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Psychoanalysis and Popular Culture,

Although they are often considered separately, there are two possible relationships between
psychoanalysis and popular culture and the media. On the one hand, psychoanalysis is a
critical theory that contributes to cultural studies by applying a specific grid of interpretation
to cultural objects, from paintings to adverts to films. On the other hand, the cultural authority
of psychoanalysis is necessarily built through its popularization in mass culture in a positive
form with Freudism, and in its opposing, but reciprocal, form with anti-Freudism.
Psychoanalysis as Cultural Critique
The application of psychoanalysis to art, literature and popular culture is a movement that is
inherent to the development of the science of the unconscious, as conceived by Sigmund
Freud. This movement goes far beyond clinical practice, even though Freud constantly
illustrated his approach through the pathography (or medical biography) of famous artists
such as Leonardo da Vinci and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The aim was to study the creative
process, in other words the link that existed between the creators affectivity and his or her
creative aesthetics. As well as these limited case studies, which were strongly criticized by
specialists in art history, Freud also used psychoanalysis as a tool for the cultural critique of
war, religion and the discontents of civilization. And it is this more general sense that can
explain its integration into cultural studies.
In this field, psychoanalysis is used today to reveal the emotional, imaginary and
symbolic aspects to cultural objects such as films, novels, magazines and adverts. Gender
relations offer a classic and paradigmatic example of this approach, developed by feminist
researchers. Studies show, for example, how the image of women in the cinema is constructed
through the male gaze. The aim is to reveal and denounce the impact of patriarchal societys
unconscious and of its cultural authority, which makes woman into objects of desire, in the
very content and narrative structure of films, which become henceforth a means for
reproducing the dominant ideology regarding the social relations between the sexes.
Cultural Authority of Psychoanalysis
The dissemination of psychoanalysis and the construction of its cultural authority depend

upon the popularization of its theory of the unconscious and its impact on popular culture.
From the very early stages, this inspired cultural productions (theater, literature, cinema,
comic book series, etc.), which sometimes included either the figure of the psychoanalyst or
even Freud himself, with his couch and his cigar as cultural icons. The HBO drama In
Treatment is a recent example of this phenomenon (2008-2011). Moreover, psychoanalysis
had more generally transformed the moral language that we use to speak of ourselves and of
our relationships to others, making the great majority of people aware of the secrets of
demonstrations of the unconscious, such as slips-of-the-tongue, the Oedipus complex and
phallic symbols. The radio and magazines have been important means for the dissemination
of this language, around media figures such as Donald Winnicott in the UK and Franoise
Dolto in France, who both address questions of education.
This popularization involves substantial distortions of the theory. Certain
psychoanalysts even consider this generalized fascination to be a sophisticated form of
resistance to psychoanalysis, and therefore suspect. Nonetheless, culture at large is the locus
for evaluating the legacy of psychoanalysis today. The very existence of the Freud Wars in
the United States in the 1990s, and in France at the turn of the twenty-first century, taking as
their target the cultural icon now represented by Freud, is particularly revelatory of the
ambivalent role that Freudism still plays today in popular culture, and of its conflicts of
interest. By attempting to tarnish or reverse the image of psychoanalysis and Freud in popular
culture, anti-Freudism shows clearly the essential and inherent relationship between
psychoanalysis and culture.
Samuel Lz
ENS de Lyon (France)
See Also: Art and Artists; Creativity; Critical theory; Education; Freud, Sigmund; Sociology
and History of psychoanalysis; Mass Media.
Further Readings
Bainbridge, C. Radstone, S. Rustin, M. and Yates, C. (eds.) Culture and the Unconscious.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Crews, Frederick.C. (ed.). Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend. New York:
Viking, 1998.
Donald, James (ed.). Psychoanalysis and Cultural theory. London: Macmillan, 1991.
Hale, Nathan G. Jr. The Rise and Crisis of Psychoanalysis in the United States: Freud and the
Americans, 1917-1985. Freud in America, vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Jones, Michael, Bad Ideas of the Twentieth Century: Freudism, Without Walls, Channel
Four, 1993.
Roth, Michael. Freud: Conflict and Culture. New York: Knopf, 1998.
Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society (Journal).

Thwaites, Tony. Reading Freud. Psychoanalysis as Cultural Theory, London: Sage, 1997
Winter, Sarah. Freud and the Institution of Psychoanalytic Knowledge, Palo Alto: Stanford
University Press, 1999.