Pendergast T., Pendergast S. St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. Volume 5: U-Z
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The Hippoquarium at the Toledo Zoo, Ohio.
products filtered by human minds and placed in surroundings that say
something about the beauty of Creation, the dominance of humankind
over nature, or the need for environmental economy and sensitivity.
Whether enclosed in cages or moated ‘‘environments,’’ they usually
seem to do no work, earning their keep simply by being and being
looked at—only passively conveying their controllers’ subliminal
messages to viewers.
For most of the zoo’s history, this perceived limited utilitarian
function resulted in cramped quarters, poor diets, depression, and
early death for the animals. In an era when animals’ value was
measured by the physical work they did or the food they produced,
perhaps it was reasoned that if the animals served a merely decorative
function—as most zoo owners and visitors seemed to have felt they
did—they were not entitled to comfortable environments and interest-
ing daily activities. In the twentieth century, studies proved again and
again that for most animals a caged life was a short and unhappy one.
To begin with, for many species (including Homo sapiens), a stare is
received as a threat. Bored and depressed animals might fill the hours
with repetitive behaviors known as stereotypy: masturbating to a
danger point, pacing their paws raw, or—like many chained ele-
phants—swaying endlessly from side to side. Some chimpanzees
developed bulimia, and scientists documented psychosis in a baboon
kept on Cyprus. While some people were concerned about these
conditions over the years, few took it upon themselves to do much
more than decry them; the zoos were not there for the animals.
Over the years, animal collections and their subliminal signifi-
cance evolved from the huge local-antelope assemblages in Sakkarah,
Egypt, through signs of imperial power in ancient China and Rome, to
the living museums of the late twentieth century. In ancient times, a
large collection of exotics made a fine testament to royal or imperial
power, demonstrating a warrior’s ability to bring natural (and, by
extension, human) populations under control. Egyptian, Greek, and
Persian rulers were avid collectors, and the Hebrew Bible attributes a
substantial menagerie to King Solomon in the tenth century b.c.e. In
the early Common Era, Roman emperors kept lions, tigers, croco-
diles, elephants, and other impressive animals; the public could view
these exotics in between triumphal imperial processions and spec-
tacular gladiatorial exhibitions in which the animals were, by and
ZOOS ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
232
large, massacred—occasionally by the thousand. Medieval European
nobles and monarchs assembled private menageries that then testified
to the owners’ social position; exotic animals were often exchanged
as gifts and potent tokens of esteem. Lions and leopards were
considered particularly valuable; indeed, from the Middle Ages to the
nineteenth century, Europeans were more interested in the animals of
Africa and the Far East than in those of the New World. Meanwhile,
European voyagers were discovering the same passion for exotic
animals in other cultures: In the thirteenth century, Marco Polo
marveled at Chinese emperor Kublai Khan’s extensive menagerie,
including leopards, tigers, elephants, and hunting birds, while in 1519
Hernando Cortés reported that Aztec emperor Montezuma employed
hundreds of gardeners and animal keepers for his collections (three
hundred worked in the aviaries alone).
Zoos became increasingly attractive and important to the public
as cities developed; humankind was moving away from daily contact
with nature, and even locally occurring animals were exoticized by
urban living. Commoners—most of whom had no opportunity to
travel to distant locales—were just as interested in exotic collections
as their rulers were. Ancient Greeks could pay to see certain bird
collections, and starting in 1252 the subjects of Henry III of England
could visit his menagerie in the Tower of London for a small fee. In
the Renaissance, some enterprising men toured menageries around
smaller towns and villages. With the Industrial Revolution and its
attendant notions of educating and ‘‘re-creating’’ the worker, zoos
(like other large urban parks) became truly widespread and available
to the masses. A stroll through a zoological garden, it was believed,
was an opportunity for relaxation, play (visitors were usually encour-
aged to feed the animals), and useful contemplation of the wild
and exotic.
Zoos were never more popular than in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. The Philadelphia Zoo, the first to be
founded (though not the first to be opened) in the U.S., welcomed its
first visitors in 1874; that year 200,000 people paid 10 or 25 cents,
depending on age, to see 282 exotics. In an era when a bear cub could
cost only $10, the Central Park and Lincoln Park Zoos weren’t far
behind; the National Zoo opened in 1889, closely associated with the
Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. In fact, although there was
some emphasis on educating and enriching the common mind, such a
relationship between live- and dead-animal museums was not rare;
many zoos were founded as a response to taxidermists’ and scientists’
clamoring for live models. In the early 1800s, the nascent Zoological
Society of London declared its intention to bring together animals
‘‘from every part of the globe, to be applied either to some useful
purpose, or as objects of scientific research, not of vulgar admira-
tion.’’ Yet vulgar admiration could be said to have carried the day;
trained by television and amusement parks, the majority of twentieth-
century zoogoers went for cotton candy and sea lion stunt shows,
elephant feedings and monorail rides. Education—about habitat
destruction, the human value of the rainforest, the life cycle of the
koala bear—was largely incidental, though it did become the
adminstrators’ battle cry.
Late in the 1900s, to visit a typical modern zoological garden
was to step into an exotic realm, from the African village-style
gateway to the far reaches of the polar bear environment and the
ubiquitous jungle-themed trading posts and snack bars. But immer-
sion in an exotic environment was not always part of the experience.
Until well into the century, stacks of cages and gloomy indoor display
areas (some of them located in the upper stories of warehouses) were
considered acceptable; after all, the public was coming to see the
animals, not how the animals lived. The London Zoo, for example,
was famous for housing its collection in buildings that would be
considered stylish for human inhabitants—but those buildings were
not necessarily the most healthful or comfortable for the exotic
species. Plants were not part of a typical exhibit until France’s Louis
XIV established what is considered the first real zoological garden, at
Versailles. His design was revolutionary in that it displayed animals
(222 species) and plants together (rather than animals in cages and
plants outside). In 1907, German maverick Carl Hagenbeck opened
the first barless zoo, whose enclosures incorporated plant life along
with animals. Yet, until the end of the twentieth century, indoor
barracks and outdoor cages were the norm, and an effort toward
naturalism might mean someone had painted an iceberg on the wall of
the polar bear exhibit. To avoid harmful drafts, animals were often
denied any form of fresh air; historian Emily Hahn has written that in
1902, the cats, monkeys, and parrots in London’s Regent’s Park zoo
were kept from oxygen. To keep an animal alive under these condi-
tions was nearly miraculous—and, again, made a neat statement
about the powers of its possessor.
In 1993 Stephen St. C. Bostock, author of a book on zoos and
animal rights, pointed out that zoo animals weren’t really prisoners,
largely because they showed no consciousness of imprisonment; but
nonetheless their status was hotly debated in the late twentieth
century, with the result that many of the conditions in which they
lived underwent radical change. The newly documented stereotypy
led zookeepers to try sometimes radical treatments. A few animals
were given the antidepressant Prozac, with surprisingly positive
results; however, the cost of dosing a multi-ton elephant was prohibi-
tive, and in any case drugs were usually a last resort. It was generally
considered more desirable to enrich animals’ lives through stimulat-
ing activities, such as searching for food, and more naturalistic
environments. Landscape architects and contractors with truckloads
of faux rock moved in and remade one zoo after another with
cinematic realism. The more dangerous and exotic an animal was
perceived to be, the more popular it was, and hence the more money
and attention was lavished on its environment; lions, tigers, giant
pandas, koala bears, and gorillas were among the first to benefit from
new-generation treatment. In the 1980s, according to a Newsweek
estimate, 143 American zoos spent a billion dollars on enriching their
animals’ lives. Much of that sum went toward creating new naturalis-
tic environments with record-setting price tags, such as Zoo Atlanta’s
$4.5 million rainforest and the Bronx Zoo’s $9.5 million Jungleworld.
Most spending was on a more modest scale, but administrators
discovered that the animals tended to be happier in their new
environments—or at least, the animal lovers were happier with them.
Even these attempts at creating natural environments might
disappoint their inhabitants; a heap of gunite boulders probably
doesn’t feel like the real thing to a lion-tailed macaque. Moreover,
only the parts of an exhibit visible to viewers were likely to be
redesigned; the night cages, where the animals slept, generally didn’t
change. One administrator declared an intention to ‘‘mold an exhibit
that would provide zoo guests with an experience as natural as
possible’’; accordingly, most redesigns still kept the zoogoer, rather
than the inhabitant, in mind. Studies did in fact show that zoogoers (all
TV-trained by this point) tended to think animals displayed in natural
environments were more active and attractive, those in cages more
passive and less interesting. But all that planning and work was, in the
end, lavished on a fleeting experience: The 1987 AAZPA study found
that most visitors stayed at an exhibit for only one to three minutes.
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233
Hand in hand with redesign came an interest in conservation,
most of it dependent on highly developed technologies. In fact, zoos
already had a long history as breeding-grounds for scientific discov-
ery and research: In the eighteenth century, visits to the Swedish royal
menagerie inspired Carl von Linné (Linnaeus) to develop the latinate
system of binomial nomenclature by which animals and plants have
been classified ever since, and post-Industrial Revolution zoos were
considered valuable resources for natural historians and taxidermists.
In the mid-twentieth century, as human concern for the environment
mounted, zoo animals took on a new function, as agents of global
salvation. By means of captive breeding programs, including
cryogenically frozen eggs and sperm, zoos set out to become latter-
day arks, saving species from what many people saw as inevitable
extinction due to expanding industrialism and consequent environ-
mental catastrophe. There was also a concern with preserving not just
an animal’s body, but its natural behaviors (including mating, predation,
foraging, and leisure activities) as well. These new interests, like the
surge in redesign, were perhaps the indirect result of the technology
used in TV’s nature programs and cinema’s special effects: Zoos had
to become more ‘‘authentic,’’ too.
This emphasis on conservation was seen by some as ironic,
given the depredations that had taken place as industrial-era zoos
were first stocked. Until the Endangered Species Act was passed in
1973, famous animal suppliers such as Frank Buck regularly ventured
into the wild to slaughter adult animals and bring the babies back
alive. But by the end of the millennium there seemed to be little doubt
that preservation of individuals and conservation of species, as well as
enrichment of captive lives, were high priorities. Accredited zoos
joined a worldwide breeding network; under the SSPs, or Species
Survival Plans, sperm and eggs were frozen, live animals shipped
from one end of the globe to the other in order to mate. Some embryos
of rare animals, such as zebras, were gestated inside more common
species, such as domestic horses. Yet even with their best efforts and
most sophisticated technology, zoos estimated that they could save
only about 900 of the 2,000 vertebrate species expected to go extinct
by the year 2000.
With the cryogenic zoo, humankind became more than ever the
race that had mastered all others. Even as most zoological gardens
attempted to educate visitors about the beauty and importance of wild
animals and plants, other workers behind the scenes were manipulat-
ing nature with their test tubes and psychotropic medications; zoos
were thus a combination of television-era entertainment, lite news,
and science fiction. It must be emphasized that most of those
scientists and keepers—and many fee-paying visitors—were indeed
motivated by high ideals such as respect for other species, rather than
the appetite for self-aggrandizement that marked older zoos. But the
desire to rescue those species nonetheless may be said to stem from
the old impulse to control nature and make use of it as something both
antithetical and complementary to human civilization. In New Worlds,
New Animals, Michael H. Robinson, onetime director of the Smithso-
nian Institution’s National Zoological Park, placed the drive to collect
living things and ‘‘alter [. . . ] them for our benefit’’ at the origin of
civilization. The twentieth-century zoo, like its predecessors, was a
living (though increasingly cryogenic) embodiment of that drive.
—Susann Cokal
F
URTHER READING:
Bartlett, A. D. Wild Animals in Captivity. London, Chapman and
Hall, 1899.
Bostock, Stephen St. C. Zoos and Animal Rights: The Ethics of
Keeping Animals. New York, Routledge, 1993.
Croke, Vicki. The Modern Ark. New York, Avon, 1997.
Hahn, Emily. Animal Gardens. New York, Doubleday, 1967.
Hoage, R. J., and William A. Deiss, editors. New Worlds, New
Animals. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins, 1996.
Livingston, Bernard. Zoo Animals, People, Places. New York, Arbor
House, 1974.
Lord Zuckerman, editor. Great Zoos of the World: Their Origins and
Significance. Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press, 1980.
Zoot Suit
The zoot suit was a style of clothing popularized by young male
African Americans, Filipino Americans, and Mexican Americans
during the 1930s and 1940s. A zoot suit consisted of very baggy high-
waisted pants, pegged around the ankles, worn with a long jacket that
came to below the knee. The jacket had high, wide shoulder pads that
jetted out from the shoulder, giving the wearer a broad look. A long
A zoot suit.
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234
chain dangled from the belt, and the outfit was trimmed with thick-
soled shoes and a wide-brimmed hat. It was the style of very hip cats.
It is believed the style was created in the African-American communi-
ty, and there are several stories as to where it actually originated.
In the urban jazz culture of Harlem, the word ‘‘zoot’’ meant
something exaggerated, either in style, sound, or performance. The
style of dress was an extravagant style, out of proportion to the norm,
and it later came to be known as the zoot suit, which consisted of ‘‘a
killer-diller coat with a drape-shape, reat-pleats and shoulders padded
like a lunatic’s cell.’’ The suit was for having fun, with the baggy
pants made for dancing the jitterbug, and the long coat and the wide-
brimmed hat giving the wearer a grown-up look. Many famous black
entertainers and musicians wore the zoot suit. Duke Ellington per-
formed at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles in 1941 with a musical
number called ‘‘Jump for Joy,’’ and all his performers wore zoot
suits. Cab Calloway wore a zoot suit in the 1943 film Stormy Weather.
One theory of the origins of the zoot suit was that it was imitated
from the suit worn by Clark Cable in the movie Gone with the Wind.
In fact, some people called them ‘‘Gone with the Wind suits.’’ Others
say that a big band leader and clothier, Harold C. Fox from Chicago,
designed the first zoot suit. He said he copied the fashions of ghetto-
dwelling teenagers, and in 1941 made such suits for musicians who
wanted an ‘‘eye-poppin’ style.’’ When Fox died in 1996 at the age of
86, he was buried in a lavender zoot suit. The most believed story is
one published in the New York Times in 1943 during the zoot suit riots
taking place in Los Angeles, stating that a young African-American
busboy from Gainesville, Georgia, placed an order with a tailor for
what would be the ‘‘first zoot suit on record.’’ Clyde Duncan ordered
a suit with a 37-inch-long coat and with pants 26 inches at the knees
and 14 inches at the ankle. Once the suit was made, the tailor took his
picture and sent it to Men’s Apparel Reporter, where the photo
was printed.
On the West Coast, the suit came to be identified with young
Mexican Americans, known as Pachucos. They were mostly second-
generation Mexicans, the sons of working-class immigrants, who
settled in Los Angeles. Pachucos created a subculture with a mysteri-
ous argot that incorporated archaic Spanish, modern Spanish, and
English slang words. They dressed in zoot suits, creating a distinct
style that identified them as neither Mexican nor American, but that
emphasized their social detachment and isolation. Because there was
a war going on, and there was conservation of fabric, wearing the zoot
suit was considered an unpatriotic act. In the summer of 1943, while
the whole country watched, gangs of sailors and zoot-suiters fought in
the streets of Los Angeles. Outraged at the zoot suit style, sailors
chased the zoot suiters through the streets and unclothed them. It is
unclear if this was a race riot or a riot of patriotism by the sailors who
attacked, beat, and stripped young Mexican Americans whom they
perceived to be disloyal immigrants.
The zoot suit received wide attention and recognition in the
1970s with the production of the play Zoot Suit, written and produced
by Luis Valdez. It was performed in Los Angeles and New York. A
film of the play, with the same name, was released in 1981 with
performances by actors Daniel Valdez and Edward James Olmos.
In the late 1990s, the zoot suit has had a rebirth with the revival
of swing music—with imitations of Cab Calloway, the zoot suit, and
the jump dance steps. From Chicago to San Francisco, twenty-
somethings were dancing to big bands with names like Mighty Blue
Kings, The Big Six, Bag Bad Voodoo Daddy, and Indigo Swing, who
played swing music from the 1930s and 1940s. Part of the fun of this
music was dancing at the big clubs and wearing the clothes to match.
A 1996 article in the Los Angeles Times claimed that fashion
designers such as Bill Blass and Ralph Lauren were picking up the
zoot suit look in their fall designs, including wide jacket lapels and
hip-chains, but not the big shoulders. In 1999, numerous suppliers of
zoot suits and swing-style clothing were listed on the Internet.
—Rafaela Castro
F
URTHER READING:
Cosgrove, Stuart. ‘‘The Zoot Suit and Style Warfare.’’ In Zoot Suits
and Second-Hand Dresses: An Anthology of Fashion and Music,
edited by Angela McRobbie. London, Macmillan, 1989, 3-22.
Eig, Jonathan. ‘‘Swing Kids.’’ Down Beat. Vol. 64, No. 12, Decem-
ber 1997, 56-62.
———. ‘‘’Zoot Suit’ Fox Dead at Age 86.’’ Down Beat. Vol. 63, No.
11, November 1996, 16-18.
Rourke, Mary. ‘‘A Suitable Enterprise for the Counterculture: Reflec-
tions on the Zoot Suit.’’ Los Angeles Times. Vol. 115, August 5,
1996, E1.
Sanchez, Thomas. Zoot-suit Murders: A Novel. New York,
Dutton, 1978.
Tyler, Bruce. ‘‘Zoot-Suit Culture and the Black Press.’’ Journal of
American Culture. Vol. 17, No. 2, 1994, 21-33.
White, Shane, and Graham White. Stylin’: African American Expres-
sive Culture from Its Beginnings to the Zoot Suit. Ithaca, New
York, Cornell University Press, 1998.
Zorro
Zorro, the sword-wielding, black-clad avenger, is one of the
most influential fictional characters of twentieth century literature.
By day he was Don Diego, a respected nobleman of nineteenth
century California. By night, however, he cut a much more dashing
figure as ‘‘The Fox,’’ El Zorro. Dressed completely in black with a
mask and wide-brimmed hat to conceal his identity, Zorro battled
evildoers with the aid of his whip and sword, and made fast getaways
on his black steed, Tornado. He was a superbly talented fencer—only
Cyrano de Bergerac, D’Artagnan, and the Three Musketeers can
challenge him for the title of fiction’s most popular swordsman. No
matter where he went, he always signed his work with a distinctive Z,
often cut into the clothing or skin of his enemies.
Zorro’s adventures have been chronicled in many different
media. Created by writer Johnston McCulley in 1919 for ‘‘The Curse
of Capistrano,’’ which was serialized in the pulp magazine All-Story
Weekly, Zorro is the oldest of the modern superheroes. McCulley
would write a total of 65 adventures of the black-clad avenger over the
next 39 years. Since Zorro’s introduction, countless characters have
been created using the same basic theme: a normally law-abiding
individual who is faced with great injustice and takes up a mask and
secret identity to right wrongs and protect the innocent. Moreover,
Zorro’s devil-may-care attitude, mastery with the sword, daring
escapes, and tendency to laugh in the face of authority have become
common traits of swashbuckling heroes.
Though he began as a pulp magazine character, Zorro soared to
popularity as a movie character. In all, Zorro has been featured in 37
movies, plus a number of Republic serialized adventures. Zorro’s first
ZYDECOENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
235
foray onto the big screen came when popular actor Douglas Fair-
banks, on his honeymoon with Mary Pickford, read ‘‘The Curse of
Capistrano.’’ He and Pickford chose that story to kick off their new
film studio, United Artists, and in 1920 released it as The Mark of
Zorro. Zorro remained a popular film character in the decades that
followed. Tyrone Power took up the sword and mask in 1940’s The
Mark of Zorro. Zorro starred in 10 screen adventures, most of them in
serial form, from Republic starting in 1937.
A 1950s Disney television show, Zorro, starred Guy Williams in
the title role. Zorro was, at the time, the highest-budgeted Western on
television. According to the Official Zorro Web Site, the Zorro
merchandising mania that resulted is still well known among toy and
comics collectors. Many more movie and television adaptations of
Zorro’s adventures were made in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.
Included among these were films from Europe and an animated
series, The New Adventures of Zorro, which ran from 1981 to 1983.
Zorro experienced another resurgence in popularity in the 1990s
with another live-action television series that ran for 88 episodes. A
new animated series debuted in 1992, and a 1995 stage musical
opened to critical acclaim. The year 1998 saw the release of The Mask
of Zorro, starring Antonio Banderas as the protege of Anthony
Hopkins’ Don Diego. The film was a great success, collecting $95
million at the box office, the highest total for any Zorro film. Yet
another animated series was unveiled around the same time, along
with a new line of Zorro toys.
Zorro has also seen his share of caricature. In the early 1980s the
television series Zorro and Son took a comedic approach towards his
adventures, and the 1981 film Zorro, the Gay Blade featured George
Hamilton as an effeminate relative of Zorro who fought injustice in a
pink leather costume, complete with Zorro’s trusty whip.
Zorro was one of the earliest of many successful twentieth-
century characters that tapped into the frustration of readers. People
were afraid: afraid of crime, afraid of war, afraid of oppressive
governments. El Zorro and his dashing adventures allowed them to
imagine a world where wrongs could be righted, not through a system
that was often slow and corrupt, but swiftly and surely. His sword and
whip attacked villains justice could not touch; sometimes the villains
were themselves the supposed guardians of justice.
Zorro is also the consummate romantic, a combination of Latin
lover, gentleman bandit, and charming rogue. Even as enemy forces
closed in from all sides, he often found the time to give his leading
lady a passionate kiss before he executed another daring escape.
Another important component of Zorro’s appeal lies in his near-
supernatural ability to defy the odds. No matter how great the
challenge or powerful the enemy, Zorro always came out on top and
set things right. He was the underdog who could even the odds with a
stroke of his blade, taking down the powerful and arrogant by several
notches. Whenever a screen swashbuckler defies a sputtering tyrant
or a grim, black-clad comic book vigilante stalks the night seeking
criminal prey, both are following in the footsteps of El Zorro and the
ideals that made him popular through four generations of fans.
—Paul F.P. Pogue
F
URTHER READING:
Curtis, Sandra R. Zorro Unmasked: The Official History. New York,
Hyperion, 1998.
Hutchison, Don. The Great Pulp Heroes. Buffalo, New York, Mosaic
Press, 1996.
McCulley, Johnston. The Mark of Zorro. New York, American
Reprint Co., 1924, 1976.
Toth, Alex. Zorro: The Complete Classic Adventures. Forestville,
California, Eclipse Books, 1988.
‘‘Zorro.’’ http:\www.zorro.com. March 1999.
Zydeco
Zydeco is a unique blend of Afro-American and Afro-French
musical traditions which developed amid the prairie landscapes of
southwest Louisiana. Born out of close interaction between the Cajun
(white) and Creole (black) French-speaking cultures, zydeco’s cur-
rent popularity as an infectious dance music is directly tied to the past
when house dances were the primary form of entertainment and
interaction for the rural Creole population. The music played for these
gatherings was called ‘‘la-la’’ and was the immediate precursor to
modern zydeco. From this hearth area the music has spread to other
regions, at first associated with the out-migration patterns of Creoles
to East Texas and southern California. The availability of this music
in recorded form has enabled people everywhere to listen to the
sounds of southwest Louisiana. Following zydeco’s commercial
success many groups have toured extensively, both nationally and
internationally, and zydeco has now become very popular in other
parts of the world.
The origin of the term ‘‘zydeco’’ is most often attributed to the
folk expression ‘‘les haricots sont pas sales’’ (the beans are not
salted), a saying that reflected those hard times when people could not
even afford to put salt pork in their pot of beans. The name found its
way into popular culture when folk music field recording anthologist
Mack McCormick spelled out the word for the first time in the 1950s.
The proper pronunciation is with the accent on the first syllable. Early
forms of zydeco utilized the same instruments as Cajun music. The
fiddle, which came to Louisiana from Canada after 1755 by way of
the Acadian migration, was the standard lead instrument. During the
mid 1800s the accordion was adopted and soon replaced the fiddle as
the lead; the typical configuration was a diatonic accordion with a
single or double row of buttons. A unique rhythm instrument—the
‘‘frottoir,’’ or rubboard—is the signature instrument of zydeco, and
no band is deemed complete without one. Its antecedents most likely
are the rasped or notched gourds common to African and Afro-
Caribbean traditions. The modern instrument, made out of corrugated
sheet metal, is worn over the shoulders like a breastplate and played
with a pair of spoons or old-style bottle openers. Zydeco pioneer
Clifton Chenier was fond of telling the story of how he first traced out
the design for the contemporary frottoir in the sand of an oil
refinery yard.
During the first several decades of the twentieth century, when
social events were still strictly segregated in Louisiana, the most
influential Creole musician was Amédé Ardoin, who was a much
sought after performer at both white and black dances. The effect of
his accordion playing and plaintive singing on audiences is the stuff
of legend. A grimmer remembrance concerns the career-ending
incident where he was brutally assaulted while walking home after a
dance for allegedly accepting a white woman’s handkerchief to wipe
off his sweaty brow. As with other aspects of popular culture in
America, the zydeco landscape experienced rapid changes after
World War II. The house dances faded away, to be replaced by the
dance halls and clubs which hosted a variety of music in vogue with
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236
black audiences, although zydeco bands still formed a major compo-
nent of the bookings. Despite a more commercial, adult-oriented
setting, many of the clubs retained something of a family, or at least a
familiar atmosphere. Instrumentation responded to the popularity of
other musical forms and the newer, more spacious venues, becoming
a fuller sound with the addition of drums, electric guitars, and even
saxophones. As the music became influenced by an urbanized blues
and other commercially recorded styles of the 1940s and 1950s, the
piano accordion replaced the Cajun button accordion within zydeco.
The emerging genre was best personified by the undisputed King of
Zydeco, the late Clifton Chenier, who was born in 1925 near Opelousas,
in the very heart of Louisiana’s Creole country. In 1947 he moved to
Lake Charles, then to Port Arthur, Texas and in 1958 to Houston,
where his playing became influenced heavily by the urban blues
scene. It was Chenier who popularized the term ‘‘zydeco’’ and
specifically linked it to his music, which ranged from blues sung in
either French or English and backed by a full ensemble, to more
traditional Afro-French songs accompanied only by an accordian
and frottoir.
Other prominent musicians have helped to guide the develop-
ment of zydeco and to place it in a more accessible position within the
wider arena of popular culture. Another early pioneer, Boozoo
Chavis, after cutting a few records during the 1950s, actually stopped
playing music publicly for more than twenty years. In 1984 he
emerged from relative obscurity in a joyous comeback, and has since
become the favorite zydeco performer for many devoted fans; Boozoo
still prefers the older button accordion with its raw energy and more
traditional sound. Queen Ida Guillory, originally from Lake Charles,
but living for many years in the San Francisco Bay Area, began
playing for the displaced Louisiana Creoles who had migrated out
West and were holding traditional house dances in their basements or
at the Catholic church halls. As her music gained fans among the
general population, she began touring, and was the first zydeco artist
to play in Japan. In 1983 she also became the first zydeco musician to
receive a Grammy Award, for her album Queen Ida on Tour. Other
notable musicians of corresponding vintage include several who have
passed away: Alton ‘‘Rockin’ Dopsie’’ Rubin, Sr., and John Delafose.
Certain performers have deliberately sought a wider audience for
zydeco, either by touring extensively or by blending more rock and
soul influences into their sound; these include Terrance Simien and
Stanley ‘‘Buckwheat Zydeco’’ Dural.
A newer generation has emerged in Louisiana to carry the
tradition into the future. Dubbed ‘‘zydekids’’ by some, they play a
‘‘nouveau zydeco’’ which in many ways draws on the earlier French
‘‘la-la’’ music rather than any of the more recent attempts at crossover
appeal. Foremost among the newer zydeco artists, Beau Jocque only
began playing accordion after a painful industrial accident in 1987
temporarily left him paralyzed. In 1981 he made his first public
appearance and now is widely acclaimed as the leader of the new
zydeco sound: simplified accordion chords, a deeper, more powerful
bass, and from the drums a catchy dance rhythm known as ‘‘double
clutching.’’ Among others pursuing a revitalized zydeco are Keith
Frank, Jo Jo Reed, and a pair of traditionalist women accordion
players: Ann Goodly and Rosie Ledet.
Perhaps the most effective carrier for diffusion of this music to
other places has been the commercial recording and widespread
distribution of the music on records, tapes, and, most recently,
compact digital discs (CDs). Early zydeco recordings by Douglas
Bellard, Amédé Ardoin, and others were strictly for regional release.
Beaumont musician Clarence Garlow had a few minor hits in the early
1950s, paving the way for two back-to-back releases that began the
commercial success of recorded zydeco: ‘‘Paper in My Shoe’’ by
Boozoo Chavis in 1954, followed by Chenier’s ‘‘Ay-Tete-Fee’’ in
1955. Before national record labels began capitalizing on the growing
popularity of this music, the commercial recording and distribution of
most zydeco records were shepherded by two independent labels:
Chris Strachwitz’s Arhoolie Records in El Cerrito, California, and
Floyd Soileau’s Maison de Soul in Ville Platte, Louisiana. In 1982,
Rockin’ Sidney Simien’s hit single ‘‘My Toot-Toot’’ became an
international sensation, and with over a million copies sold it is still
the biggest selling record in zydeco history.
Zydeco clubs remain active throughout the Lafayette-to-Hous-
ton corridor, and heartily welcome people of all races who want to
hear the music in its original setting. Since 1982 the tiny crossroads
community of Plaisance each year plays host to the Southwest
Louisiana Zydeco Festival. This event showcases the leading zydeco
musicians in the world, and consists of a full roster of entertainment,
with bands taking the stage one after another in a twelve-hour long
continuous celebration. Although still identified with Creole culture
in its home territory, zydeco has become a popular style of dance
music in many other places around the world.
—Robert Kuhlken
F
URTHER READING:
Ancelet, Barry. ‘‘Zydeco/Zarico: Beans, Blues, and Beyond.’’ Black
Music Research Journal Vol. 8, 1988, 33-49.
Broven, John. South to Louisiana: The Music of the Cajun Bayous.
Gretna, Louisiana, Pelican Publishing Co., 1983.
Gould, Philip and Barry Jean Ancelet. Cajun Music and Zydeco.
Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press, 1992.
Kuhlken, Robert, and Rocky Sexton. ‘‘The Geography of Zydeco
Music.’’ The Sounds of People and Places: A Geography of
American Folk and Popular Music. Ed. G. Carney, 3rd edition,
Lanham, Maryland, Rowman & Littlefield, 1994, 63-76.
Nyhan, Patricia, and Brian Rollins, David Babb, Michael Doucet. Let
the Good Times Roll! A Guide to Cajun & Zydeco Music. Portland,
Maine, Upbeat Books, 1997.
Tisserand, Michael. The Kingdom of Zydeco. New York, Arcade
Publishing, 1998.
ZZ Top
From respected roots rockers to bearded music video age icons,
this Texas band maintained a consistently successful career through-
out the 1970s and 1980s, embracing many new trends that crossed its
path. While not as active in the late 1990s as they were in their prime,
ZZ Top’s three members (Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill, and Frank Beard
on guitar, bass, and drums, respectively) remain one of the few groups
ZZ TOPENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
237
ZZ Top in concert.
to have its original members intact after 25 years. Existing throughout
the 1970s as a critically acclaimed, popular Texas blues-boogie band,
the band updated its sound to include propulsive synthesizer rhythms.
Further, ZZ Top was one of the first pre-music-video rock bands to
immediately take advantage of the advent of MTV.
In the late 1960s, Billy Gibbons played in the Texas psych-punk
band The Moving Sidewalks, and Dusty Hill and Frank Beard were
the rhythm section for American Blues. Future ZZ Top manager Bill
Ham brought the three together in 1970 and, due to Ham’s plan of
constant recording and ceaseless touring, by the decade’s end the
group had carved out a sizable niche as a popular blues-boogie band.
In 1970, ZZ Top released ZZ Top’s First Album, and by its third album
it struck gold with its first major hit and concert staple, ‘‘La Grange,’’
a tribute to an infamous whorehouse. ‘‘La Grange’’ (whose signature
riff was based on the John Lee Hooker song, ‘‘Boogie Chillen’’) set
the fire that would culminate in one the 1970s most successful tours,
the year and a half long ‘‘Worldwide Texas Tour.’’
While their string of hits never abated through the end of the
1970s and into the early 1980s, it was the group’s 1983 Eliminator
album that propelled ZZ Top to superstardom. That the group adopted
synthesizers and drum machines to augment their sound didn’t hurt,
but what perhaps helped most was their videos. With sunglasses and
long beards, ZZ Top had a perfect made-for-music-video image, and
they filled their videos with scantily clad, sexy women—a perfect
formula for early MTV success. Eliminator contained a number of hit
singles and videos, including ‘‘Legs,’’ ‘‘Sharp Dressed Man,’’ and
‘‘Gimmie All Your Lovin’.’’ Choosing not to disrupt their successful
formula, the group made their 1985 Afterburner in the image of their
multi-platinum predecessor, and the album spawned the hits ‘‘Sleep-
ing Bag,’’ ‘‘Velcro Fly,’’ ‘‘Rough Boy,’’ and ‘‘Stages.’’ Predictably,
the group applied its ‘‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’’ philosophy to
Afterburner’s videos as well.
ZZ Top never climbed the commercial peaks of its mid-1980s
period, but they continued to be a big concert draw, and their albums
continued to sell respectably. The 1996 release of Rhythmeen, a back-
to-basics album, cleared the table of the high production sheen and
synthesizers that characterized their Afterburner and Eliminator
period. The album was critically acclaimed and demonstrated that
ZZ TOP ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POPULAR CULTURE
238
Billy Gibbons was certainly one of the most talented white blues
guitarists this side of Stevie Ray Vaughan.
—Kembrew McLeod
F
URTHER READING:
Blayney, David. Sharp Dressed Men: ZZ Top behind the Scenes from
Blues to Boogie to Beards. New York, Hyperion, 1994.
Sinclair, David. The Story of ZZ Top: Tres Hombre. London, Vir-
gin, 1986.
READING LIST
241
The following reading list is meant as a supplement to the bibliog-
raphies that accompany the subject specific essays in this collection.
We have selected two types of works for this list: those works that
explain the long-term, historical development of popular culture in
the United States; and those works that discuss the academic study of
popular culture. Among the latter are both theoretical explications
and reference works. This reading list is not intended to be exhaustive.
Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Translated by Annette Lavers. 1957.
Reprint, New York, The Noonday Press, 1972.
Bigsby, C. W. E., editor. Approaches to Popular Culture. Bowling
Green, Ohio, Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1976.
Bluestein, Gene. Poplore: Folk and Pop in American Culture. Am-
herst, University of Massachusetts Press, 1994.
Bode, Carl. The Anatomy of American Popular Culture, 1840-1861.
Berkeley, University of California Press, 1960.
Browne, Ray B. Popular Culture and the Expanding Consciousness.
New York, Wiley, 1973.
Browne, Ray B., and David Madden. The Popular Culture Explosion.
Dubuque, Iowa, W. C. Brown Co., 1972.
Browne, Ray B., and Marshall W. Fishwick, editors. Preview 2001+:
Popular Culture Studies in the Future. Bowling Green, Ohio,
Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1995.
———, editors. Symbiosis: Popular Culture and Other Fields.
Bowling Green, Ohio, Bowling Green State University Popular
Press, 1988.
Browne, Ray B., and Michael T. Marsden, editors. Pioneers in
Popular Culture Studies. Bowling Green, Ohio, Bowling Green
State University Popular Press, 1999.
Browne, Ray B., and Ronald J. Ambrosetti, editors. Continuities in
Popular Culture: The Present in the Past and the Past in the
Present and Future. Bowling Green, Ohio, Bowling Green State
University Popular Press, 1993.
Browne, Ray B., Marshall W. Fishwick, and Kevin O. Browne,
editors. Dominant Symbols in Popular Culture. Bowling Green,
Ohio, Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1990.
Buhle, Paul, editor. Popular Culture in America. Minneapolis, Uni-
versity of Minnesota Press, 1987.
Cantor, Norman F., and Michael S. Werthman, editors. The History of
Popular Culture. Volume 1: To 1815, Volume 2: Since 1815. New
York, Macmillan, 1968.
Carter, Steven. Leopards in the Temple: Studies in American Popular
Culture. San Francisco, International Scholars Publications, 1997.
Cullen, Jim. The Art of Democracy: A Concise History of Popular
Culture in the United States. New York, Monthly Review
Press, 1996.
Denney, Reuel. The Astonished Muse. 1957. Reprint, Chicago, Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1974.
Denning, Michael. The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American
Culture in the Twentieth Century. New York, Verso, 1998.
Fishwick, Marshall W. Common Culture and the Great Tradition:
The Case for Renewal. Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood
Press, 1982.
———. Parameters of Popular Culture. Bowling Green, Ohio,
Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1974.
Fiske, John. Understanding Popular Culture. Boston, Unwin/
Hyman, 1989.
Flaherty, David H., and Frank E. Manning, editors. The Beaver Bites
Back?: American Popular Culture in Canada. Montreal and
Buffalo, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993.
Gans, Herbert J. Popular Culture and High Culture: An Analysis and
Evaluation of Taste. New York, Basic Books, 1974.
Geist, Christopher D., and Jack Nachbar, editors. The Popular
Culture Reader. Bowling Green, Ohio, Bowling Green State
University Popular Press, 1983.
Geist, Christopher D., Ray B. Browne, Michael T. Marsden, and
Carole Palmer, editors. The Directory of Popular Culture Collec-
tions. Phoenix, Arizona, Oryx Press, 1989.
Gibian, Peter, editor. Mass Culture and Everyday Life. New York,
Routledge, 1997.
Giroux, Henry A. Disturbing Pleasures: Learning Popular Culture.
New York, Routledge, 1994.
Gordon, Mark, and Jack Nachbar, compilers and editors. Currents
of Warm Life: Popular Culture in American Higher Educa-
tion. Bowling Green, Ohio, Bowling Green University Popular
Press, 1980.
Hall, Stuart, and Paddy Whannel. The Popular Arts. New York,
Pantheon, 1965.
Hoffmann, Frank W. American Popular Culture: A Guide to the
Reference Literature. Englewood, Colorado, Libraries Unlimit-
ed, 1995.
Inge, M. Thomas, editor. Concise Histories of American Popular
Culture. Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Press, 1982.
———, editor. Handbook of American Popular Culture. 2nd edition.
Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Press, 1989.
———, editor. Handbook of American Popular Literature. Westport,
Connecticut, Greenwood Press, 1988.
Laforse, Martin W., and James A. Drake. Popular Culture and
American Life: Selected Topics in the Study of American Popular
Culture. Chicago, Nelson-Hall, 1981.
Landrum, Larry N. American Popular Culture: A Guide to Informa-
tion Sources. Detroit, Gale Research, 1982.
Levine, Lawrence W. Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cul-
tural Hierarchy in America. Cambridge, Harvard University
Press, 1988.
———. The Opening of the American Mind: Canons, Culture, and
History. Boston, Beacon Press, 1996.
———. The Unpredictable Past: Explorations in American Cultural
History. New York, Oxford University Press, 1993.
Lipsitz, George. Time Passages: Collective Memory and American
Popular Culture. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1990.
Lowenthal, Leo. Literature, Popular Culture, and Society. Englewood
Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall, 1961.
Lynes, Russell. The Tastemakers. New York, Harper, 1954.
MacDonald, Dwight. Against the American Grain. New York, Ran-
dom House, 1962.
Maltby, Richard, editor. The Passing Parade: A History of Popular
Culture in the Twentieth Century. New York, Oxford University
Press, 1989.
Motz, Marilyn F., et al. Eye on the Future: Popular Culture Scholar-
ship into the Twenty-First Century in Honor of Ray B. Browne.
Bowling Green, Ohio, Bowling Green State University Popular
Press, 1994.
Mukerji, Chandra, and Michael Schudson, editors. Rethinking Popu-
lar Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies.
Berkeley, University of California Press, 1991.
Nachbar, Jack, and Kevin Lause, editors. Popular Culture: An
Introductory Text. Bowling Green, Ohio, Bowling Green State
University Popular Press, 1992.