Popular Culture: 2000 and Beyond

Popular Culture: 2000 and Beyond — page 5 — A Turbulent Decade Pop culture reflects what is happening in society at the time it is made The year 2000 started with a wave of optimism Much of the world was nearing the peak of a dot-com boom as the Internet became part of everyday life This optimism started to fade in the second half of 2000 when many Internet companies started to fail It was brought to a shattering end on September 11 2001 when radical Islamist terrorists hijacked four passenger jets crashing two of them into New York’s World Trade Center another into the Pentagon building near Washington D C and a fourth in a field in Pennsylvania Almost 3,000 people died in the attacks 1 War on terror U S president George W Bush vowed to pursue a war on terror to defeat terrorists U S troops began an invasion of Afghanistan where the Taliban government was sheltering Osama Bin Laden and other leaders of the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization The United States was supported by the United Kingdom and other allies who were appalled by the attacks The war continued for more than a decade even after the killing of Bin Laden by U S forces in 2011

Popular Culture: 2000 and Beyond — page 6 — While the war in Afghanistan was seen as a direct consequence of the 9 11 attacks Bush’s next war to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq was much less popular People questioned the reasons for the war and whether it was legal The war also provoked more terrorist attacks particularly on the people of Iraq but also on the streets of international cities such as London and Madrid These wars and terrorism were themes of a lot of pop culture during this period Financial crash Despite the threat of war and terrorism economies continued to boom Homeowners in prosperous Western countries felt they were better off as prices of property rose and bankers in the big financial centers such as Wall Street and the City of London were taking home million-dollar bonuses When it became clear from 2007 onward that many of these bonuses were based on lending money to people who couldn’t afford to pay it back the financial system crashed and the world was plunged into economic crisis At the end of the decade U S voters elected the first African American president He took over a country at war and in economic crisis but Barack Obama’s election was still seen by some as the culmination of a struggle for racial equality that had been a feature of much of twentieth-century culture

Popular Culture: 2000 and Beyond — page 7 — The war in Iraq divided opinion between those who thought it was necessary and those who opposed it Books films and online media explored many aspects of the conflict

Popular Culture: 2000 and Beyond — page 8 — Pop culture in the face of terrorism Following the 9 11 attacks some Hollywood films were delayed or cancelled because filmmakers felt that people would be offended by fictional terrorism in the face of the horrifying reality of the attacks Films about 9 11 such as United 93 2006 followed a few years later In the meantime U S led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and concerns about human-rights abuses in the treatment of prisoners led many in popular culture to question the actions of the U S UK and their allies Globalization Another feature of world affairs in the early years of the twenty first century was the growing prominence of Asian countries As Western economies struggled with economic crisis the economies of China India and other countries in Asia kept getting stronger With populations of more than one billion people each China and India became increasingly important in manufacturing and other industries As their wealth grew they began to challenge Western countries as consumers including as consumers of popular culture

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