How Pop Culture Paves the Way to the Classics

One writer’s path to Swan Lake…

It was 1981. I got a Walkman and three new cassette tapes for Christmas: Working Class Dog, Super Trouper, and Hooked on Classics. I was living in Jamaica, so my American culture came in chunks whenever someone would visit the States. My friends and I devoured the first two tapes; wore out Side A of Working Class Dog playing Jessie’s Girl over. And over. And over.

We learned all the ABBA harmonies and made up a dramatic pantomime to The Winner Takes It All. Then finally, when we were done with all of that nonsense, we popped Hooked on Classics into the tape player. And we were Hooked. It was our jam. I especially loved the first song on Side B of my tape; great tune with a kicking, and relentless, disco beat. I lost the tape case at some point, so I never really knew exactly what I was listening to. I just listened. Maybe a million times before the tape finally wore out.

Eight years later, in college, I went to the ballet for the first time—Swan Lake. At the end of the first act I sat up, wide-eyed. “Hooked On Classics!”  I hissed excitedly to my friend, who rolled her eyes and elbowed me in the ribs.

[block pos=”right”]A whole generation knows Swan Lake because of Barbie. And a whole other generation knows it because of Black Swan.[/block]

The first song on Side B of Hooked on Classics was Hooked on Tchaikovsky. And after quoting a little bit of Capriccio Italien the music morphs into the Andante from Swan Lake. That Andante, which falls at the end of Act I, is one of those classical tunes that shows up in all sorts of places; Being John Malkovich, Hudsucker Proxy, Dracula (1930), A View to a Kill and even Bring it On.

But references to the ballet go far beyond quoting the music. We all know about Natalie Portman in Black Swan. But there’s also Bjork’s infamous swan dress. And Barbie of Swan Lake. And the video for Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off.  If you see a bunch of ladies in white tutus, chances are it’s Swan Lake-inspired.

Like the brilliant satire in Funny Girl (which also musically references Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from The Nutcracker) where Streisand, decked out in the white tutu, admonishes the prince for trying to shoot the swans.

So you just gotta have a swan
Or you’re out of luck
‘Cause a chicken wouldn’t do
It would only cluck
And besides you couldn’t say
“I saw a Chicken Lake ballet”

Or the wickedly understated 1970s era Saturday Night Live skit called “Bad Ballet.” Dan Ackroyd plays Leonard Pinth-Garnell hosting a look at a ballet, “one of the worst from the new experimental Soviet school of method ballet,” which is, of course, a parody of Swan Lake.

Do these pop culture references, these parodies, minimize the artistry of the ballet? I don’t think so. I think infusion in pop culture helps these great works of art survive. A whole generation knows Swan Lake because of Barbie. And a whole other generation knows it because of Black Swan. One can only guess as to how many people have come to see the ballet because they were introduced to it through a pop culture reference.

Speaking of, it turns out that I was introduced Swan Lake a couple of years before my discovery of Hooked on Classics. During intermission of my first official Swan Lake, I read the program notes, which mentioned Rudolph Nureyev. “Is that the guy who danced with the giant pig in The Muppet Show?” I asked my friend.

I got elbowed. Again.