A Popular Culture within a Popular Culture

It is clearly obvious how music is becoming an essential tool in film production and in determining how appealing a movie would be for its audience in the last couple of decades. However, this doesn't mean that movies that play music in them are definitely successful, nor the movies that you barely hear music playing in them are extreme failures.

Lots of songs became famous simply because they were played in big movies. And again, not all songs in movies achieved such success, in which the ones that would achieve it were mainly theme songs of movies, or the song’s artist is someone who’s already famous in the music industry. For instance, all of us know how “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion became a huge romance hit once it was played in the movie Titanic. Till this day we listen to this song playing in retail spaces, especially the numerous instrumental versions of it in fancy restaurants.

[Above: the theatrical poster of the movie "Titanic"]

Apart from how movies can bring songs or artists to fame, the opposite process is not different. A song or an artist can bring a particular movie or a TV show into fame as well. Most of these motion pictures feature famous singers or famous bands having short scenes in movies in which they just appear in to sing. And if course, when fans know that their favorite artist/artists are featuring in a particular movie, they definitely watch the movie to anticipate the part in which their idol/ idols going to perform in. A lot of examples I can give to elaborate this practice. The movie “New York Minute”—starring Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen—featured the famous pop punk band Simple Plan performing an amazing song that didn’t feature in any of their albums till this day. The song is called “Vacation” and people can have it only if they would buy the soundtrack of the motion picture.

[Above: the Olsen twins and Simple Plan]

Another movie was “Hannah Montana: The Movie.” Although it was meant to be for kids, a lot of adults watched it along with their children because it features a young talented country singer that people are obsessed with: Taylor Swift. She is that singer who brought life to country music again and made it popular among young people too. She was featured in the movie singing a hit that isn't in any of her albums till this day as well. The song is called “Crazier.”

Below is a video I made that shows how second-marketing plays a big role in the popularity of some movies:

Click Here to Watch the video on YouTube

What does this tell us? It tells us that media companies often refer to secondary markets (in this case, being music and famous artists) to minimize the risks of grabbing audience toward their productions. To conclude, popular cultures often rely on one another to achieve success and obtain the validity and vitality of their productions.