartments) they live in is the highest among western nations. Most Americans still live in “single-family dwellings”, that is houses that usually have a front and backyard. Contrary to a common belief, only about 5 % of all Americans live in mobile homes. For all practical purposes, most of these homes are not actually mobile but function as prefabricated housing units in stationary settings.
Most of North America has a more or less four-season climate, and the rhythms of life around the house tend to follow the seasons. There is always something that needs to be done around the house, and most American homeowners do it by themselves. In many American families children are expected to help around the house and perform the home “chores”.
Americans have always been concerned with making the chores of everyday life less tiresome and distasteful. Inventors, businessmen, designers, neighborhood initiatives and interest groups, public officials and private citizens – all try to make things better, more efficient, more readily available, more convenient. From mail order shopping to drive-in banking, from durable-press materials for clothes to computerized services and take-out food, Americans have shown their preference for a convenient lifestyle.
In the average American home, there is a great amount of activity, of coming and going, all happening at once. For the parents, there are perhaps courses at the local evening school or college. There are bridge and bowling clubs and golf leagues. There are PTA (Parent Teacher Association) meetings. The church is having a bake sale, a car wash, or a “potluck” dinner (everyone contributes a dish). The social life of American children is often hectic as well. One child is off to a party, another to the music or sport classes.
One of the features of American life is volunteer work. According to the statistical Gallup polls, about 84 million Americans both adults and teenagers donated part of their time as volunteers. Some of this work is done through volunteer organizations and clubs; some is on a personal basis. Teenagers, for example, often volunteer to work in hospitals – so-called “candy- stripers”, from their striped uniforms.
At the same time, many American middle-class families expect their children to find part-time jobs, especially as they enter their teens. This might be work in the local supermarket or service station, mowing lawns, delivering newspapers, or babysitting. The idea seems to be that the work experience is “good for the kids». One effect on American society is that middle-class children can do menial work without losing face. This also effects customer-employee relations: the kid who just packed your groceries or filled your tank could be your neighbor’s son or daughter. In general, Americans feel that young people should appreciate the value of work and learn how to stand on their own feet.
It is necessary to mark that since the 1960s there has appeared a great and drastic shift in seemingly ideal “puritan” moral behavior of the middle class young people in the USA. the “new morality., characterized by violence, sexual permissiveness and cheating, drug and alcohol abuse. According to a federal finding of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism a minimum of 10 million Americans has alcoholic-connected problems, more than 1.1 million youths between the ages 12 and 17 have “serious drug-abuse problems”. According to the Police Foundation there are some 40 million handguns in America and according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation the chance of being victimized by violent crime has increased 24% since 1980 and more than 50% during the last 10 years. One of the trends of the “new morality” among ypoung Americans is close relationships and living together before marriage. A study by the National Foundation released in 1995 shows that between 1970 and 1993 birth to mothers under 16 rose by 80%.
A steady progression of life-changing landmarks: the automobile, the radio, cars,.” TV and movie era” may result in even greater future changes in lives and attitudes of Americans.
The Car in American Life
The fact that the Americans can’t do without a car is well known to everybody. One primary reason for having cars is that the public transportation in the USA is not so well developed as in Europe. Bus lines in the US suburbs are unprofitable, bus routes are scarce and the scheduling is very unstable. So, willy-nilly people have to use their own cars.
The car is such an important part of American life that for many people it would be impossible to manage without it. The car is inherently built into the tissue of American life Today only really poor families and those too old to drive do not own a motor vehicle. But for the 87 % who do have cars, there is hardly any need to leave them.. There are banks, fast-food restaurants, and movie theaters, where you can withdraw money, eat a meal, or see a film without ever getting out of your car. There are even drive-in churches. It’s surprising that some people remember how to walk at all. Taking a job or entering a college leads to an immediate follow-up of buying a car. The car is also an absolute necessity for the rural or suburban parent, often the mother, who goes shopping for the family and takes the children to after-school activities. Some people wind up driving many miles a day doing errands and taking their children from one place to another. When it comes to vacation time, many American families prefer to drive, sometimes very long distances. Even if they go by plane, when they arrive, they often rent a car (fly-drive).
American society’s dependence on automobiles creates a lot of serious problems, such as air-pollution, the growing accident rates, traffic jams. Cities, towns and states spend tremendous resources constantly repairing and expanding their streets, roads, and highways. As some roads have been expanded to their limit, there is nowhere to go but up, so in some places “double-decker” appeared, that is, two-tiered highways.
As the automobile plays such a large part in American life, it has a great impact on American economy. Now the manufacture of automobiles in America is becoming more and more international. Japanese companies like Honda and Toyota do not just sell cars in America, they have their own plants where they build them. The major American automobile companies, such as Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler have also formed various kinds of partnerships with Japanese and German manufacturers. In addition to the traditional sedans, station wagons, and sports cars, different kinds of jeeps and vans have become especially popular in recent years.
Some Americans take special pride in their cars. They give them special names (John, Marietta, etc ), wash and wax them regularly. Others constantly trade and buy them. Whatever an American’s attitude toward cars, it is unlikely that he or she will do without it.
National Symbols
One feature of American life that some European observers often comment on is the frequent display of flags and other national symbols in the U.S. The pride of Americans of their country is perhaps not much different from that in other nations, but it seems more apparent. The ‘Star-Spangled Banner” and the flags of the states are found in many places and displayed on many occasions, including even demonstrations against the government. Advertisements, too, sometimes cater to a shared sense of national pride. To Americans, patriotism is largely a natural response to the nation’s history and its ideas. Immigrants who apply after five years of residence to be naturalized and become American citizens must prove that they know the national symbols and support the Constitution of the USA..
Answer the questions.
1 .Why is it so difficult to make generalizations about American character?
2. What is the main idea of the “Melting pot”?
3. What are the most distinctive American characteristics from your point of view?
4. What can you say about American social life?
5. Why Americans are Americans so much involved in volunteer work?
6. Why do so many American parents think that part-time jobs are “good for their kids”?
7. What is the impact of cars on the US economics?
8. What are the main demands for an immigrant to be naturalized and become an
American citizen?
2. Speak about recent changes in American lifestyle according to the models:
Now that VCRs have come in drive-ins are getting out; Now that compact discs have come in records have gone out; Economy cars-big cars; push-button-telephones-dial telephones; aerobics-jogging; canned and frozen food-traditional cooking; wash and wear clothes-ironing; credit cards-checkbooks; checkbooks-cash.
3 .Match the names in the left part with the definitions in the right one:
Car park 1) a window that you drive up to and get your banking problems done;
Parking meter 2) a special area for parking cars;
Parking lot 3) a multi-stored building for parking cars;
Parking ticket 4) a place where people can watch movies staying in the cars;
Drive-in theater 5) a metal box on a stick to drop the money for parking;
Drive-in bank 6) a document for paying a parking penalty;
Drive-in food stand 7 ) a window that you drive up to and buy some food.
4.Discussion problems:
1. The American Frontier and American character;
2. Compare typical English and American characters. Which traits are in
common and which are different?
3. American houses and homes;
4. American society and cars
CHAPTER IX. CULTURAL LIFE
Read and translate the following words and word combinations:
to set the problem to pull the leg
to degenerate progenitor
to steer boats gospel music
expatriate romantic crooning
to defer (deferred) at large
to enchant spiritualism
ensuing unconventional
to be nourished to shuttle back and forth
Although it is a generalization, it is useful to divide the US cultural history into three broad stages.
The first stage stretches from colonial times until about the Civil war. In this period, American art, architecture, music and literature were strongly influenced by European ideas and traditions. What was fashionable or popular in London, Paris, Rome or Vienna usually set the pattern for Boston, New Orleans, New York, and Philadelphia. Some of the colonial painters, like other craftsmen, came across the sea to try their luck. A few American painters of that time among them Benjamin West, Washington Allston, John Singleton Copley and Gilbert Stuart still considered themselves largely as part of European tradition.
Gradually America was becoming subject and substance of separate artistic creation. Through the Colonial period and for the first half century of the Republic, American painting was dominated by portraiture. Painting portraits was the way an artist could make at that time a living. Like the 17th century European portraitists, the American artists left rich information about their time. Portraits became documents detailing furniture, costumes, jewelry, and implements of their occupation. Unfortunately there were few history paintings of good quality recording the Revolution, except some made John Trumbull After the invention of camera in 1839 the proportion of portraits to dropped and. the Civil War was best recorded by its photographers except for the genre pieces of life done by Eastman Johnson and Winslow Homer.
The period after the Civil War saw two new genres in American painting, the creation of works, which described American landscapes and the everyday life of people, depicted mostly by a Russian artist Pavel Svirin. Scores of street scenes, gathering in village taverns, political rallies, poor women’s kitchens, factory workers, Black slaves were already on canvases.
If genre art was nourished by political and social forms, landscape paintings owed much to romantic poetry of William Cullen Bryant and books by James Fennimore Cooper. Landscape were merged with scenes of the migrants crossing the plains and mountains in their wagons, with Indians, buffalo and death often in the background. Among the American artists of that period one can mark Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins..
A landmark in the history of American painting was made by the Armory Show of 1913 Sixteen hundred paintings by more than 300 Americans artists were shown there, representing some new genres like the Impressionists, Post-Impressionists and the Cubists. Later on with the Depression, many American artist of different sties depicted the strikers, the unemployed, the Blacks, all those whose lives were crushed by the economic desaster. R. Marsh was dealing with urban poor, Ch. Burchfield and E. Hopper with dreary working class identical houses.
Like scientists many of highly creative artists were driven to America by the Second World War. In the 1950-60s abstract expressionism, pop art, minimal art and photo-realism became quite common in the USA. Some of the artists associated with such movements are Close, Davis, de Kooning, Demuth, Dine, Estes, Hanson, Johns, Kline, Lichtenstein, Motherwell, Oldenburg, Pollock, Rauschenberg, Rosenquist, Rothko, Segal and Warhol..
By the 60-70s New York had become one of the art capitals of the world. Now in New York alone there are around 12000 artists and sculptors, around 400 art galleries and hundreds of exhibitions and shows each season. Among the great New York museums there are the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) which houses the most complete collection of modern art in the world, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheism, The Cloisters with its fine medieval collection, the Brooklyn Museum, the Frick Collection, the Nation Museum of Design, the Museum of American Indian, the American raft Museum and the Whitney Museum of Modern Art. Besides New York Chicago is often associated with art and modern architecture. Chicago is the city where several important artists live. Some of them, like Mies van der Rohe or Philip Johnson, did much to influence modern design. In Chicago there is also the museum of Louis Sullivan , called “the father of the skyscraper”.
Literature
Like in art, American literature of the first generations was strongly dependent on British traditions and books brought from there. Before the Revolution and after it many revolutionary-minded Americans viewed literature and art as the means of independence and demanded to lay the foundations of national American literature. The progenitor of American short story was Washington Irving (1783-1859), the author of “The Sketch-Book” (1819) and “Alhambra”(1832). James Fennimore Cooper (1789-1851) wrote the number of novels about American frontier. His novels “The Spy”(1821) and “Last of the Michigan’s”(1926) became the first American bestsellers, translated into many world languages.. A poet and prose-writer Edgar Poe (1809-49), the author of “The Murders in the Rue Morgan” (1841), “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Gold Bug”, initiated. the detective genre. Herman Melville’s masterpiece “Moby Dick”was published in 1850. Poet Henry Longfellow (1807-82) in his poems of “The Song of Hiawatha” (1855), “Paul Revere’s Ride” and “The Courtship of Miles Standish” (1858) created images of courageous Indian heroes.
Walt Whitman’s(1819-92) “Leaves of the Grass” (1855) glorified people and opposed slavery. It was a tribute to the Civil War soldiers who had laid on the battlefields and whom he had seen while serving as an army nurse. The book went through numerous editions during the author’s lifetime, swelling in content from a thin volume to the voluminous work it is today. Walt Whitman’s poem “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom” (1865) was dedicated to the memory of Abraham Lincoln. The strong rhythms and unusual style of Whitman’s verses, the brightness and impressiveness of his images made Whitman the greatest poet of the USA.
Travel was also a favorite subject. When F. Parkman (1823-93) published his work “The California and Oregon Trail or Life on the Prairies and in the Wigwam” (1849) and Ralph Waldo Emerson composed his memorable essay, glorifying the spirit of the youthful and vigorous United States, they. became immediately popular..
Whitman, Longfellow, Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Lowell to a greater or lesser degree stood against the slavery. But their influence was relatively smaller compared to that of Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-96), the author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin or Life Among the Lowly”. Like many novels of the time, it first appeared serialized in “The National Era” and copies could not be printed fast enough to keep up with the demand of the readers. “So you’re the little woman who started the big war”- said Abrahams Lincoln when he met H. Stowe at first time in 1882.
Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908) composed a great number of Black folklore and published his collections of tales “Uncle Remus Stories” (1880) and “Nights with Uncle Remus” (1883).
The period after the Civil War is associated with the second stage of the US literature. The leading prose writer of the end of the 19PthP century was Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) (1835-1910). Twain was born in the state near the Mississippi River His work as a riverboat pilot steering boats up and down the river made the most important influence on him and his books. One of Twain’s first books is called “Life on the Mississippi” (1883). His “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” (1976) and “Huckleberry Finn” (1884) tell about the lives of young heroes on the Mississippi river. Together with Twain’s romantic tale “The Prince and the Pauper” (1889) they are still read by children all over the world. At the same time his “Golden Age” (1873) and “A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court” (1889), exposing American vanity, corruption and hypocrisy, are full of strong satire. Incomparable depiction of colloquial speech, peculiarities of paradox, humor and wit are characteristic features of Mark Twain’s writing..
The third and present stage is marked by a tremendous surge of American creativity in all areas, by a steady self-confidence and by growing international influence of American literature. The American literature of the 20PthP century as a mirror of society was opened by Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945). In his first realistic novel “Sister Carrie” Dreiser challenged the American myth that honesty and hard work inevitably lead to success. He followed the novel with several other strong social-critical works of fiction “Jennie Gerhard” (1911), “The Financier”(1912), “The Titan”(1914), “An American Tragedy” (1925).Later T. Dreiser published two collections of stories “Free and Other Stories”(1918) and “Chains: Lesser Novels and Stories”(1927). Many of these stories dramatized the theme of love as the most powerful force in life.
O. Henry (Porter William Sidney) (1862-1910) created a great number of short stories about the life of simple, poor Americans, collected in his books “Cabbages and Kings”(1904),”The Four Million”(1906),“The Gentle Grafter”(1908).
The Northern stories by Jack London (1876-1916) were extremely popular both in the USA and abroad. His novels “The Son of Wolf” (1900), “ The Sea-Wolf”(1904), “Martin Eden”(1909) and many others were translated and published in Europe and Russia.
The horrors of World War I and the period following it in the 1920s sparkled the imagination of some of the greatest writers in American literary. They include Francis Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), the author of short stories and novels “The Great Gatsby”(1925), “Tender is the Night”(1934), “The Last Tycoon”(1941) about so-called “lost generation” and Gertrude Stein (1874-1946). Her most widely read book “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas” was devoted to her life in Paris, her meeting with famous French artists and expatriate American writers such as Ernest Hemingway. The great master of the modern prose style E. Hemingway (1899-1961) in his early books “Fiesta”(1926), “ For Whom the Bell Tolls” (1940) also expressed the frames of mind of the “lost generation”. E. Hemingway volunteered for an ambulance unit in Spain during World War I, but was wounded and hospitalized for six months. His first successful novel “The Sun also Rises”(1926) is about the group of American expatriates living in France and Spain who had lost their joy in life and felt wasted. His “Farewell to Arms” (1929) is another work that reflected the growing disillusionment with war. The main idea of the author is the tragic stoicism of his main characters. According to Hemingway a man must retain courage and dignity under very harsh circumstances, even facing the threat of death. While living in Cuba in the early 1950s, he wrote “The Old Man and the Sea” (1952) about the courage and fortitude of an old Cuban fisherman, awarded with the Nobel Prize in 1954.
More than ten other American writers received the Nobel Prize for Literature. The very first American to be honored by a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1930 was Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951).In his popular novels “Main Street”(1920), “Babbitt”(1922) and “Arrowsmith”(1925) S. Lewis could describe the lives and values of small town people with sincerity and great understanding.
William Faulkner (1897-1962), known for his novels about people living in the South “ The Sound and the Fury”(1929),”As I lay Dying”(1930),”Intruder in that Dust”(1948), received the Nobel prize in 1949. Faulkner`s style is very much different from that of Hemingway. While Hemingway wrote in short, simple sentences and used a great deal of conversation, Faulkner’s sentences sometimes carry on for almost an entire page, with a lot clauses strung together by commas.
Among the other Nobel prize winners there are a playwright Eugene 0’Neill(1888- 1953), Saul Bellow (1915), Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-91) and John Steinbeck (1902-68), noted for “Grapes of Wrath” and “The Winter of Our Discontent” picturing the complexities of life in America.
John Cheever (1912-82) published the novels and stories “The Wapshot Chronicle”(1957),”Bullety Park”(1969), “Falconer”(1977) in which he used satire to express socio-economic essence of life. J.D. Salinger (1919- ) achieved great literary success with the publication of his novel “The Catcher in the Rye”, centered on the character of 16-year-old boy, who flees his elite boarding school for the outside world only to become disillusioned by its materialism and phoniness A playwright and poet Dubose Hayward (1885-1940) wrote about the life of black American Dockers. His popular novel “Porgy” was staged in 1927 and later became the plot of opera “Porgy and Bess”. Black Americans also wrote about their experiences in American society. The. Black writer Richard Wright (1908- 1960) became well known as the author of the number of novels describing the feelings and fates of black Americans.
During the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s more Afro-Americans began to write. James Baldwin (1924-1987) is well-known writer of that time. His first novel “Go Tell It on the Mountain” (1953) is about his own life as a poor child growing up in New York ghetto, Harlem. In protest against racism in American society, J. Baldwin emigrated and lived abroad until 1977. The life of Harlem inspired the poems of one of the best known black American poets of the 20PthP century Langston Hughes (1902-67). To Hughes it seemed that the people of Harlem’s hopes of better attitude had been delayed – “deferred” for too long:
“What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-and then run? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?”
Maya Angelou is a contemporary black American author and poet. Her first book “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” (1970) has an autobiographical character. In 1993 at President Clinton’s first inauguration ceremony, she read her poem “On the Pulse of Morning “on TV to the entire country. Alex Hayley’s epic story of the black experience “Roots” (1976) with the subsequent television special caused white America to stop and investigate its “past sins». In 1983 Alice Walker won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel ‘The Color Purple”, devoted to her struggle for equality.
In the 1950s there appeared a group of unconventional writers and artists “The Beat Generation” The writers of this generation, called beatniks, wanted to create a new kind of writing grown from poetry readings in the form of jazz. The poetry of Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) was considered unconventional because it did not follow the structure of traditional verse. Jack Kerouac`s (1922-1969) writing had a new spontaneous style. His best-known novel “ On the Road” describes beatniks wandering through America seeking an idealistic dream of communal life and beauty. In the 1960s a young writer and singer Bob Dylon used protest lyrics to support the anti-war movement of the time. For many young people he became the voice of the conscience of his generation. His lyrics set to old tunes, were ironic comments on what he saw as the deceit and hypocrisy of those in power.
In the 1960s and 1970s a new ethnic literature emerged. Dee Brown’s history of the American West “Bury My Heart and Wounded Knee” (1971) led the way for a serious of books on the American Indian.
By the late 1970s and the 1980s science fiction had moved to a generally accepted form of literature. Popular writers here included Isaac Asimov and Arthur Clarke. The 1980s also saw the rise of popular horror fiction with Dean Koontz, V.C. Andews, Peter Straub, Clive Barker and Stephen King as the most prolific writers.
Recent literature included John Updike’s four novels (.“Rabbit at Rest”, “ Self-Consciousness” and others) and Tom Clancy. His books, such as “The Hunt for Red October”, “Red Storm Rising” and “Patriot Games” top both the hardback and overall bestseller books.
The Theater
The greatest flowering of American drama came between 1920 and 1970. In those years, startling, powerful, and illuminating works, both tragic and comic, flowed from the pens of Eugene O’Neill, Thornton Wilder, Maxwell Anderson, Robert Sherwood, Kaufman and Hart, Lillian Hellman, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and William Inge. These playwrights reflected the events of their times, beginning with World War I,the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. In his plays “Desire Under the Elms”(1924), “Mourning Becomes Electra”(1931),”Long Day’s journey into Night”, “The Iceman Cometh”(1946) the first important American playwright of serious drama Eugene O’Neil ( 1988-1953) made deep and sensitive analyses of human relationships. The plays of notable playwright Arthur Miller(1915) “All My Sons”(1947), “Death of a Salesman”(1949),”The Crucible”(1953) , “A View from the Bridge”(1955) and others were staged in many countries of the world and brought him a world prominence.
The playwrights who came after them were inspired by many events of their time: assassination of John F. Kennedy, the student rebellions of the 1960s, the war in Vietnam, etc. Each playwright, with an individual style and a message, has been mining the American society. Several of them A.R. Gurney, John Guare, David Rabe, Sam Shepard received both national and international popularity. There were also a number of women playwrights Tina Howe, Marsha Norman, and Wendy Wasserstein.
One notable development in recent years is the “theater of absurd” (Edward Albee). There are also experiments with electronic music and lighting, body movements instead of spoken words, and spontaneous audience participation in some performances.
Black theater presents plays about black people, written by black playwrights, and performed by black casts. Originally such plays used to carry messages of protest against racial prejudice. Today black theater is increasingly concerned with blacks as individual human beings and their life problems. Black theatrical performances usually use black music: spirituals, gospel singing and jazz.
Most important new plays are produced in the theaters located on or near Broadway in the midtown area of New York City. There are over 15000 professional actors in New York alone and another 20000 or so in the state of California. Over 16000 professional musicians and composers live in New York, and almost 23000 more in California. Every year outstanding Broadway playwrights, actors, musicians, directors, choreographers and technicians are nominated for Tony Awards. August Wilson, an Afro-American playwright, received both a Tony and a Pulitzer Prize for his play “Fences”, devoted to the fate of a baseball player who struggles with the difficulties of everyday life. Wendy Assertion, a female playwright won a Tony for her “The Heidi Chronicles”.
Off-Broadway theaters are shown around Manhattan in small theaters and off-off Broadway companies often play in former garages, offices and stores. Sometimes there is no raised stage and the actors perform in the center of the hall, surrounded by the audience (so-called (“theater-in-the-round”). In almost every major city there are professional companies, which follow repertory (rep) schedules. There are also traveling acting companies that tour throughout the country. Very many theater groups suffer from the lack of financing and must charge high prices for tickets in order to pay production costs and make profit.
The movies
Originally American cinema was born in the East, when in 1903 a cameraman Edwin S. Porter turned out a short film. The first “Patent Cinema Company” was formed in 1908 in Chicago. The first crew included 8 cinema-making firms. Those who did not go into it went to Los-Angeles, California. Soon the number of film companies, producers, actors, technical staff grew up there and the first film studio was founded in 1911 in Hollywood. There were several reasons why Hollywood, the former provincial small town was to become the main center of American cinema industry. Besides the favorable natural conditions, bright sun all the year round and splendid landscape, the land was very cheap there. Besides there was enough manpower around for building and servicing of film studious. By 1915 60% of all American film production was accumulated in Hollywood. After the beginning of World War I film industry in many European countries was in crises. Hollywood filled the gap to create the supremacy at the world cinema market. American movies poured over the cinema screens of the world. . By the middle of the 20s Hollywood had modern financial and technical basis of film production and the professional stuff. There were 5 large studios at that time: “Metro Golden Myer”, “Paramount”, “Fox”, “Universal” and “Warner”, headed by the producers Luise .Mayor, Sam Goldwine, Adolf Zuker, William Fox, Karl Lemale and Warner Brothers. One of the most popular and prolific producers of silent movies of that time was David York Griffit. He made 61 melodramas, comedies, historical films, thrillers, westerns, screen versions of the Bible and literature.
In the 20th the system of film stars appeared. Film stars were the most highly paid actors and actresses, whose names attracted crowds of filmgoers to movie-houses. The stars were necessary for the cash success of the film All over the world, from Berlin and London to Tokyo and Buenos Aires millions of people lined up every day to see their favorite Hollywood stars Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pikford, Douglas Ferbenks, Greta Garbo, Roman Navarro and others.. For most people the world of the movies remained a dream world, separate from real life. It helped to create the “American Dream” and to convince cinemagoers that the American way of life was the ideal one. At the same time the movies made people think of their own lives, which could be changed and improved.
One of the greatest American actors, directors and scriptwriters was Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977). All Charlie Chaplin’s biographers agree that his miserable childhood in London slums made the decisive influence on his development as an artist. In his early “silent” comedies and satires Chaplin was never afraid to fight against tyranny and injustice. He released a parody on war “Shoulder Arms” (1918) only some time before the American troops came home from the trenches of the World War I. In the “Pilgrim” (1923) Chaplin attacked nonconformist religion. In “City Lights” he was mocking capitalism. In “Modern Times” (1936) Chaplin parodied the inhuman destruction of the machine age. His comedies “Gold Rush”(1925), “City Lights”(1931), “Modern Times»(1935), Limelight”(1952), “A King in New York”(1957) are filled with deep human feelings and dramatic undertones. the In 1940 he created his first “talking” film “The Great Dictator “- a satire on Hitler and his policy- and during World War II called for the opening of the second front and support of. the Russian people.
The theme of human dignity is very strong in Chaplin’s art. His constant image - the figure of a small, lonely man in a creased black suit, a derby hat, big clumsy shoes, black moustaches and a walking stick attracted millions of filmgoers not only due to his funny appearance but also to his openhearted character. “Oscar” – the best-known award for film actors was given to Charlie Chaplin in 1952, but when Chaplin emigrated to Europe, the US State Department banned his reentry. In 1972 in recognition of his lifetime contribution to film art Chaplin was at last given by the American film establishment a special Second Oscar. He was also commemorated with a statue at the historic corner of Hollywood and Vine. He also received special golden prize at the International Film Festival in Venice.
The first “talking” movies appeared in the 30s. Change over to sound cinema was not very simple. Many actors were not ready to speak. Attached to microphones they stopped to move and act. Besides in Hollywood there were many foreign actors with strong native accents. When Hollywood developed production of the films with sound track it quickly recovered its image. During the World War II American cinema created a number of films devoted to the war problems. One of the best films of that time “Lifeboat” (1944) by Alfred Hitchcock analyzed Nazi threat. “Bataan” (1943) by Tray Harriet showed the cruelties of the war. Many cinema celebrities went to the front. Some famous producers risked their lives, shooting war chronicles.
The years before the Second World War and after it became “the golden age” of Hollywood. During that period 7500 full-length films were shot there. Eight large firms specialized in different themes: family movies, musicals, topics of wealth, power and human passions, history, gangster or horror.
One of the most popular studious working in the USA became Disney Studio opened by its creator and the greatest cartoon maker Walt Disney (1901-1966). Walt Disney was the first producer to shoot colored animated films with synchronized soundtrack. In his numerous worldwide cartoons he created the wonderful animal world of optimism and success. All his animal characters in human-like situations are always kind, friendly and smart. His Mickey Mouse’s and Donald Duck’s phenomenal popularity put the animated characters into the ranks of the most popular screen personalities in the world. Among Disney’s most famous masterpieces there are also “ The Silly Symphonies”, “Cinderella” and full-length animation “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. The most spectacular interpretation of musical classics was his movie “Fantasia”(1940). Besides cartoons Disney studio produced a number of wonderful documentary films about animals, nature and different popular TV programs. His last film “The Book of Jungle” was finished after his death.
For his wonderful art Walt Disney received 29 Oscars. By 1996 more than 450 Disney clubs and stores had been created. Walt Disney’s fantasies and dreams came true in two amusement parks ”Disneyland” in California (1954) and “Disney World” (1971) in Florida. Millions of visitors enjoy a lot of sophisticated attractions in these “Magic Kingdoms”. Some years later, in 1992 the similar Disney parks were opened in Tokyo (1983), and Paris (1992).
The Disney Studio continued producing movies after the death of his founder. “ The Little Mermaid”, “ The Beauty and the Beast”, “Aladdin”, “ The Lion King” became quite successful. They were followed by “Pocahontas” (1995) and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1996). “Toy Story” pioneered computer-animated techniques. Disney also continued its strong presence in children’s animated programs for television, with Aladdin and Gargoyles receiving high ratings.
After the World War II many new Hollywood stars appeared, such as Ingrid Bergman, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Kirk Douglas, Gregory Peck, Bert Lancaster. Such actors as Marlon Brando, James Din and Paul Newman began to use Stanislavskii system, reaching great intensity and realism. Some actors appeared in a great number of films. E.g., only one actor and director Paul Newman produced and starred in forty-five films, among them “ The Hustler”, “Butch Cassidy”, “The Sundance Kid”, “The Sting” and ”Towering Inferno” and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” with the participation of Elizabeth Taylor. She also starred in “Cleopatra” in 1962. Film stars and Oscar Winners Audrey Heyburn and Gregory Peck also became especially popular in the 60-70s ”Roman Holiday”, “My Fair Lady”, “Wait Until Dark”, “The Omen» and others. In the 70s the most popular producers of new generation were Coppola, Lucas, Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. Coppola’s film “Godfather” (1972) and Spielberg’s “Jams”(1975) began the new era of blockbusters. Lucas’s “Star Wars” and three Spielberg’s films about Indiana Jones were the most famous super hits. People could like or dislike them, but it is sure that the American films and Hollywood films in particular were produced at very high professional and technical standard.
At our time gradually Hollywood transformed beyond recognition. Step by step all its studios lost their independence and joined transnational companies. Commercial success became more important then creative work. Filmed television programs turned into an important American export. As many countries found it cheaper to buy American programs than to make their own, cinemagoers all over the world were mostly watching exported American blockbusters. Generations have grown up watching American films. A lot of copies are made for VCR and sold all over the world. Film companies spent hundreds million dollars on the film production and almost the same money on their advertisements. The films by famous directors and producers Steven Spielberg, Kevin Kostner, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Verkhoven, Lucas receive the most attention. The most highly paid actors Sylvestor Stallone, Jack Nicolson, Demy Moor, Julia Roberts, Sharon Stone and others receive a lot of prestigious prizes and awards at the leading international film festivals.
Music
Music in the USA is extremely varied. The ensuing generations of European immigrants brought with them the classical music and their German, Scottish and Irish folk ballads. Later America produced her own music. Railroad workers, cowboys and miners composed their songs about work, life and love. Black slaves’ songs, preserving the rhythms and intonations of African tribes, acquired new features under the influence of Puritan hymns, resulting in Black hymns “spirituals” which are considered by many musicians as the highest achievement of American folk art. Black spirituals such as “Nobody Knows the Trouble”, “When the Saints set off Machining” or “Go Down, Mosses” are remembered, sung and played even now. The list of folksong types in the USA includes Afro-American narrative songs or ballads, the Spanish narrative corride dance, Negro blues, spirituals, work songs, hymns, primitive Indian chants and prayers and the various European marches and ballads. In addition, there are superstitions, sayings, proverbs, and jokes that go with every national and racial group.
Jazz is a mixture of West African folklore with the work songs the slaves sang and religious gospel music originated in church. Jazz, initially a musical talk from downcast people to other downcast people, by the 1920-40s had become popular among all people irrespective of their class or job distinctions or political views. The first jazz bands were formed in the late 1800s.They played in bars and clubs in the South, especially in New Orleans.
The first American composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869) enlivened his “serious” music with plantation melodies and Caribbean rhythms from his New Orleans jazz bands.. He was the first American pianist to achieve international recognition, but his early death contributed to his relative obscurity.
George Gershwin (1898-1937) was also one of the first to use Afro-American melodies in his music. Together with his brother he created world famous opera “Porgy and Bess” and two musical comedies “Rhapsody in Blue” and “An American in Paris” which included jazz rhythms and blues.
Aaron Copland(1900-90) indulged his interest in jazz as well. Besides writing symphonies, concertos, and an opera, he composed the scores for several films. He is best known, however, for his ballet scores, which draw on American folk songs; among them are “Billy the Kid”, “Rodeo”. Copland chose a traditional Quaker religious song as one of the main themes for “Appalachian Spring”, which celebrated life in the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern region of the United States.
The orchestras of Duke Ellington, Count William Basie, Frank Sinatra and Glemm Miller became the universal musical culture, which all Americans are proud of. Among the outstanding jazz musicians there are the names of Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman and Ella Fitzgerald.
Composers Arthur Schwartz and Richard Rodgers should also be mentioned. The songs “Yellow River”, “Night and Day”, “Tea for Two” crossed national boundaries and became popular in Europe. Scott Joplin (1868-1917) was born in freed slave musical family and managed to mix African beat with classical European music. His wonderful style became known to both black and white musicians as Ragtime in the early 1900s.
Thirty years after jazz another kind of popular music appeared – big beat (big rhythm). In 1954 the disc jockey Alan Freed started to broadcast the Black rhythm-and-blues records. He called this music Rock-and-roll after an old blues “My Baby Rocks Me in a Steady Roll”. The 50s were also marked in the USA by the enormous success of the most famous rock “n” roll superstar singer and guitar player Elvis Presley (1935-77). What was new in his performance was aggression, sexuality together with Black blues and white romantic crooning and sentiment. Having broken all the standards, he became particularly admired by the young people. His songs “Heartbreak Hotel”, “Hound Dog”, “Blue Suede Shoes” and many others were recorded in multimillion copies. To rock and roll enthusiasts Presley got to symbolize not only a rock and roll singer but also a new youth culture. Among other things, this culture developed its own vocabulary, ways of dressing, even hairstyle. It even began to reject socially approved ideas and ways of behaving.
Later rock-and-roll blended with the protest songs of the 1960s to become rock, the music that was harder and less escapist. Rock became both an American and international phenomenon. Millions of young people worldwide saw it as their natural cultural language, a symbol of opposition to officially approved ideas and standards. Rock composers have always tried to represent the authentic sound of spoken English, and have therefore written what they have heard, rather then used standard spellings. Hard rock became bigger and louder than any beat before it, simply because it was amplified and very noisy.
There are lots of superstars these days; among fifteen number one hits there are the ones of Madonna, Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, Cindy Birdsong. In the 1970-80s Michael Jackson made his fantastic career. In addition to live performances he produced a lot of records, CDs and video clips. His particular ability to combine extraordinary gracious movements with singing brought him fame all the world round.
Some young musicians combined their vocal and composer masteries with their dramatic skills (so-called “performance”). The talented singer Diamond Galas (1955) using a very gloomy vampire stage image and lots of technical and light effects created unsurpassed emotional performances full of energy and expressions. Joan La Barbara (1947) possessing a wonderful vocal technique brilliantly experiments with modern compositions written by her husband Morton Subotnic and chamber music easily passing from charming whispering and thrilling moans to anxious beast cries. Black composer Anthony Davis (1951) improvises with l modernism, ,jazz and Indian rhythms.
Besides folk and pop music so-called “serious” music is also very famous. The greatesr opera house “Metropolitan Opera” is located in New York, but there plenty of other ones. Now live performances of classical music are held in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco and other cities, many of which are famous for their orchestras and conductors. There are over 1500 orchestras throughout the country, many of which can be termed “major” or world-class. The symphony “The Last Alice” (1976) by David Del-Tredichy written on Luis Carol’s “Alice in Wonderland” is successfully played by Chicago symphonic orchestra.
School and university ensembles and orchestras play a very important role throughout the country to bring up the level of the culture of young people.. There are hundreds of city, state and nationwide music competitions. In addition, the universities provide cultural offerings in many areas of the nation, especially in smaller places, which would otherwise find it difficult to support a major symphony or concert.
In the 20PthP century besides George Gershwin and Aaron Copland there appeared the number of very talented composers: Leonard Bernstein (1919-80) who wrote two ballets, an opera and the music for “West Side Story”, Philip Glass and Stiven Polus whose operas were staged in New York and Minneapolis (state Minnesota). Some modern composer experimented with moderns forms. ' composition “Keys to the City” devoted to the Centenary of the Brooklyn Bridge is a very complex weave of romantic concert traditions with the city noises and folklore elements and jazz.
One of the very popular genre in the USA “musicals” have truly American origin. The first popular musical was “Oklahoma», performed in the 1940s. Since “Oklahoma” many musical plays have appeared on the American stage. Among the most noteworthy musicals there were “On your Toes”(1966) with original George Balanchire choreography, “Funny Face”, “My One and Only” based on Gershwins shows. Very successful musicals were also “ My Fair Lady”, the musical version of B. Shaw’s play “Pygmalion” and “West Side Story”, portraying tense and hostile relationships between the Puertoricans and native New Yorkers. The musicals”Cats”, “A Chorus Line» and “Hair” are ones of the longest-running shows on Broadway.
Closely related to the development of American music in the early 20PthP century was the emergence of a new, and distinctively American, art form - modern dance. American choreographers searched for new methods of expression. Merce Cunningham (1919) introduced improvisation and raqndom movement into performances. Alvin Ailey (1931-1989) incorporated African dance elements and black music into his works. Among the early innovators was Isadora Duncan (1878-1927), who stressed pure, unstructured movement in classical ballet.
The first American ballet troupes were founded in the 1930s, when dancers and choreographers teamed up with visionary lovers of ballet such as Lincoln Kirstein (1907-1996) who invited Russian choreographer George Balanchine (1904-1983) to the United States in 1933. The two established the School of American Ballet, which became the New York City Ballet in 1948. Ballet manager and publicity agent Richard Pleasant (1909-1961) founded America’s second leading ballet organization, American Ballet Theatre, with dancer and patron Lucia Chase (1907-1986) in 1940.
While Pleasant included Russian classics in his repertoires, G. Balanchine announced that his American company would mix classical idioms with the new forms. Since then, the American ballet scene has been a mixture of classical revivals and very original works, choreographed by such talented former dancers as Jerome Robbins, Robert Joffrey , Eliot Feld, Arthur Mitchell, and Russian dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov..
New World , New Architecture
American architects of the later 19PthP – 20PthP centuries found themselves in a world being reshaped by science, industry, and speed. The needs of a new American society pressed them, while steel, reinforced concrete, cast iron and electricity were among the many new technical means at their disposal. The 20PthP-century architecture often approached engineering, expanding and incorporating modern stylistic elements, and works such as the Brooklyn Bridge by John and Washington Roebling (1869-83) number among the most impressive of all American achievements. The 20PthP-century architecture often approached engineering, expanding and incorporating modern stylistic elements.
For many people the symbol of America. is New York Manhattan skyline. The origin of skyscrapers can be traced back more than a hundred years to the American Midwest and has become the result of a need for more working and living space in places where the cost of land was very high. During the end of the 19PthP century and beginning of the 20PthP the great number of high, narrow buildings began to rise not only in New York, but also in the center of Chicago and some other American cities. Each skyscraper was built around a framework of steel beams, which carried the weight of the building. The walls of the early skyscrapers were often made of stone, but later of glass and metal. They give the images not only of modernity and technical progress but also of visual expression to the impact of the United States on the world. Among the world’s tallest buildings there are the Chrysler Building (1930) and the Empire State Building (1931).Still today, despite the loss of the World Trade Center towers, no city in the world has more completed individual free-standing buildings over 500 ft.(152 m.) than New York City with its 184 so-called skyscrapers.
From the 1930s onwards, skyscrapers also began to appear in Latin America and Asia .Now Hong Kong comes in with the most in the world (186). From the late 1950s and the early 1960s skyscrapers began to appear in Africa, the Middle East and Australia.
Immediately after World War 11, the Soviet Union planned eight massive skyscrapers dubbed “Stalin Towers” for Moscow, seven of which were built. The rest of Europe also slowly began to permit skyscrapers, starting with Madrid in Spain during the 1950-60s.
The Americanization of popular taste and habits was not restricted to music, movies and architecture.From supermarkets to hot dogs, from Coca-Cola, Chewing Gum to nylon fiber and blue jeans – all these things which are so common to people of very many countries were born in the USA .In many areas of life American popular tastes and attitudes have conquered the world
The first supermarkets appeared in the USA in the 1950s. With their huge variety of foods and other consumer goods supermarkets gave the American shoppers a visible proof of the superiority of the American way of organizing a nation’ economic life. When supermarkets proved a commercial success in the USA, they quickly spread to other countries, first in Europe and then in other parts of the world.
The growing popularity of hamburgers, fried chicken and other easily prepared “fast food” spread American eating habits all over the world. Blue jeans and T-shirts Americanized the dress habits of the people on every continent. The habit of wearing jeans is –along with the computers, the copying machine, rock music, polio vaccine and skyscrapers – one of the major contributions of the US to the postwar world at large.
Answer the questions.
I.How many periods are there in the USA art and literature and which
factors are they associated with?
2.What are the most famous art galleries and museums in the USA?
3.What are your favorite American writers?
4.Where is the center of theatrical life in the USA?
5. Who are America’s most important playwrights?
6. Where and how was American cinema born?
7.Why did Hollywood become a symbol of the American dream?
8.Why did Charlie Chaplin continue to be popular?
9.What musical traditions has American music assimilated?
10.How did jazz emerge? What musicians made a great contribution to the
popularization of jazz?
11.When did Rock-‘n-Roll appear on the musical scene?
12.What American composers do you know?
13.Why so-called sky-scrapers appear in the USA?
14.Why did American pop culture become so popular abroad?
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