The saxophonist and singer leaves a legacy spanning more than 60 years of musical production that will continue to echo in global sounds.
Beyoncé arrives at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating “China: Through the Looking Glass” on May 4, 2015, in New York.
(AP Photo/Evan Agostini)
From a quiet start to cultural dominance, Beyoncé’s work over the last decade is groundbreaking. But it is also filled with questions and contradictions.
It’s a mistake to see Trump as unique or his success as something that could only occur in America.
Pete Marovich/Pool/EPA
Trump lives by the maxim that you can get away with almost anything as long as you’re not boring. This doesn’t make him an outlier – he’s emblematic of our contemporary pop culture.
Hanukkah demands fewer religious rituals than most other Jewish observances.
Golden Pixels LLC
Despite the primacy of Christmas in American culture, the visibility of Hanukkah in pop culture reminds Jews that they have their own holiday in which they can take pride.
Although the show was rightly criticised for its lack of diversity, the First Slayer - she who begat all future slayers, including Buffy - was black.
20th Century Fox/IMDB
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a cult classic, was a series with a diversity problem. News of a new season provides an opportunity for a different kind of storytelling.
Glover and hip-hop are reaching their apex at the same time, giving Glover an avenue to enter the ranks of creative geniuses. But does his race matter?
Australian pulp fiction: these works can be read as a symptom, laying bare the unspoken fears, desires, dreams and nightmares of the time.
Author provided
Mid-20th century pulp fiction was trashy, tasteless, exploitative and lurid. There’s a lot there to love. You might read pulp as a cultural Freudian slip, loony bulletins from the collective Id.
Johnny Hallyday in concert in May 2014.
Mathieu Thouvenin/Flickr
Fabrice Raffin, Auteurs historiques The Conversation France
Johnny Hallyday was more than a music icon, he was a cultural symbol for the French lower and the middle classes. In his death he reconciled the country with the term popular culture.
Kyle MacLachlan in the new season of Twin Peaks: has the Internet helped fuel nostalgia for TV shows from decades past?
Rancho Rosa Partnership, Showtime Networks
Twin Peaks has just hit our streaming services, again, alongside reboots of the X-Files, Gilmore Girls, and more. But, despite our nostalgia, they’ll never revive the specific time they were born in.
YouTube beauty blogger Zoella has had more than 950 million views of videos on her channel.
Zoella/YouTube
Hopper’s brand of Americanism was a counterpoint to American optimism. Fifty years after his death, his legacy lives on.
Dar Digest (story ‘Muhafiz’), February 2015. Free from the fetters of common natural laws, horror stories represent a society’s fears and prejudices.
J.Schaflechner
Historically, pop culture has tended to depict transgender people as objects of comedy or monstrous freaks. But attitudes are changing, as a new novel featuring a transgender child shows.
Homer Simpson visits the Sydney Opera House in a promotional video ahead of Matt Groening’s visit to Australia this week.
Twentieth Century Fox/Sydney Opera House
The subtlety laced with satire that graced earlier shows has been replaced by a brash, carelessness. And Homer, while always loud-mouthed, is now positively abusive. After 28 seasons, is it time for The Simpsons’ creators to call it a day?
A scene from Heathers the Musical based on the 1988 film.
Kurt Sneddon
Eighties culture is big, from nostalgic TV dramas to tours by ageing pop stars. But it’s time for a clear-eyed assessment of the decade, which prized excess and economic rationalism along with synth pop and big hair.
From ‘Machiavellian female princes’ to warriors, assassins and prostitutes, the women of Westeros and Essos are a richly varied bunch. A new book examines their role in the series and explores its sexual politics.
Beyoncé and Jay Z’s marriage is the immediate focus of ‘Lemonade.’ But it’s also a tale of the black family in America.
Andrew Kelly/Reuters
The psychological complexity of Shakespeare’s characters has rendered them timeless. Today, we see The Bard’s influence in shows like ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘True Detective.’
Professor in U.S. Politics and U.S. Foreign Relations at the United States Studies Centre and in the Discipline of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne