Reviews

Date01 November 1995
Published date01 November 1995
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1995.tb02062.x
REVIEWS
Steve Redhead,
Unpopular Cultures: The Birth
of
Law
and
Popular Culture,
Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995, 136 pp, hb 235.00, pb E10.99.
The field of ‘law and popular culture’ has, in the past, been seen as a broad term
which encompasses a series of discrete areas with little thematic or ideological
connection between them. Of late, great strides have been taken, particularly in the
United States, to embed some of these areas within the mainstream of legal
academia. In recent years, an issue of the Yale Law Journal has been given over to
a discussion of law, lawyers and popular culture, and in particular to the television
series,
LA
Law
(Yale
Law
Journal
(1989) p 1545); the University of Texas at
Austin has held a conference on The Lawyer in Popular Culture; Simon Frith has
both written and edited seminal works which examine the interface between law
and music; and work in the area of sports law has charted the juridification and
regulation of sports as diverse as football, fencing and boxing.
Steve Redhead can justifiably claim to be at the forefront of the burgeoning field
of Law and Popular Culture in the United Kingdom. Since the appearance of his
first book in 1987, he has consistently been ‘dancing critically on the edge’ of a
series of disciplines. By looking at areas that say things to him about his life,
Redhead internalises, personalises, even
humanises,
his field. The reader is left in
no doubt that, rather in the manner of an autobiography, we are getting an insight
into Redhead’s life, his habits, his passions. It is undeniable that Redhead’s
passions have produced results. Since being appointed Reader in Law and Popular
Culture by Manchester Metropolitan University in 1990, he has established a Unit
for Law and Popular Culture (under the umbrella of the Manchester Institute for
Popular Culture) which has published innovative material of a consistently high
standard.
Part of the rationale behind this book is the location of this new discipline.
Whilst Redhead’s analysis of its development is interesting in itself, the major
strength of the book is the attempt to (re)map the links between strands of
(un)popular culture. He argues that the trajectories of sociology of law, sociology
of deviance and cultural studies have collided and intersected to such a degree over
the past decade that the time is ripe for their re-evaluation.
By depicting concepts
of
‘dead law,’ ‘the erotics of law,’ ‘hyper law’ and
‘translaw,’ Redhead is erecting an innovative edifice based on the diversity and
effect of popular culture on traditional legal authority. The structure is inevitably
incoherent and founded upon a coalition
of
ideas drawn from other disciplines,
with culture as the guiding thread. The outcome of this project is the evolution of
what might be termed ‘Rainbow’ or ‘refractive’ law, a spectrum which contains
elements that are constantly merging, disconnecting and reappearing. This concept
of law can be seen in relation to changes in political activities that are presently
evolving, perhaps best exemplified by the blurring of previously strict political
boundaries in a number of areas
-
notably animal welfare, education, the health
service and particularly the environment. The essence of these campaigns is that
they draw support from a number
of
previously exclusive groups. The sight of
traditional conservative voters attempting port blockades to prevent animal
exportation is
a
good example of the degree to which political fragmentation is
108
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and 238 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142,
USA.
913
0
The Modern
Law
Review Limited
1995
(MLR
58:6,
November). Published by Blackwell Publishers,

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