Raymond Williams 'The Analysis of Culture' applied to Christina Aguilera's 'Beautiful'

THE CATEGORIES AND LEVELS OF CULTURE

According to Raymond Williams in his essay 'The Analysis of Culture' there is a specific framework which one must comprehend in order to understand the workings of culture. A keyword, he states, is pattern. Though in a sense, understanding will always be naturally abstracted because we remain mostly removed from the referenced period, Williams affirms that we must make an effort to examine the relationships between certain historical elements in order to cultivate and discern meaning from a past society or time. Thus, three categories of culture: Ideal, Documentary and Social, and three levels of culture: Selected, Recorded and Lived have been negotiated from his analysis.


Lived
In 2001 at the turn of the 21st centuary where social tolerance should be improving Aguilera beautiful represents the hegemonic struggle of the outcast and the concept of beauty. Williams observations still apply today in our image conscious society when he wrote “I find it very difficult, after the many comparative studies now on record to identify the process of human perfection with the discovery of ‘absolute’ values” ( p33,Williams.R. 1961) Culturally and socially every ones value of human perfection differs depending on their traditions and values, The lived experience taps into the listener’s deep emotional insecurities, this appeals to audiences of all ages who feel the media’s pressure of an ideal body image. There are many representations of youth, key themes being anorexia, homosexuality and bullying which highlight aspects of culture which are still seen as taboo.


Selected
Judging by the awards the song beautiful has received there could seem to be a contradictory element in view of the selected according to mixed reviews. One reviewer said “It was a bold break from the teeny bopper persona she was desperate to shed, but it was over corrective steering, taking her a little bit too far down the road toward a grotesque caricature”
(http://shop.mtv.com/Back-to-Basics-Video-Music%20Awards_stcVVproductId5314489VVcatId421132VVviewprod.htm) It is a apparent that Aguilera wants to gain a reputation as a musician of high culture and art, and wants the public to move on from her popular culture status as a teen sensation, by doing a song like Beautiful. Christina comments at the "The song 'Beautiful' is about being or feeling unaccepted for merely being your self, yet knowing through any hardships, we are all beautiful despite the differences or insecurities. My video captures the reality that gay and transgender people are beautiful, even though prejudice and discrimination against them still exists." (Christina Aguilera, February 2003 wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Aguleria) Beautiful earned Aguilera the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 2004 and The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) presented a special award for inclusion to her in February 2003 for the positive images of gay and transgender people. Aguilera popularity increased as her music was seen to have taken a serious turn by a wider audience.

Social
With regards to Williams “We find here a particular sense of life, a particular sense of community hardly needing expression…we are usually more aware of this when we read an account of our lives by someone from outside the community” (p36, Williams R. 1961) Aguilera represents lifestyles and communities who experience discrimination through a music video. Aguilera as the agent has popular media status she is an outsider with power, by singing ”we are beautiful, no matter what they say, no words can’t bring us down” this allows her to speak to a wider community. By telling their stories visually others can relate to these experiences: an example is of a gay couple kissing as people stare with disgust on the street or of a school girl being bullied in the playground.


Recorded
Beautiful has had over 986 hits on You Tube and over a dozen re enactments of the video. One video features Two teenage girls called Beautiful dedicated to mean girls, where they the ‘discriminated’ express through the song how they feel to the mean girls at their school. Aguilera has broadened her profile and had become more high culture since her ‘stripped’ album. Critics and others saw a dirtier, dark edge to her character and look. Aguilera was the face of cutting edge make up MAC which also feature Mary J blige and Elton John. Christina is renowned for her extravagant make up and Diva ways but as she became the face of Versace in March 2003, she appeared bare faced without wearing any make up. This is in addition to the millions of Albums and CD’s she has sold, concert tours and music downloads.


Documentary
What has been well documented post 2002 since the release of her album ‘stripped’ her sound has become more classical with “real” instruments as opposed to the pop synth sounds. Technically Christina has a powerful voice, and with beautiful ahs chosen to sing a traditional ballad. With regards to the video she had gone for a contemporary look with piercing signifying that she is both agent and audience, therefore she is perceived as one of “them”.
Whether this is just another costume, as Aguilera does like to emulate different personas and icons, can be left to further discourse. What is evident is that the appeal of beautiful both lyrically and visually for it’s time has allowed Aguilera to experiment with high cultural and historical music media while still appealing to a mass popular cultural audience with socially aware contemporary issues.


Ideal
Whether the concept of Beautiful has touched and influenced many to be kinder and accept one another in society is open to debate. But what is evident is that the lyrics do portray the daily struggle of various people who feel like misfits in society and how one copes with the pressure of image perfection and acceptance from others. Ultimately one must question to what extent these representations are a true reflection of the common man considering the author and the media? As William suggests “It is then not a question of relating the art to the society, but of studying all the activities and their interrelations, without any concession of priority to any one of them we any choose to abstract” (Williams,R, 1961, The long Revolution p 35) Aguilera has went from being a mediocre teeny bopper popular cultural icon to a recognized high cultural one examples like Williams definition suggests “well liked by many people, inferior kinds of work, work deliberately setting out to win the favour of the people” (Williams, 1961, The long Revolution p 4) or in Levis terms mass culture is a residual of high culture. However one looks at it Aguilera was often ridiculed for her dress, sense hello magazine points out “The fact that Christina has won several "worst dressed" awards seems to be no obstacle” (http://www.hellomagazine.com/fashion/2003/03/05/aguileraversace/)
Bourdiueu 1984 defines this shift in cultural status by staying “The position of culture is predisposed, consciously and deliberately or not, to fulfill a social function and legitimating social differences” (Storey J. 1998 popular theory and popular culture, p 1)