Role of Popular Culture in Global City Formation Lim Su-Yi

Role of Popular Culture in Global City Formation

Lim Su-Yi (A0142413W)

UIS3911GL: Independent Study Module

National University of Singapore

Semester 2, AY 16/17 Synopsis:

Popular culture and its accompanying messages have inundated our lives through the Internet and the globalization of information, media and technology. This paper aims to research popular culture as an alternative means of measuring what defines and constitutes a global city beyond the widely accepted provision of Advanced Producer Services. Through film, music and architecture, we see popular culture challenge existing urban discourses on global cities by providing an alternative lens and new means of contestations. This can prevent an overly biased Anglo-American, ethnocentric understanding and labeling of emerging cities, especially for emerging Asian cities.

2 Introduction With the advent of the Internet and the globalization of information, media and technology that kicked off from the late 20th century, popular culture and its accompanying messages has inundated our lives through film, literature, architecture and music, to name a few avenues. As globalization perpetuates the flow of values, ideology, and people across transnational borders, it produces and proliferates cultural identity both nationally and transnationally (Tomlinson, 2003). Oftentimes, popular culture helps influence and educates us on how the media defines global cities. This provides an alternative lens from the usual rhetoric on how we understand and characterize global cities.

This paper aims to further research the potential of using popular culture as an alternative means of defining a global city beyond the widely accepted provision of Advanced Producer Services (APS) as theorized by Saskia Sassen. Through architecture, film, and song, this paper seeks to investigate the role of popular culture in global city formation in two ways. Firstly, popular culture can redefine global cities, and secondly, also work in tandem alongside APS to define global cities, as will be discussed further below.

Existing Literature on Global City Concepts The limitations of prevailing urban studies and discourses lie in their discounting of cities that are unable to imitate the idea of “developmentalism” (Robinson, 2002). A shift towards a city-centered formation of global capitalism has been attributed to a burgeoning New International Division of Labour dominated by Transnational Corporations in the production and exchange of commodities (Lai, 2009). This privileges capitalist economic globalization, where specific economic trajectories and industries are prioritized over others. In this respect, cities that provide APS –with a focus on specialized services of accounting, advertising, legal, financial and economic forecasting services- provide infrastructures for global capital and immigrant labour inflow (Sassen, 1996). APS can be “reasonably interpreted as a contemporary ‘indicator sector’ in the world economy”, and in their increasingly global reach, APS firms have a crucial role in enabling economic globalization (Taylor, Derudder, Hoyler, & Witlox, 2012, p. 136).

By focusing on major cities that have the necessary infrastructure to attract APS firms, Sassen proposes an emphasis on the functional centrality of cities in the global economy, privileging cities like New York, London and Hong Kong. This is because they emerge as frontrunners and “derive their importance from a privileged position in transnational networks of capital, information and people” (Derudder, De Vos, & Witlox, Global city/ world city, 2012, p. 73). APS are highly sought after for the organization of advanced economies. When a city has anchored its main economic industry on APS, it signals its intent to climb the global ranks by being an important “command and control centers of the global economy” which would necessitate the disproportionate concentration of such high-end services (Sassen, 1991).

Reimagining the Global City Discourse This organizational definition is problematical as it propagates and presupposes that all cities should pursue this one economic developmental trajectory, or that the only means of measuring global city status is by analyzing the APS success of a city. A select few cities have become valorized as “critical nodes and vital powerhouses of the global economy” (Yeoh, 2005, p. 945) By solely relying on analyzing data related to APS, we

3 lose out on seeing socio-cultural facets of global city societies that are hard to glean from simply looking at the number of law firms or the types of financial services offered in a city. After all, it is the “cultures of urban spaces that (are) most immediately and directly influenced by globalization and equally it is urban cultures which largely constitute so- called globalization” (Yeoh, 2005, p. 945).

A cultural aspect of defining cities have persisted for decades, but remains overshadowed by the perceived superiority of APA in defining global cities. I propose the use of popular culture representation of and production in cities as an alternative marker of global city definition in two ways. Firstly, if popular culture portrays a city’s cultural dominancy in certain creative industries through film, music and architecture, the city should be considered as a global city. Secondly, cities that have their own alternative and unique hybrid culture should be considered as a potential global city as well for their contribution to a new unique global rhetoric.

It is pertinent to consider these alternative lenses, as cities with global aspirations would “require particular forms of cultural capital” (Kong, 2007, p. 383). Kim (2001) promotes cultural capital development as a three-fold strategy: people-oriented, place-oriented, and product-oriented. As Kong explains:

“A people-oriented strategy focuses on human development, cultivating cultural producers and consumers for the global city. A product-oriented strategy emphasises the creation of cultural products. A place-oriented strategy involves infrastructure and property development” (Kong, 2007, p. 384)

Popular culture and mass media are able to propagate cultural capital through this 3-fold strategy, introducing a more nuanced understanding of global city making strategies. This moves away from traditional global city definitions if we are able to combine APS with culture to gain a non-exclusive and more comprehensive way of defining global cities. The creation of global cities hinges on the marriage of these strategies that encourages the “integration of economic and cultural activity around the production and consumption of the arts, architecture, fashion and design, media, food and entertainment” (Yeoh, 2005, p. 946). As economy and culture collide, a question come too to mind: since the economic trajectory of global cities are homogenous, does this extend to the culture of global cities, and the messages and themes portrayed through popular culture? To answer this question, I first define what constitutes popular culture and cultural imperialism, homogeneity and hybridization.

Definition of Popular Culture One definition of popular culture is that it is the residual cultural form leftover after distinguishing what constitutes high culture (Storey, 2012, p. 6). Much of the distinction between “high” and “popular” culture were cultivated during the Enlightenment (Crothers, 2010, p. 11), where only the educated elite were trained in the “real” beauty, and everything else became “case, common, and popular” (Crothers, 2010, p. 12). Popular culture is also defined as mass culture (Storey, 2012, p. 8). As Storey theorizes, mass culture is not just an imposed and impoverished culture; it is in a clear identifiable sense an imported American culture (2012, p. 8), or “Americanization”. This raises the concern that cultural homogenization –vis-à-vis Americanization- will occur. As Crothers expounds:

“Those critics concerned with the concept of cultural homogenization agree that

4 American popular culture may well dominate the world… The fear is that in time everyone everywhere will end up eating the same thing, reading the same thing and wearing the same thing. Under such circumstances, cultural diversity would be lost forever” (2010:28)

Mass media and popular culture thus appears as a tool that can shape cultural discourses of global city by perpetuating a common culture and associated features across different cities. As cultural studies become increasingly entrenched within the discourse of globalization, attention has become directed towards the “process of transculturation, the interchange of cultural elements and the breaking down of distinctive cultural identities, and the loss of national sovereignty” (Mahtani & Salmon, 2001, p. 165).

Cultural Imperialism, Homogenization and Hybridity

In the concluding chapter of Big Sounds from Small Peoples, Wallis and Malm suggests that music culture would either convene towards an Anglo-American homogeny, or new local music of different culture and influence that interact would emerge (1984, pp. 312-313).

Cultural imperialism suggests that in a struggle amongst a few cultures, one dominant culture would eventually take root as the culturally superior one (Crothers, 2010, p. 27). This is linked in part to cultural homogenization, where the dominant culture imposes its values on local population, aided by the rapid spread and accessibility of information and mass media today. Despite the prominence and pervasiveness of American popular culture and cultural commodities in global trade, local traditions and culture can be preserved or evolved through cultural hybridity. Cultural hybridity is defined as “the ways in which forms become separated from existing practices and recombine with new forms and new practices” (Crothers, 2010, p. 29). Contextualizing this, the interaction of Western products, values and services (that define classic global cities) might, but does not necessarily displace local cultures, values and products. In reality, we see a mix of cultural homogeneity and hybridization when we use popular culture to analyse global cities.

Architecture in Global City Analysis One of the most visually observable features of any city is its architecture. Post-industrial architecture today plays a “key role in the symbolic reproduction of the consuming city” as a “marketing tool” (Miles, 2012, pp. 76-77). This has resulted in the “connections between consumption and design, including the marketability of the work of brand- name architects” (Knox, 2012, p. 276). This section examines the cultural homogenization of architecture, as well as how popular culture works in tandem with architecture and APS to shape global city formation through place marketing.

Homogenising Architecture: Manhattan Transfer

Place marketing is a mix of inter-referencing and modeling, a style of “Worlding” practice that “articulate(s) disparate elements from near and far, and symbolically re- situate the city in the world” (Ong, 2011, p. 13). It involves the material and discursive practices that aids city branding (e.g. creative city), and references other “successful” global cities in creating new urban imaginaries, which is pertinent for cities trying to gain recognition as a global city. One way in which we see the homogenizing of architecture in place marketing is through the “Manhattan Transfer”, a phrase coined by King (1996). Cultural homogeneity in place marketing global cities starts from New York City (NYC) because “it is with the invention of the American skyscraper, of course, particularly that of NYC, that the current phase of 'world' competition began” (King, 1996, p. 105), and

5 the process of Manhattan Transfer follows the “invention and development of a local city skyline in Manhattan in 1896 into a worldwide, even global skyline today”. (King, 1996, p. 100).

Photograph 1: The Sky Line of New York, 1896. Color lithograph, supplement to the Journal, N.Y. Eno Collection by Charles Graham (American, active about 1879–1905). Source: New York Public Library, http://web-static.nypl.org/exhibitions/movingup/no61.html (Accessed 28 March 2017).

Photograph 2: New York City’s skyline today as seen at night from the Top of the Rock, Rockefeller Centre in 2016. Photograph by Author

Cities begin to create either a Manhattan-like skyline full of skyscrapers, or stake its “credibility onto the post-industrial city project” through iconic buildings (Miles, 2012, p. 83). In photographs 3 and 4, we see a combination of these two architecture styles across different cities, serving the APS economy by housing APS providers. These

6 illustrations suggest a highly American and homogenizing global formula in deciding what constitutes as architecture befitting of a global city. As Asian economies become progressively assimilated into global and regional markets beginning from the 1990s, “their cities also began subscribing to the discourses and logics of globalization, investing in the ‘Imagineering’ of global images as they jostle for a place in the new urban utopia” (Yeoh, 2005, p. 946) The place marketing of Asian cities, as they attempt to join the ranks of well-established Anglo-American global cities, shows an almost homogeneous skyline to their Western and Asian counterparts.

Photograph 3: Silhouettes of global cities and emerging global cities by Jktu_21 Source: Deposit Photos http://depositphotos.com/vector-images/paris-skyline.html?qview=16258191 (Accessed on 28 March 2017)

Photograph 4: Silhouettes of Asian City Skylines by Unkreatives Source: Deposit photos http://depositphotos.com/5272776/stock-illustration-asian-cities-skylines.html (Accessed on 28 March 2017)

Manhattan Transfer of City Skyline through Filmic Representation

As King expounds, “spectacular architecture” can be utilised by nations, cities, corporations or individuals “not only as a demonstration of economic or even spiritual virility but also of political and cultural power” (1996, p. 100). One effective way NYC has done this is through the city’s strong presence in film, especially American films. Film today has become an integral cultural component as one of the primary means of communicating, perpetuating and highlighting societal and cultural norms and practices that transcends national boundaries. Films are also important in analyzing the role of popular culture in global formation. As Mennel states: “Film is part of the global flow of cultural products and also represents globalization visually and narratively” (2008, p. 196).

One of the most iconic examples that started the ball rolling has to be King Kong (Cooper & Schoedsack, 1933). The movie spawned multiple remakes in 1976 and 2005, and a reboot was released in 2017. The scene where Kong climbed up the Empire State

8 Building (ESB) is the most enduring scene that has firmly situated itself in popular culture references till today, and the ESB is one of the most iconic and prominent feature of NYC’s skyline. Some famous blockbusters that features NYC in recent years across different eras are Spider Man (Raimi, 2002), Night at the Museum (Levy, 2006) and The Great Gatsby (Luhrmann, 2013). The global success of these films in portraying culture and architecture that is synonymous to NYC has sets a bar for emerging cities to match up to. American dominance in the film industry means being able to set precedence and culturally homogenize architecture aspirations through suggestive films that portray the city or skylines in ways that are beneficial to either building up their soft power and APS architecture. With what we have seen through the Manhattan Transfer phenomenon, popular culture works in tandem with architecture and APS in shaping global city formation, and plays a role in creating the rhetoric that APS is still prominent in global city definitions, but can be displayed in alternative avenue of culture, rather than strictly the number of APS related firms in a city.

Photograph 5: Kong on top of the ESB (Cooper & Schoedsack, 1933) Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/216383957074228757/ (Accessed 30 March 2017)

It is interesting to note that the establishment of the Manhattan Transfer in films also involves the destruction of NYC itself. In I Am Legend (Lawrence, 2007), a post- apocalyptic film set in NYC, the city that never sleeps and is always a bright and busy metropolis. A virus for cancer cure went awry and ended up wiping out most of mankind. It is interesting to see the emptiness of NYC in this film because that creates the stark contrast against what we expected of NYC, and it becomes unnatural to see NYC so deserted. This film, along with other apocalyptic, monster destroying films actually helps reinforces the notion of NYC being labour and capital intensive, consistent to its APS standards. The destruction of iconic symbols built up through political power

9 and culturally influential in films shows how important these iconic architectures are. This has resulted in the “connections between consumption and design, including the marketability of the work of brand-name architects” (Knox, 2012, p. 276). Without them to prop up a homogeneous skyline, especially when they play critical roles in APS and soft power, these cities become indistinct from any other city, and cannot be considered as global.

Photograph 6: A deserted Times Square in I Am Legend Source: http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/I-Am-Legend-Blu-ray/1272/ (Accessed 30 March 2017)

The destruction of Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands (MBS) in Independence Day: Resurgence (Emmerich, 2016), an American science fiction action blockbuster about alien invasions, thus suggests that Singapore has succeeded in creating a unique skyline worthy of emulation, recognition, and by extension, destruction. In a Channel News Asia interview with Emmerich, he quantified the destruction of the Singapore skyline because “it is a very attractive skyline” and the “recognisability of the landmarks” were important to him (2016). As a sequel to the original movie, he wanted to bring in more Asian landmarks alongside already recognized American and European ones to make the movie even more “global” (Emmerich, 2016). Singapore’s skyline thus cements its status as an APS powerhouse, and popular culture is the means by which they are validated in this new alternative lens.

Photograph 7: A screenshot of the Singapore skyline being destroyed in a promotional trailer for Independence Day: Resurgence, with MBS in the left corner and the Central Business District being destroyed on the right

10 Source: Independence Day: Resurgence | Mass Destruction of Earth (1080 HD), 2016, YouTube account user G&M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNQr9_k-eMg (Accessed on 30 March 2017)

Popular Culture in Global City Formation In this segment, I explore how popular culture offers an alternative definition to global city formation. Through APS, global cities offer new economic opportunities through supportive, low-end service industries that act as “pull” factors towards attracting immigrants. At the same time, how a city is portrayed in popular culture is important too because of the way it represents cities, and because popular culture has a far-reaching influence in shaping the urban imaginaries of different stakeholders: individuals, MNCs, governments, nations and more. Thus, a city should be considered as global, or on the trajectory of becoming global, when it is highly represented in popular culture, or when it produces a large amount of popular culture.

Portrayal of Global Cities through Music and Film

1.1: Los Angeles and Popular Culture

Transnational cinemas appear synonymous with Hollywood’s domination of global cinemas today, with the American cinema as the dominant player in the film industry. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) acts as the representative for 6 major American film studios: Disney, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Universal and 20th Century Fox. All 6 companies are located in Los Angeles city (L.A.), or within Los Angeles County close to Hollywood, and in the media city of the United States. For example, Burbank, California -where Disney and Warner Bros are located- is known as the “Media Capital of the World”.

This form of cultural economy may not be recognized as an Advanced Producer Service (APS) in traditional definitions of global cities. Considering the “functional centrality” of cultural hotbeds like L.A., firms in this city seemingly do not offer “knowledge-rich and technology enabled environments” (Derudder, De Vos, & Witlox, Global city/ world city, 2012, p. 75) that befit ‘traditional’ APS services because “culture figures as a significant but relatively minor aspect of debates about global cities” (Pratt, 2012, p. 265). However, we should also consider the cities that films are based on as part of the global nature of film production. Cities involved in both the local and global film production network act as basing points dictated by the APS argument. L.A.’s film industry could be argued as an industrial cluster in a local buzz and global pipelines. (Bathelt, Malmberg, & Maskell, 2004, pp. 36-38). Film emphasizes ‘localized capabilities’ and ‘untraded interdependencies’ through interactions between creative industries in L.A. This socio- institutional setting allows “inter firm communication and interactive processes of localized learning (to) play decisive roles in processes of innovation and growth” (Bathelt, Malmberg, & Maskell, 2004, p. 37). Economically, film is a billion dollar industry, and contributes to APS like finance, advertisement and legal services. Hence, even though L.A. is not a global city in the APS definition, its ability to produce large amounts of films for global consumption, and the synonymy of Hollywood to America’s film industry should concretize L.A’s status as a global city when we consider using popular culture as an alternative definition.

One movie that encapsulates L.A.’s global city status through film is the film-musical La La Land (Chazelle, 2016). The title refers in part to the idiomatic expression, but it also refers to L.A’s nickname where creative artists come to pursue their dreams. Mia, the

11 female lead character, is an aspiring artist who moved to L.A. to pursue her dreams of acting. Sebastian, the male lead, is a struggling jazz pianist who hopes to open his own jazz bar one day.

Photograph 8: Promotional poster for La La Land Source: http://www.indiewire.com/2016/08/la-la-land-poster-emma-stone-ryan-gosling-damien-chazelle- venice-international-film-festival-2016-1201721466/ (Accessed on 30 March 2017)

La La Land portrays L.A. as the city of creative opportunities where aspiring artists of all crafts gather to pursue their dreams, which parallels the reality as the “Media Capital of the World”. Due to the “selective concentration of the media industry in a limited number of large cities and metropolises” (Krätke & Taylor, 2004, p. 461), media cities like L.A. are niche cities that should be recognized due to their invaluable contribution to popular culture and the popular culture industry, and for having the necessary infrastructure and talents to sustain their dominance and importance in this segment.

As music and film becomes one of the main “leisure resource in late modern society” (Bennet, 2001, p. 1), it is possible that these industries perpetuate cultural

12 homogenization in its portrayal and connections with ideas, places and nations, especially given the influential reach of American music and film. It is easy to assume that global popular culture propagates absolute “Americanization”, or that local culture can be completely replaced with American and the occasional British culture instead. This suggests that global cities could be identified by their adoption of a homogeneous culture, or consumption of a certain cultural product. However, the role of popular culture in forming global cities goes beyond the adoption of the dominant culture. It is fallacious to presume that only through the adoption of American culture can a city be put on the global city pedestal vis-à-vis a cultural definition.

In the following section, I examine the local music scene of Singapore and Seoul, and how the hybridisation of Xinyao and the Hallyu wave phenomena perpetuates a hybrid culture unique to these two cities alone, and how the possession of a unique culture should be a considered as a marker for global city status.

Portrayals of Global Cities: Popular Culture and Cultural Hybridization

1.1: Singapore’s Xinyao

Xinyao is an extraction from its longer name “xin jia po nian qing ren chuang zhuo de ge yao”, or the songs composed by Singaporean youths in English (Kong, 1997, p. 26). It is a glocal rendering of the Taiwanese “Campus Folk Song Movement” beginning in the 1980s that adapted itself to suit local context through Mandarin songs. These songs are highly localized in Singapore as they were mainly about the Singaporean way of life, as well as about the dreams, aspirations and emotions of coming-of-age Singaporean youths. In its infancy, Xinyao’s composers and songs were “music at the margins” as they were on the periphery of the dominant national/international music industry” (Kong, 1996, p. 107). Nonetheless, it was extremely popular amongst the youths, and soon became a national phenomenon.

13 Photograph 9: A photograph of young Eric Moo (left), one of the pioneers of Xinyao playing at a concert by Ho Soh Gan Source: http://news.asiaone.com/news/showbiz/singer-songwriter-eric-moo-dedicates-his-concert-here- xinyao (Accessed 30 March 2017)

The origins and regional influence behind Xinyao in itself contradicts the rhetoric that “Americanization” and cultural homogeneity influences the music of all global cities. Of course, Anglo-American influences were very strong in Singapore and the rest of the world in the 1970s and 80s, especially through rock music (Perera & Perera, 2010). Rock bands like Queen, Led Zeppelin, Guns N’ Roses and more were particularly prominent and influential in these decades, and local bands were covering their music as part of the local music scene of that time. Rock has been alleged to be a “form of cultural imperialism” and linked to an “international popular culture” that has become a form of cultural capital in popular music (Mendonça, 2002, p. 106). However, Xinyao too flourished in the same period, proving that local values and norms can coexist side-by- side with Western ideals and pander to a local –rather than global-audience.

Xinyao also comes at the time where a “second” industrial revolution was occurring, as Singapore progressively moved towards a knowledge-intensive and advanced manufacturing and quaternary sector service economy (EDB, 2016). As Singapore started becoming APS-centric, the national aspirations for a better future were buoyed by local sentiments through song, and perhaps played a part in ensuring Singapore became the global city it is today by acting as a unifying force that bolstered the spirits of the emerging working middle class through song. Through local music influences based on Singaporean values, aspiring towards competitiveness in the global music scene became one way of placing Singapore on the regional map. Xinyao began moving towards staking a claim in the global commercial music scene away from its ‘student song’ past (Kong, 1997, p. 30), seeking to identify with a more ‘adult’ crowd. The sound of Xinyao became more geared towards the pop genre as well. Active commercialization of Xinyao began in 1984, after which “the trend towards commercialisation gathered momentum and became strongest between 1985 and 1989” (Kong, 1996, pp. 116-117). Pioneer Xinyao singers like Dawn Gan and Thomas Teo were selling between 10,000-30,000 copies of their cassette tapes after singing on with international record companies as solo artists, a marked increase of the average 5,000 for other local singers (Kong, 1996, p. 118). Xinyao became so integrated into the larger, regional mainstream Chinese music scene that it no longer made sense to use the term by the 90s. While the original style faded out naturally, it shows the fortitude of the foundation and initial cultural characteristics of Xinayao for successfully breaking into mainstream mandopop, and for Singapore to break into the larger mandarin music market.

Xinyao continues to be revived and influential in local cultures, with the 2013 Singaporean movie That Girl in Pinafore (Chai, 2013) being a recent example. The movie, set in the 1990s, revolves around the romance of two teenagers, their friends, and a Xinyao competition, and the trials of school life, aspirations, and emotions reminiscent of the period. It features, and is about, the heavy youth xinyao subculture that older generations of Singaporeans are familiar with and reminisce about. That this movie was published in 2013 despite Xinyao’s prominence in the 80s and “death” in the 90s reflects the importance and pervasiveness of this culture in Singapore.

Photograph 10: Promotional poster for That Girl in Pinafore Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fb/That_Girl_in_Pinafore_poster.jpg (Accessed 30 March 2017)

1.2 Hallyu Wave

Hallyu Wave, or Korean Wave, marks the snowballing global popularity of South Korean popular culture beginning from the late 1990s with Korean serial dramas across East, South and Southeast Asia (Jung, 2009, p. 69). South Korean popular culture became exceedingly prominent within the last decade due to the successful proliferation of Korean-Pop (K-POP) music via social media.

Photograph 11: K-POP boy band SHINee at KCON, L.A. 2016. Source: http://www.fuse.tv/2016/07/shinee-kcon-2016-los-angeles-interview-comeback-teamwork (Accessed 30 March 2017)

While the spread of Hallyu has been mostly limited to Asia, we are seeing an increasing proliferation of K-POP into Western markets in the last few years (Cha & Kim, 2011, p. 154). An example of which is KCON, an annual Hallyu wave convention held in different locations around the world that was started in 2012 and based in Southern California. Other locations include Paris, Mexico City and Abu Dhabi.

What is interesting to note is that K-POP idol groups like BTS, SHINee, Super Junior, Girls Generation and Wonder Girls for example grew immensely popular both locally in South Korea (especially Seoul, the capital city where these groups are based) and globally due to “multi-cultural fusion power” where Western choreography and culture were localised to fit into the East Asian context (Cha & Kim, 2011, p. 157). These groups are all transnational in their own way, as they have broken into different markets beyond Korea (SHINee’s 2014 world tour, Super Junior-M with 2 Chinese members, Girls Generation in Japan, and the Wonder Girls’ 2009 American tour).

With the Hallyu Wave, we are able to see that while Western culture glocalizes certain aspects of K-POP, this glocalized culture is now in turn consumed by the West too. As Iwabuchi argues:

“Analysis of these processes is crucial in order to avoid advancing either an essentialist view of Asian values and traditions or a simplistic view of American cultural domination” (2016, p. 28)

Iwabuchi further argues, “East Asian popular cultures have long dexterously hybridized local elements while absorbing American cultural influences” (2016, p. 28). The differences and similarities of Seoul’s popular culture locally, regionally and globally creates a form of “cultural identification, relatedness, and sharedness” (Iwabuchi, 2016,

16 p. 30) As we have constantly seen, cultural hybridity has resulted in the persistent and concurrently (re) negotiating of the global and local in the production, consumption and distribution (Darling-Wolf, 2015, p. 143) of popular music. While Western ideals play a prominent role in the “active cultural translation practices in the non-West” (Iwabuchi, East Asian Popular Culture and Inter-Asian Referencing, 2016, p. 28), there is no such thing as a homogeneous “American” culture, or a singular “global city culture” in this case.

Global cities, then, are cities that have a strong cultural identity and/or industry that is unique to their city, even as they absorb certain Western elements. Seoul’s popular music is a cultural inspiration that has spread regionally and globally. The easy transfer and consumption of popular culture also reflects the global nature of these cities, as well as encourages further cultural hybridisation regionally and globally. Xinyao’s legacy marks Singapore as a global city in a few ways. Firstly, it did briefly become one of Singapore’s top cultural product. The hybridised local-ness of Xinyao, while not as successful or globally influential as the Hallyu wave, is still influential in creating a national cultural identity in its heydays that complemented the traditional APS route of global city formation that Singapore embarked on in the same time period. Seoul and Singapore have their own alternative and unique hybrid culture, and thus should be considered as a potential global city when using popular culture as a marker for globality for their contribution to a new unique cultural discourse.

Conclusion Through film, music and architecture, we see popular culture’s influence in challenging existing urban discourses on global cities by providing an alternative lens and new means of contestations. While the definitions of a global city may always be more heavily influenced by its APS economy and contributions, popular culture plays a role in global city formation by acting as a medium for these cities to develop alternative niches. By tapping on their histories through cultural hybridity instead, cities can develop a local form of cultural capital that they become identified with, like the Hallyu wave of South Korea. These unique hybridity cannot be gleaned from APS, and APS only portrays a city in a one-dimensional way devoid of a city’s rich individuality, nuances and history. APS may be a convenient and popular indicator of globality, but it is also an exceedingly boring one that does no justice to city diversity. Given the growing emphasis on city culture and cultural developments to attract a new wave of creative citizens and talents, there is much potential in exploring popular culture as an alternative indicator of global cities. By engaging in more alternative viewpoints, we would be better able to appreciate that global cities come in all different forms. This can prevent an overly biased Anglo- American, ethnocentric understanding and labeling of emerging cities, especially for emerging Asian cities.

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Final Word Count (without bibliography): 4880