Blue-Collar Pop Culture

This narrative work carries a somewhat misleading title. The topic of discussion is not the milieu of working-class men and women per se, but rather, for the most part, the portrayal of this socioeconomic stratum in the mass media. Author or editor of more than 40 books on such topics as literature, literary theory, and popular culture, Booker (English, Univ. of Arkansas, Fayetteville) gathers 38 essays by scholarly contributors that examine gender, politics, stereotypes, and class conflict as filtered through the prisms of television, film, and even comic strips. A sprinkling of essays looks at other aspects of wage-earning life, such as music ("The Boss and the Workers: Bruce Springsteen as Blue-Collar Icon"), sports ("Driving to Victory: NASCAR in American Culture"), and what is termed "Everyday Blue-Collar Culture" ("Money in the Ruins: The Conversion of Abandoned Blue-Collar Worksites into Tourist Attractions"). The text is well researched and documented; each chapter concludes with "Notes" and/or "Works Cited" sections. The impetus for this work, as stated in the introduction, is that, as far as the United States is concerned, "the working class is, to an extent, underrepresented in American popular culture, making it all the more important for critics to focus on working-class themes when studying popular culture." It is not clear, however, what greater representation of those themes would accomplish, if anything.