Shopping For American Culture Essay - 906 Words

When James J. Farrell, professor of history, American studies, and American conversations at St. Olaf College wrote his article â€Å"Shopping for American Culture,† there were more malls than high schools within the United States. Malls were also generating more than 46.6 billion dollars in sales tax, which is â€Å"almost half of all state tax revenue.†1 Farrell recognizes these statements in the introduction of his article. In fact, he uses these statistics and determines that because of the population going to malls, shopping centers accurately reflect American culture. James Farrell suggests that to truly understand Americans and their culture, one must go to the places in which Americans congregate (malls). He supports the idea that†¦show more content†¦polls, survey questions, etc.). He cannot make that assumption because there are people who do not enjoy going to the mall. Another fault in Farrell’s reasoning is that one cannot buy an identity. W hile clothes and material objects can certainly create an identity of a sort, in today’s world of credit cards, expensive clothes do not necessarily indicate the wealth of a person. In the course of his article, Farrell promotes that the mall is the only source of American cultural information. â€Å"In short, malls help teach us the common sense of our culture. If we look closely at malls, we will soon be looking inside our own heads† (Farrell 251). First of all, not everybody goes to the mall to create or stimulate culture. Malls are also an enclosed environment and George Lewis in his article â€Å"Community Through exclusion and Illusion,† addresses the idea that since malls are enclosed, there is a false sense of community. â€Å" Malls can, and do, lure and assemble collectivities and crowds of shoppers, but these groups seldom share the common ties and engage in the sort of social interactions necessary to forge a sense of ‘weness’—of community—from the raw social material of a crowd.†2 Perhaps Lewis would say that Farrell has fallen into this trap of â€Å"community† that was created for the shoppers. While malls seemingly create a community, the populations at the malls are too diverse to create one uniform culture. Therefore it cannot beShow MoreRelatedTeen Shopping Habits1462 Words   |  6 PagesWith â€Å"mall rat† officially part of the Canadian vernacular, it’s not surprising that shopping malls top the list of where both female and male Teens hang out and shop. 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