Paper Example on Cultural Capital and Dominant Culture

Introduction

Cultural capital is a term mostly applied in sociology to depict the social assets that individuals can possess such as knowledge, skills, intellect, behaviors, and style of speech that enable people to shift from one social status to another (Lamont 164). It enables people to develop cultural competence including the one's social ranking in the society. It is produced when the society identifies the assets that a person possesses and then applies them in ranking and rating the person. For example, a person who is known for giving advice to other concerning life can be ranked as an intellect whom the society should copy from.

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The Role of Cultural Capital in a Subculture

A subculture refers to a group of people who isolate themselves from a parent to form their norms and values which they start following. It differs from the original culture although some aspects such as language and some cultural practices do not change totally (Schouten 55). Cultural capital plays a huge role in enhancing a subculture people who are identified to have similar assets can decide to join hands to separate themselves from the wide to form their own.

In the film Style Wars, a group of people supports the hip hop culture in America, led by Tony Silver and Henry Chalfant forms a group to support the graffiti music art. The art also contains some bouying and rapping. The film depicted the early 1970s when hip hop was still coming up. The film also shows how the culture faced rejection from many people from New York. The film promoted the culture of graffiti art in that they do it as a way of self-expression. However, some people in the film were against it, including the government who spent a lot of money to campaign against it.

On top of that, the graffiti artists were denied platforms to perform their work. However, the film ends by showing how the culture came to develop into an acceptable music genre in New York. As such, The Style Wars film shows how the small group of Graffiti artists grew into a subculture that later became a culture accepted by people in New York. The graffiti artists possessed cultural capital asset of the art of music which made them develop a subculture (Slessor 13). Thus, possession of cultural capital assets can help a group of individual develop a subculture.

Another film that describes the role of cultural capital in a subculture is the Goodnight Brooklyn show which aimed at playing the Death by Audio music was a kind of subculture on its own in that it entailed a group of people in Brooklyn, New York who had to develop love for the high sound music with was mainly played at night. Those who attended the night festivals involved themselves in dancing drinking and hanging around with the opposite sexes. As a result, the music attracted to hate from those who disliked the activities that occurred during the night at Brooklyn in New York. Later, the music attracted many people, especially youths who developed a taste for the Dead by Audio music. The music is expected to grow since young artists have developed a sense for the music. The subculture is expected to expand, and soon it may turn a whole music culture liked by many people. The film also supports the idea that cultural capital assets can lead to the development of a subculture.

On the other hand, the work of Sharon Zukin such as Loft Living book talks about the artistic mode of production. In the book, Sharon explains how investors in the New York Estates use artists and culture to attract capital. The book brings out the idea that some people misuse capital culture to earn income and gain prestige which did not exist before. The development of artistic subcultures perpetuated the habit of investors using cultural capital assets to gain wealth and fame.

Effects of Cultural Capital and Subcultures on the Cultural Landscape of New York

As explained earlier, cultural capital plays a role in the development of subcultures. The existence of different cultural capital assets among the people has resulted in the emergence of subcultures which has affected the cultural landscape of people in New York City. For incidence, the development of music cultures such as graffiti has changed the behavior of many people in the city especially children and young. They have ended up applying the language used in the graffiti and hip-hop culture in normal lives which has eroded their lives.

Impacts of the success of the Subcultures on Producers and Places they were createdIn New York, many subcultures were created, and they had a great impact on the city and the producers of such subcultures. First of all, the producers of the cultures gained a lot of fame and fame after the subcultures they came up with succeeded. In addition, they gained recognition as the leaders of the subcultures who are remembered up to date. On the other hand, places, where such cultures were created, developed different cultural practices which did not exist before. For example, the hip-hop culture changed the way of life of people in New York including the walking style, dressing, and language.

Works Cited

Lamont, Michele, and Annette Lareau. "Cultural Capital: Allusions, gaps, and glissandos in recent theoretical developments." Sociological theory (1988): 153-168.

Schouten, John W., and James H. McAlexander. "Subcultures of consumption: An ethnography of the new bikers." Journal of consumer research 22.1 (1995): 43-61.

Slessor, Catherine. "Architecture that goes beyond style wars." (2015): 13-13.