Metapop: Self-referentiality in Contemporary American Popular Culture
by Michael Dunne

Since no other book has been written on this subject, Metapop blazes a trail into new territory. The author writes very clearly and gracefully and expresses what could be difficult critical concepts in concise and comprehensible prose free of jargon. He identifies a major characteristic of our culture and provides a definitive guide to the phenomenon. Metapop is his term for popular culture's reflection of itself in its genres. This "self-referentiality" is becoming a major characteristic of our popular culture, one in which genre is a metaphysical mirror of itself.

Examples occur frequently in films, television shows, the comics, and music. For instance, in Mel Brooks's film Spaceballs, Dark Helmet tracks his nemesis Lone Star by renting and viewing a videocassette of Spaceballs. SCTV, a television program, consists of comic sketches about television programs. Saturday Night Live consistently parodies and satirizes popular films and TV shows. In Moonlighting David Addison breaks off an argument with his cohort Maddie Hayes to explain his side of it directly to the viewing audience. In another instance, country-rock star Jerry Lee Lewis sings, "My life would make a damn good country song."

This is the first study to address the ever-growing curiosity of pop culture's reflection of itself in its art forms and to explore the extent to which "metapop" permeates our media and our society. The author's intelligent and well-articulated arguments show that he has identified a novel characteristic of our culture and has provided a definitive guide to understanding it.

Michael Dunne is a professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.