Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 2, August 2001 | Page 8

Moss focuses on the racist and imperialistic sides of the Indiana Jones series, thus
providing a strong contrast to the “hero” as presented by Iaccino.
In the political arenas, we include Jack Slay’s humorous, yet potent summary
of the uses and abuses of the term Postmodernism in current culture. As Slay
assures: “There is nothing postmodern about McDonald’s or the Pottery Barn,
about Thomas Kinkade, ‘Painter of Light,’ or Michael Flatley, that Riverdance
fellow.” Slay gives a cogent history of the term from its nineteenth century incep
tion in the world of painting, through its adoption by the French theorists of the
1960s and ’70s (“think of them as a sort of a Justice League of America with really
thick glasses and really big vocabularies”), to its current position as the favorite
term of popular culture. Victoria Pitts contributes perhaps the most important ar
ticle of this issue, “Popular Pedagogies, Illness and the Gendered Body: Reading
Breast Cancer Discourse in Cyberspace” a critical examination of websites alleg
ing to provide information, support and personal power to women with breast
cancer. Pitts exposes the influences of the surveillance of women’s bodies by bio
medicine and some of the consequences of such surveillance, i.e., benefits to in
surance companies, the “creation” of the potentially diseased woman, and the bur
dens placed on women as responsible for preventing and managing the disease.
Her analysis of the consumeristic aspects of the “Breast Fest” website is powerful
and frightening.
Our final three articles include Larry Burriss’ history of Reuben James, a
sailor in the American Revolution, a World War II ship, and a popular song from
the 1940s; Philip Vannini’s exploration of popular bumper stickers and their role
in promoting a materialistic, narcissistic personality type; and H. Peter Steeves’
discussion of the multiply-split personality of “the All American City” — PCR’s
home town — Las Vegas. Each of these articles provides absorbing and unique
perspectives on popular culture in but a few of its multifarious aspects.
Please note that at the end of the issue we have included an Errata correcting
the endnote numbering in Arnold S. Wolfe’s article “ ‘Unreal Fields’: Constitu
ents of the Lasting Popularity of the Beatles’ Strawberry Fields Forever” which
appeared in volume 12.1. We hope, as always, that you find this issue of PCR
enlightening and enticing. Read on!
Juli Barry
Associate Editor

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