La légitimation de la culture populaire

Nombres, mutations et autorités symboliques

Abstract

Increasingly, cultural value seems to be given according to the amount of money, clicks or followers that an artefact, movement or phenomenon can raise. This makes the question of cultural legitimation more relevant than ever. In the digital age, anyone can take a second job as a cultural critic (to paraphrase François Truffaut), a reality that forces us to reexamine how processes of valorization and social forces at work are redefining what is deemed worthy, important and valuable. This issue of Kinephanos presents five such reexaminations. Horea Avram presents the legitimation through adaptation, intertextuality and circulation of works. Gabriel Gaudette’s interest in rhetoric legitimation is expressed through the example of the « graphic novel » as a Trojan horse. Barbara Laborde discusses the decline of the « legitimate » movie culture in France in front of the proliferation and segmentation of sub-cultures, all fueled by the Internet and digital technologies. Louis-Paul Willis analyzes the metalepsis in film, a formal figure that had been reserved to marginal productions and that is now used in consecrated cinematography (like Lynch's Mulholland Drive). Finally, special contributor Will Straw examines the legitimation performed through the lack of stylistic and aesthetic unity, as constituted in the music compilation Meridian 1970. This publication of Kinephanos addresses complex and contemporary issues; ultimately, we ponder upon the collapse of symbolic authorities, traditionally responsible for the upholding of a certain level of quality and content.