Popular culture is a perpetual uneven battlefield of domination and resistance

Evidence

Cultural domination has real effects, even if these are neither all-powerful nor all-inclusive. If we were to argue that these imposed forms have no influence, it would be tantamount to arguing that the culture of the people can exist as a separate enclave, outside the distribution of cultural power and the relations of cultural force. I do not believe that. Rather, I think there is a continuous and necessarily uneven and unequal struggle, by the dominant culture, constantly to disorganize and reorganize popular culture; to enclose and confine its definitions and forms within a more inclusive range of dominant forms. There are points of resistance; there are also moments of supersession. This is the dialectic of cultural struggle. In our times, it goes on continuously, in the complex lines of resistance and acceptance, refusal and capitulation, which make the field of culture a sort of constant battlefield. A battlefield where no once-for-all victories are obtained but where there are always strategic positions to be won and lost. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1006

Categorization

• XREF: Directly instantiates Gramscian hegemony as a continuous, never-final struggle — core framework for this book’s purpose.
• DEEPTHINKING: The battlefield metaphor captures hegemony’s defining paradox — domination wins positions but never final victory — worth returning to repeatedly.