Tags: art/music, culture, inequality, cinema, drugs, mexico, war on drugs, subtitles/cc, 21 to 60 mins
Year: 2011
Length: 23:17
Access: YouTube

Summary:  Film has always been a reflection of our society, and this exploration of Mexican cinema is a reflection of drugs, culture, and inequality in contemporary Mexico. First, it is an interesting look at how art imitates life and life imitates art. Given the huge role of drug trafficking in Mexico today, the video documents the large film industry built around dramatizing these conflicts. Some of the actors and directors discuss working with drug traffickers in producing some of the films, and the danger of not discussing their relationship in order to stay alive. At the 12:40 mark, the video examines how the music, or corridos, act as a living testimony of narco lore, which in turn, continues the legend that gives birth to more Narco Cinema. Furthermore, this genre of film in Mexico has influenced clothing, home, and car purchases. Although the same could be said for U.S. films (and how they act as catalyst for sub-cultures), in Mexico, these films have given birth to the ideals of building and living a lifestyle to reflect that of narco culture. Second, a more subtle message in the video is about the relationship between drug culture and inequality. The films are very popular among low-income and rural Mexicans for both economic and cultural reasons. Narco cinema are relatively cheaply made "B-movies" (often written, produced, and completed in less than a month) that go straight to DVD and are much more affordable for everyday Mexicans. Therefore, they have a wider audience than the more expensive feature films (only 18% of Mexicans can afford to see movies in a theater). The films also appeal to impoverished Mexicans (especially males) or those struggling to get by in the US. Drug traffickers are often portrayed as "Robin Hood" type characters who help out their hometowns and families. The drug traffickers themselves are usually people that come from rural poverty, and those who become successful in the drug business are often celebrated within the films (the video also notes the rumors that some of the films are financed by drug cartels). But as the narrator notes, while drugs and drug culture are often glamorized, the reality of drug trafficking is the uncontrollable levels of violence and death that come as a result of the drug wars. For example, Mexico experienced 5,630 Narco-related "execution murders" in 2008. American viewers might also consider the role of the US and US-Mexico relations in this process. The film ends with the narrator adding "as long as there is a huge demand for drugs in America, there's going to be blood, drugs, and these kinds of movies flowing out of Mexico." Finally, while gender is never discussed in the video, sociologists have much to think about in terms of the role of gender in both Narco Cinema and the production of this video.

Submitted By: JD Villanueva

Tags: gender, achieved status, gender socialization, masculinity, performativity theory, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 1997
Length: 3:35
Access: YouTube

Summary: Many gender scholars gravitate towards the concept of gender practices because the explanatory model is so multifaceted. First, practicing gender captures how gender is something most men and women do regularly in their daily lives. However, the concept of gender practices also highlights how these ways of doing gender are socially structured or socially institutionalized because, somewhat like the rules of a sport, socially-shared normative guidelines set the parameters for how we practice gender. Lastly, most individuals become so well-practiced in their gender, it is done reflexively or without thinking, which explains how gender is ever-present and especially-salient in our lives (yet so regularly overlooked and seemingly inconsequential). However, what would happen if a man never learned his gender practices? In this clip from the movie In & Out, Kevin Kline uses a self-help audio book to help him learn to be masculine. It teaches him to more effectively monitor his gender practices—thus drawing on humor to illuminate the subtle ways gender dictates much of our daily behavior. Furthermore, because this example revolves around the interconnections between dancing and masculinity, the clip can spark discussion about manhood and ethnicity, especially since dancing is a gendered practice that exemplifies masculine athletic ability and prowess in many cultures.

Submitted By: Jason Eastman

Tags: capitalism, corporations, knowledge, marx/marxism, media, political economy, theory, censorship, fox, ideology, monsanto, news, 00 to 05 mins,  06 to 10 mins
Year: 2003; 1999
Length: 10:20; 4:17
Access: YouTube (clip from The Corporation)
                YouTube (clip from The Insider)

Summary: This pair of excerpts exposes corporate censorship of the news via a documentary (The Corporation) and through a Hollywood film (The Insider). In recent years, the news media has become increasingly concentrated and controlled by corporations. The implications of this is that corporations are responsible to shareholders and must earn high profits. This concentration of corporate news has led to conflicts of interests when a news source wants to air a story that could hurt their advertisers or their shareholders. The first clip from The Corporation shows this process. In 1997, investigative journalists Steve Wilson and Jane Akre of Fox News, had prepared a story about Monsanto and the negative impacts of their bovine growth hormones (e.g. their milk was potentially carcinogenic to humans). Monsanto was an advertiser for the Fox News channel, and the company threatened to both sue Fox and pull their ads. Because this would have cost Fox News significant advertising revenues, Fox decided to edit the news story so Monsanto would not pull their ads. The clip describes the process of 83 rewrites that either removed or minimized any negative effects of the hormone, until the journalists were ultimately fired and the story never aired. The second clip, from The Insider, features Al Pacino arguing how a story at 60 Minutes was being censored because of financial interests. The film is based on a true story about a whistle blower who worked for Big Tobacco and CBS was hesitant to air the interview on 60 Minutes because it might jeopardize the sale of CBS to Westinghouse Electric. Both clips illustrate the political economy of news media and Marx's concept of ideology, in which ideas and knowledge reflect the interest of the ruling class. Marx argues that the class having the means of material production (e.g. technology, money, labor, tools, etc.) also has control over the means of intellectual production (newspapers, schools, books, broadcast media, etc). One can see Marx’s claim come to life with the influence that Monsanto had over Fox News. Corporate interests shaped what news was aired, and a Fox executive later told the journalists "the news is what we say it is"; when the journalists used the courts to fight back, a Florida appeals court ruled that falsifying the news is not against the law. In both cases, financial interests shaped what constituted the news, and how it was presented--ultimately shaping knowledge in the interest of the dominant class.

Submitted By: Avery Winston and Paul Dean

Tags: culture, gender, lgbtq, sex/sexuality, fa'afafine, gender binary, Samoan culture, third gender, 06 to 10 mins
Year: 2010
Length: 6:35
Access: YouTube

Summary: This segment from the New Zealand television program Pacific Beat St explores the concept of Fa'afafine (fah-fa-fee-neh), a gender category in Samoan culture that is distinct from man or woman. In this way, Fa’afafine can be understood as a third gender that falls outside of the gender dichotomy, and this gender category is integrated into the fabric of Samoan society. As explained here, if a family is comprised of all sons, one of the boys will sometimes be raised as a daughter in order to perform daily duties that are associated with femininity. Other times, parents will raise their (biologically born) boys Fa’afafine if they exhibit strong feminine characteristics at an early age. The work performed by Fa’afafines is valued within the culture and, as noted in this clip, can include such things as cooking, caregiving, and singing in the choir. Fa'afafines present their gender in a variety of ways, as one American traveller observed: "Some of the Fa'afafines I met were very effeminate and dramatic, some were big old bruisers, some were very understated and graceful, but all walked among their countrymen with heads high and a solid footing in society." However, although Fa’afafines are an established part of Samoan culture, as this video states, they still face discrimination and marginalization, similar to transgender people in other societies. In this clip, Phylesha Brown-Acton, a Fa'afafine and transgender advocate, speaks of the prejudices she's faced. Instructors can highlight the specific stereotypes Phylesha cites, which, in addition to being perceived as "a sex worker, a druggie, a thief," also include the misperception of being "a man who wears women's clothing." As Phylesha says, every Fa'afafine has a different identity, but she personally does not identify as a man or a woman; as such, she is not "a man who wears women's clothing." This perspective and societal arrangement challenges the Western gender binary system. The clip also features Phylesha's advocacy work with youth and we meet three Fa’afafine youth advocates who work on behalf of transgender issues.

Submitted By: Valerie Chepp

Tags: rural/urban, theory, weber, gesellschaft, iron cage, rationalization, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 1965
Length: 4:51
Access: YouTube

Summary: This short cartoon comes from Hungarian animation. There are no words, but it skillfully and humorously illustrates the rationality and iron cage of modern life. It follows the main character, Gustav, from the end of his work day as a drone through his evening as he slowly descends into isolated madness. From a Weberian perspective, we might view the organization of modern urban life, with its highly efficient bureaucracies, traffic systems, and living spaces as overly rationalized spaces of social life. People are driven not by traditions, values, or emotions but rather by calculated efficiencies, and experience life in isolation from other humans. These systems of efficiency, calculation, and control constitute Weber's notion of an iron cage. It also works as an example of gesellschaft, where individuals act in their own interest (in contrast to gemeinschaft, where individual action is shaped via community norms and interaction). Ultimately, this existence drives Gustav to (unsuccessfully) attempt suicide and then to try to escape the monotony through alcohol and sleeping in the street, only to find he cannot escape the iron cage. Viewers can be encouraged to identify the elements of daily life that reflect the rationalization, iron cage, and gesellschaft.

Submitted By: Sydney Hart

Tags: gender, lgbtq, sex/sexuality, conversion therapy, gender socialization, research ethics, 06 to 10 mins
Year: 2011
Length: 7:56
Access: CNN.com

Summary: This CNN investigation looks at the controversial work of psychologist George Allan Rekers, whose 1970s "sissy boy" experiment sought to make a boy more masculine. It covers many sociological concerns including gender socialization, sexual orientation, and the ethics of research. First, in believing young boys who display behaviors thought of as feminine are more likely to be gay than supposedly masculine boys, Rekers exemplifies a common type of flawed thinking by conflating gender and sexual orientation. He attempted to "correct" supposedly feminine boys with severe sanctions (positive and negative) not only to compel boys to act in more masculine ways, but also to reduce the likelihood they would be gay as adults (and he is within a minority of people who think that is a bad thing). Second, because of the extremity of the sanctions that occurred under a psychologist’s recommendations, the “sissy boy experiment” raises many ethical concerns about applied social-psychological research—especially studies conducted on children (and also conversion therapy more generally) without consideration to the long term effects. Rekers, who is well-known in the anti-gay movement today, heralds the experiment as a success despite the fact that the boy committed suicide as an adult. As a third and final consideration about this video, we should keep in mind that everyone is subject to milder forms of sanctions on our gendered behaviors; boys (and even adult men) are often rewarded for supposedly masculine behavior while being shamed or even punished when they act ways deemed feminine (and of course, vice-versa for women). There is no doubt these experiences shape our gendered selves while reinforcing normative gendered behaviors more generally.

Submitted By: Jason Eastman

Tags: capitalism, class, economic sociology, inequality, knowledge, class analysis, ideology, wealth, 06 to 10 mins
Year: 2012
Length: 6:24
Access: YouTube

Summary: With an impressive suite of illustrations, this viral video takes viewers through the findings of a 2011 study conducted by Dan Ariely and Michael Norton, who asked respondents two basic questions. First, they asked people to report what they thought the ideal distribution of wealth in the United States should be, then they asked them how they thought wealth was actually distributed. The results suggest that, on average, Americans believe economic inequality is greater than what is ideal—i.e., the wealth gap is too large. The researchers then presented the actual distribution of wealth in the United States and compared it with both the ideal distribution and respondents' estimate of the actual distribution, and based on this comparison, it seems reasonably clear that while Americans may believe the wealth gap is too large, they are tragically misinformed about just how large it actually is. How is it that Americans are unaware of the magnitude of this inequality? Ariely and Norton do not provide an answer, but the question is worth pursuing. Consider the fact that publics have long proven a capacity to know about a wide range of phenomena that is effectively invisible. For instance, most people in the United States know about the dwarf planet Pluto, despite never seeing it with their own eyes. Thanks in large part to the mainstream media and the reverberations of social media, people in New Mexico and Montana know about the recent Boston Marathon bombings and can even recount vivid details about the event, even if they have never been to Boston and have no intention of ever visiting. But unlike Pluto and the tragedies of distant cities, the telltale signs of inequality are everywhere. In Boston, New Mexico, Montana, and virtually every other point on the map, one can find poverty within a few miles or blocks of obscene wealth; yet the true magnitude of U.S. inequality eludes most Americans. This video is not merely useful for wrapping one's head around the extent of inequality in the United States—that the top 1% holds 40% of the nation's wealth—it is also a useful segue into a discussion that connects the material facts of economic inequality to the ideological forces that ensure it remains uninterrogated. Explaining how a system of economic inequality persists requires more than simply identifying the disparities; it also requires an explanation about how publics remain relatively unaware of these disparities. For a similar analysis in a PBS clip, see here.

Submitted By: Lester Andrist

Tags: art/music, intersectionality, lgbtq, prejudice/discrimination, race/ethnicity, sex/sexuality, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 2012
Length: 4:12
Access: YouTube

Summary: This poem, performed by two young women in the youth poetry competition Brave New Voices, is an excellent way to introduce students to the concepts of intersectionality and Oppression Olympics. "Oppression Olympics is a term used when two or more groups compete to prove themselves more oppressed than each other." Intersectionality is the theory of thought that draws attention to the ways in which inequalities are intersecting and interlocking, and thus proves the difficulties associated with comparing one group's experience with oppression to another's. The poem specifically chronicles what happens when members of the African American community and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community engage in comparisons of who has had it worse. While the practice of comparing the harms of racism to homophobia isn't new, as sociologist Eric Anthony Grollman points out in this blog post, "the supposed black-versus-gay divide is old, and frankly a little tired." Indeed, as Grollman and the youth poets show, the experiences and activist histories of these two marginalized groups have much in common. Such insight supports what the bisexual Caribbean-American activist poet June Jordan wrote in her book, Some of Us Did Not Die: "Freedom is indivisible, and either we are working for freedom or you are working for the sake of your self-interests and I am working for mine." In addition to pairing this video with Jordan's work, the clip would work well with scholarship by other intersectional thinkers such as Audre Lorde, Allan Johnson, and Patricia Hill Collins.

Submitted By: Kendra Barber

Tags: capitalism, class, economic sociology, inequality, marx/marxism, organizations/occupations/work, political economy, social mvmts/social change/resistance, labor, labor law, occupy wall street, unions, 21 to 60 mins
Year: 2011
Length: 24:00
Access: aljazeera.com

Summary: This mini-documentary from Al Jazeera's Faultlines analyses the contemporary US labor movement. The video begins by documenting the plight of American workers today, including rising unemployment, stagnating wages, and higher benefit costs. It emphasizes the importance of National Labor Relations Act (aka Wagner Act) that provides a governmental structure to allow collective bargaining. We also hear from several union critics that provide the typical complaints against unions. For example, business leaders talk about their choices to shift jobs to lower-paying states and countries to lower costs. Republican politicians and business representatives argue that public workers must accept the lower wages and benefits typical of private sector employment. A corporate lawyer argues that unions must change and that if they don't understand the pressures business is under, then they will become obsolete. The video also emphasizes the struggle over labor law in several ways. For example, it documents Wisconsin's Governor Scott Walker who attempted to strip the right to collective bargaining from public workers. While it notes Obama's support for unions, it notes the fight over Employee Free Choice Act, which died when Obama failed to push it through the Senate because they prioritized other issues (e.g. health care) over labor law. Obama created the White House Jobs and Competitiveness Council which was tasked with developing a policy to create jobs, but appointed a corporate CEO (from GE, which has eliminated many American jobs) to lead it, drawing the criticism of powerless workers. Toward the end, the video discusses the occupy movement and the development of alliances to promote labor rights and economic justice. It identifies the new alliance-building that has reinvigorated the labor movement, but contrasts the frequent top-down organization of labor unions with the bottom-up organization of OWS. Viewers may reflect on the assertion that without active unions, would companies be willing to pay their workers decent wages or to implement better benefits? What should the union movement do to become more effective? One worker noted that there is "orchestrated movement to vilify and blame unions for all our problems," which is also reflected in this anti-union ad. How is public sentiment about unions shaped in the US? Why does the US have the weakest labor movement of all industrialized countries?

Submitted By: Paul Dean

Tags: children/youth, emotion/desire, inequality, rural/urban, social mvmts/social change/resistance, violence, domestic abuse, homelessness, human rights, pedagogy of affection, poverty, sex trafficking, street children, subtitles/CC, 21 to 60 mins
Year: 2007
Length: 47:33
Access: www.hummingbirdmovie.com

Summary: Often, after learning about the numerous social problems plaguing our society, students ask: "But what can we do?" and sometimes they express a sense of hopeless by suggesting that "things will never change." Hummingbird, an award-winning documentary film, was in some ways created in this same spirit of curiosity about the possibility of change amidst seemingly insurmountable social problems. Filmmaker Holly Mosher explains at the outset of the film why she visited the Brazilian city of Recife: "I visited because I wanted to see if it was really possible for kids who have lived all their lives amongst violence and misery to become part of a society that has always rejected them." The film chronicles the story of how two nonprofits in Brazil use the pedagogy of affection to help street kids and women break the vicious cycle of domestic violence. The pedagogy of affection is a method of social change whereby people help people, steeped in the belief that affection, touch, and caring are essential to holistic health and personhood. Viewers are encouraged to consider the various ways social change is effected and represented in the film, and specifically the role of grassroots organizations and communities that embrace hope and "an indefatigable spirit in the face of threats, financial difficulties, and a culture seemingly unable or unwilling to reform itself." At the 44:19 minute mark, Cecy Prestrello, co-founder of the non-profit Coletivo Mulher Vida (Women’s Life Collective), recounts the following story: "There was a fire in the forest. And all the animals were running around, crazed. Then a hummingbird began to pick up water in its beak and put it on the fire. And the lion stopped and watched. He said 'Are you crazy hummingbird? You have to protect yourself, like all the others. What are you doing?' The hummingbird replied 'I am doing my part…and what about you? What are you doing?'" Prestrello's perspective on social change would pair well with Allan G. Johnson's piece, "What Can We Do? Becoming Part of the Solution."

Submitted By: Holly Mosher