Pop Art's Influence On American Culture

Pop art’s influences on American culture post World War II acted as a “cultural revolution” led by innovative artists, like Warhol, who used their art to influence the development of society. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s commentary of this piece stated, “What made these works significant was Warhol's co-opting of universally recognizable imagery, such as a Campbell's soup can, Mickey Mouse, or the face of Marilyn Monroe, and depicting it as a mass-produced item, but within a fine art context. In that sense, Warhol wasn't just emphasizing popular imagery, but rather providing commentary on how people have come to perceive these things in modern times: as commodities to be bought and sold, identifiable as such with one glance”(collections.lacma.org). …show more content…
An article in the The Huffington Post stated, “Housewives resented the favorable distribution of sugar to commercial bakeries. This made them more reliant on bought cakes and denied them the homely activity of baking”(huffingtonpost.org). A women’s role during the 1950‘s was typically staying at home, cooking, and cleaning for their family. It was expected that she represented the class and social status of her household when out in public. Due to the mass production of canned goods women during this time felt as if their jobs as housewives had diminished. They had no need to cook and prepare tirelessly for their families meals, because food was always preserved and pre-made. A positive to this situation was that it allowed women to go out and work creating the new “working women.” These females broke gender stereotypes, and created a new normality of life that would soon lead to more and more women feeling the need to support their families by working for profit at jobs away from home. Warhol’s view on gender roles was very liberal as he often exemplified roles of men playing characters that are female. He saw gender as irrelevant, and portrayed images of male and female roles as coherent often merging the two by putting himself in drag or creating films that represented the sexuality of same sex relationships. It is imperative that if one sparks an interest in Andy Warhol’s pieces that they see it in person, because one is also able to see other works from the same artist that help give context to who the artist is, what they have interests in, and what they see as art. Moreover, one can understand context that is given by these museums who have put in extensive research and expertise to each piece