Please answer all of the following questions. Those that require citations from your texts will have
“Citation Required” typed in bold text after each question. The maximum expected response for each
short answer question is half a page, single-spaced. There is no minimum response, though you must be
sure to thoroughly respond to each prompt. Feel free to email me if you have questions.
1. In your text by Marcel Danesi, you read (in chapter one), that pop culture is “a collage of
elements that somehow cohere into a thematic whole that we grasp intuitively as integrated
and cohesive.” He offers seven basic “aspects” that are evident in popular culture; choose two
of those aspects and clarify how examples of them are evident in Thriller. Citation Required.
2. How did technology facilitate the rise of the freak show in 19th century America? How did it also
contribute to its fall in the early 20th century?
3. Thomas Fahy asserts that “the success of freak shows was contingent on their ability to maintain
the distance between viewer and freak.” What did I call this distance in class lecture? Why did
this distance collapse after World War I? Citation Required
4. Alexander Saxton asserts in his reading that blackface minstrelsy is “linked from its earliest
beginnings to Jacksonian America.” As per my lecture, what was Jacksonian American like and
why was it an environment ripe for the success of blackface? Citation Required.
5. According to Tracy Mollet, what are the 1920s ideologies upon which the Wicked Queen is
based? Cite the reading and give an example from the film.
Text Book used – Popular Culture Fourth edition Author: Marcel Danesi
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