Fabricating the absolute fake : : America in contemporary pop culture / / Jaap Kooijman.

• Author: Kooijman, Jaap.
• Year of Publication: 2008
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: American Studies
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (182 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

From the pageantry of Oprah Winfrey's daytime talk show to the Atlanta-based Coca-Cola empire, American "pop" culture-and the contemporary films, television programs, and cultural objects that determine it-dominates the rest of the world through its hegemonic presence. Does that make everyone a hybridized American or do these elements find mediation within the other cultures that consume them? Fabricating the Absolute Fake applies elements of postmodern theory-Jean Baudrillard's hyperreality and Umberto Eco's "absolute fake", among others-to this globally mediated American pop culture in order to examine both the phenomenon itself and its specific appropriation in the Netherlands, as evidenced by diverse cultural icons like the Elvis-inspired crooner Lee Towers, the Moroccan-Dutch white rapper Ali B, musical tributes to an assassinated politician, and the Dutch reality soap opera scene. A fascinating exploration of how global cultures struggle to create their own "America" within a post-September 11 media culture, Fabricating the Absolute Fake reflects on what it might mean to truly take part in American popular culture. "A brilliant, thoroughly enjoyable work of cultural critique. . . . Jaap Kooijman takes seemingly exhausted concepts like "Americanization" and turns them on their head."-Anne McCarthy, New York University

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Fabricating the Absolute Fake -- Chapter One: We Are the World: America's Dominance in Global Pop Culture -- Chapter Two: The Oprahifi cation of 9/ 11: America as Imagined Community -- Chapter Three: The Desert of the Real: America as Hyperreality -- Chapter Four: Americans We Never Were: Dutch Pop Culture as Karaoke Americanism -- Chapter Five: The Dutch Dream: Americanization, Pop Culture, and National Identity -- Conclusion: Let's Make Things Better -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index