Influence of Popular Culture on Character Formation in the Contemporary Croatian Children's Novel / Utjecaj popularne kulture na oblikovanje likova u suvremenom hrvatskom dječjem romanu

Abstract

Abstract

The influence of popular culture on the contemporary children's novel is multifaceted and complex, and is reflected in all levels of discourse. This paper discusses the elements and strategies of popular culture which we can observe in the contemporary Croatian children's novel (more specifically, novels published from 1970 up to the present, that is, in the period in which popular culture had a remarkable boom), which are visible in the concepts of designing novelistic characters. Through analytical insight into the characters of individual children's novels written in that period, with respect to various aspects such as complexes of world-views and ideas, linguistic habitus, social and psychological basis of characters, the child-adult opposition, the role of gender stereotypes, and determination by typical motifs of modern pop-culture practices (primarily related to urban areas as centres of entertainment and consumption), we detect the manner and extent of the influence of popular culture in the context of the modern Croatian children's novel. This is, on the one hand, considered given the general attitude of popular culture and literature for children (both older, and here thematised, contemporary) and, on the other hand, connected to postmodern determinants of contemporary social and cultural (especially literary), practices.

Key words: characters; consumerism; contemporary Croatian children's novel; popular culture; postmodernism

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Sažetak

Utjecaj popularne kulture na suvremeni dječji roman višestruk je i slojevit te se reflektira na svim diskurzivnim razinama. U radu se razmatraju elementi i strategije popularne kulture koje možemo uočiti u suvremenom hrvatskom dječjem romanu (točnije, u romanima objavljenima u razdoblju od 1970. do danas, kada je popularna kultura doživjela osobit procvat), a koji su vidljivi u koncepcijama oblikovanja romanesknih likova. Analitičkim uvidom u likove pojedinih dječjih romana nastalih u navedenom razdoblju, s obzirom na različite aspekte kao što su svjetonazorski i idejni kompleks, jezični habitus, socijalna i psihološka podloga likova, opozicija djeca – odrasli, uloga rodnih stereotipa i determiniranost tipičnim motivima suvremenih popularnokulturnih praksi (ponajprije vezanih uz urbane sredine kao središta zabave i potrošnje), detektira se način i obim utjecaja popularne kulture u kontekstu suvremenog hrvatskog dječjeg romana. Navedeno se, s jedne strane, razmatra s obzirom na generalni odnos popularne kulture i književnosti namijenjene djeci (kako starije, tako i ovdje tematizirane, suvremene) dok se, s druge strane, povezuje s postmodernim odrednicama suvremenih društvenih i kulturnih (osobito književnih) praksi.

Ključne riječi: konzumerizam; likovi; popularna kultura; postmoderna; suvremeni hrvatski dječji roman.