Noam Chomsky and Pop Culture
Interviewer: What about what the American masses are actually watching? Wasn’t a sitcom like Roseanne or a cartoon like The Simpsons in some way progressive? Wasn’t this radical popular culture?
Chomsky: This isn’t real popular culture, the real art of the people. This is just stuff which is served up to them to rot their minds. Real popular culture is folk art - coalminers’ songs and so forth.
- ‘Let’s Stay Chummy, Chomsky’
Chomsky: All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.
Interviewer: You really had no clue what Hustler Magazine was at the time (they duped you into taking an interview)?
Chomsky: Never heard of it. I’m pretty much out of popular culture altogether.
Interviewer: That everyday world that most people find so fascinating, why is it so uninteresting to you?
Chomsky: I don’t know, I just don’t care about it. It looks to me pointless and superficial. If I had free time I’d rather read a nineteenth century novel.
Interviewer: Do you know who Lady Gaga is?
Chomsky: I’ve seen ads and stuff, but no.
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