By the outbreak of the Second World War in Britain, critics had spent several decades negotiating the supposed distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow culture, as recent scholarship has shown. What has received comparatively little attention is how the demands of wartime living changed the stakes of the debate. This article addresses this lacuna, exploring how war invited a reassessment of the relative merits of art and popular music. Perhaps the most iconic British singer of the period, Vera Lynn provides a case study. Focusing on her first film vehicle,We'll Meet Again(1942), I explore how Lynn's character mediated the highbrow/lowbrow conflict – for example, by presenting popular music as a site of community, while disparaging art music for its minority appeal. In so doing, I argue, the film not only promoted Lynn's star persona, but also intervened in a broader debate about the value of entertainment for a nation at war.

中文翻译：

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银幕上的维拉·林恩：流行音乐和“人民战争”

正如最近的学术研究表明的那样，随着第二次世界大战在英国爆发，批评家们花了几十年的时间就所谓的高雅文化和低俗文化之间的区别进行谈判。相对较少受到关注的是战时生活的需求如何改变了辩论的重点。这篇文章解决了这个漏洞，探讨了战争如何促使人们重新评估艺术和流行音乐的相对优点。也许是那个时期最具标志性的英国歌手，Vera Lynn 提供了一个案例研究。专注于她的第一部电影载体，我们会再见面的（1942 年），我探讨了林恩的角色如何调解高雅/低俗的冲突——例如，通过将流行音乐呈现为社区场所，同时贬低艺术音乐的少数吸引力。我认为，这样做，这部电影不仅提升了林恩的明星形象，而且还介入了一场更广泛的关于娱乐对于一个处于战争中的国家的价值的辩论。