Alvin, age 17, from Harlem, NYC Tags: crime/law/deviance, inequality, prejudice/discrimination, race/ethnicity, violence, criminology, new york city, police, racial profiling, 11 to 20 mins Year: 2012 Length: 13:15 Access: YouTube Summary: [Trigger Warning: this clip contains profanity and some incidents of violence.] "We're gonna go out there and we're gonna violate some rights." These are the words of a police captain, as reported by a New York Police Department (NYPD) veteran of over 10 years. This exposé produced by The Nation reveals the NYPD's blatant racial profiling/stop-and-frisk practices. The video begins with an audio recording of an actual stop-and-frisk incident of a Latino man for "looking suspicious," then moves to interviews with anonymized police officers about the policy and practices involved with it. Not only does the video expose the racial profiling of the targets, but the pressure put on line officers by sergeants, lieutenants, and captains to continue issuing summons and performing arrests, both to keep their jobs and to get promoted through the ranks. This video would be excellent for any course on criminology, justice studies, race, or law to discuss the intersection of power, race, inequality, and/or corruption. Submitted By: Anonymous
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A scene from the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony. Tags: capitalism, class, durkheim, economic sociology, marx/marxism, organizations/occupations/work, theory, weber, alienation, disenchantment, mechanical and organic solidarity, species-being, 11 to 20 mins Year: 2012 Length: 20:00 Access: YouTube (start 13:40; end 33:40) Summary: The London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony focused in part on the Industrial Revolution which is seen to be pioneered by both the British and Europeans in the 19th Century. The ceremony opens with England depicted as a meadow, showing its agricultural past, then continues by depicting the industrial society that followed. This clip can be useful for illustrating many sociological concepts, such as Durkheim’s concepts of mechanical and organic solidarity; Weber’s concept of disenchantment; Marx’s concepts of a two class system, species-being, and alienation; and with the presence of the Suffragettes in the latter part, the clip can be used to introduce Feminist Perspectives. For example, Marx’s concept of species-being (the naturalness of human’s creativity and interaction with nature) is evident in the previous feudal/agricultural society, where the actors are seen enjoying nature and creative activities symbolic to the UK (such as cricket and Maypole dancing), interacting with family and friends, and partaking in ‘productive activity’ which they can relate to, e.g. farming and creative work. However, the people become alienated from their species-being through the era of industrialization. As capitalism developed, workers experienced alienation from their ‘productive activity’; alienation from the ‘product’; alienation from other workers; and alienation from their own creative ‘human potential’. This is shown in the video through the factory work occurring with greater numbers of workers, but with no contact among these workers with each other, working in unison like machines on products that they have no relation to and unable to express any form of human creativity. Viewers might also consider what is missing from the clip, such as colonialism, as well as the race and ethnicity of the actors (as compared to colonized subjects). Submitted By: Michelle MacDonagh
Alex Castellanos and Rachel Maddow argue on Meet the Press
Tags: economic sociology, gender, inequality, methodology/statistics, organizations/occupations/work, prejudice/discrimination, empiricism, feminism, gender wage gap, income inequality, 11 to 20 mins Year: 2012 Length: 14:42 Access: YouTube Summary: A few months ago, sociologist Phillip Cohen blogged about a feminist viral statistic meme, which claims that women own less than 1% of all the world's wealth. It turns out, a credible source for this figure can't be traced and is unlikely to exist. As Cohen's post reminds us, the very statistics that shape how we understand the world are sometimes little more than elaborately disguised rumors. So what about other influential statistics? What about that viral statistic which states that women earn about 77 cents for every dollar men earn? When people have denied gender inequality exists and when they have implied it is unnecessary to enact policies aimed at eradicating it, the 77-cent statistic has often come to the rescue and thwarted derailment, so whether the statistic is accurate is an important question. In the above clip, Republican Party strategist Alex Castellanos asserts the 77-cent statistic is untrue. Could it be just another viral statistic meme without a source? The short answer is no. The longer answer is that 77 cents is an average, and the number varies based on profession, age, and race. The 77-cent statistic can easily be traced to a respectable source--the Census Bureau (the U.S. Bureau of Labor calculates the number differently and arrives at about 81 cents on the male dollar). The point is society needs an accurate description of the world, lest our dominant understanding of the world become solely derived from eloquently stated assertions by elites with narrow interests. In part, this clip makes a good case for the potential importance of sociology, and in particular, a sociology that checks its sources. It is also important to have a sociology that is capable of setting the record straight, if only to rebuke those talking heads who seek to confuse the public with baseless assertions. In this clip, Alex Castellanos' baseless assertion begins at about the 7:35 mark. Submitted By: Lester Andrist Tags: discourse/language, emotion/desire, lgbtq, marriage/family, sex/sexuality, theory, identity politics, queer theory, 11 to 20 mins Year: 2012 Length: 8:57, 4:58, 5:12 Access: YouTube (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) Summary: How do you talk about queer theory outside of the queer studies classroom? This question has challenged scholars in the interdisciplinary field of queer studies since its inception in the late 1980s. Lisa Duggan (1994) provided a classic characterization of the trouble with talking queer theory in the proverbial 'mainstream' in her classic "Queering the State": the highly constructionist language of queer theory and the predominantly essentialist assumptions of public discourse create a kind of "language gap" between the queer studies classroom and, well, everywhere else. This language gap is not a problem, of course, unless you want to actually do something with the radical insights of queer theory in the interest of promoting social justice for gender and sexual minorities. My students tackled the problem of communicating queer theory to "lay" audiences in an applied final project for our queer theory honors seminar this semester at Arizona State University. Jenn Blazer and Jake Adler first imagined their video project as a way to "translate" queer theory to non-experts, but they found that they were unsure how to even begin such an endeavor without turning the project into a pedantic lecture on jargon. So, they interviewed two groups of people (one queer-identified group in "Phase One," and a straight-identified group in "Phase Two") about their ideas on sexuality and sexual identity. After speaking with the straight people and asking them things such as, "Can you define heteronormativity?", they showed the straight folks the responses from their queer interviewees. Then, Jenn and Jake again asked the same set of questions to the straight folks to see how their responses might change. Their results, presented in the video titled "Phase Three," are fascinating. Jenn and Jake aptly titled their project "Queering the Folk." Enjoy. Note that these videos would pair well with Michael Warner's book, "The Trouble with Normal" and Stein & Plummer's article, "I can't even think straight': Queer Theory and the Missing Sexual Revolution in Sociology." Submitted By: Patrick R. Grzanka Barak Obama speaks at a rally to promote diversity Tags: discourse/language, knowledge, media, politics/election/voting, race/ethnicity, theory, derrick bell, critical race theory, fear, 11 to 20 mins Year: 2012 Length: 13:10 Access: YouTube Summary: In the Academy Award-winning documentary Bowling for Columbine, filmmaker Michael Moore highlights, among other things, the ways in which fear—and specifically white fear of black men—is manufactured through the American media (e.g., here). Moore places the history of American gun policy and gun violence within this context. This American tendency to invent fear using racial justifications is also a useful framework for contextualizing the "controversy" over the video footage released in March 2012 that depicted then-law student Barak Obama introducing law professor Derrick Bell at a rally to promote diversity among Harvard faculty (Professor Bell was the first tenured African-American Professor of Law at Harvard Law School). The conservative group Breitbart.com used the video as evidence of Obama's support of critical race theory (CRT), an intellectual project developed by Bell and others to illustrate the intersection of race, law, and power, and the ways in which American institutions are fundamentally organized by racialized power structures that disadvantage people of color. CRT is rooted in a tradition of social justice. While much buzz surrounded the story, this particular video clip is useful for highlighting how the racialized politics of fear gets used to shape American discourse and ideology (as well as discredit knowledge). Viewers can watch the invention of fear unfolding before their very eyes, bearing witness to the myriad of ways the more-or-less innocuous footage is described as a "bombshell," the likening of Bell to Rev. Jeremiah Wright (another black man who was successfully deemed radical and worthy of fear), and how Obama "forced" his students to read Bell at the University of Chicago. The racial politics of fear is explicitly evoked at the 6:27 minute mark. As the November elections draw near, viewers can be encouraged to look out for similar projects around the invention of fear unfold, particularly around Obama's race. Submitted By: Valerie Chepp Tags: art/music, capitalism, class, consumption/consumerism, prejudice/discrimination, theory, aristocracy of culture, pierre bourdieu, status hierarchy, taste, 11 to 20 mins Year: 1961 Length: 12:10 Access: YouTube Summary: This is an animated rendering of Dr. Seuss's 1961 book, The Sneetches. In the story, Star-bellied sneetches enjoy elite status, so when plain-bellied sneetches get stars imprinted on their bellies, the status system is thrown into disarray. In response, the sneetch-elite pay a heavy price to reestablish their distinction by having their stars removed. I like to use this video as an illustration of Bourdieu's idea of taste as it pertains to status, which he outlines in his book Distinction. In a chapter he names "The Aristocracy of Culture," Bourdieu describes tastes as "manifested preferences." They are "the practical affirmation of an inevitable difference” (56). Groups put forth considerable effort to maintain and reinforce their differences, and as Bourdieu observes, groups work to naturalize their distinctive tastes. Although absent in Dr. Seuss's story, Bourdieu's social theory draws attention to the fact that groups are always interested in asserting the fiction that tastes—their mode of acquisition of culture—are in fact due to more fundamental differences in their natures. Submitted By: Margaret Austin Smith Tags: abortion/reproduction, historical sociology, government/the state, politics/election/voting, theory, violence, weber, civil liberties, democracy, melissa harris-perry, social contract theory, states rights, thomas hobbes, 11 to 20 mins Year: 2012 Length: 20:55 Access: msnbc Summary: The social contract refers to the individual's acceptance of some social rules and limitations in exchange for the protections and benefits from the state. The concept was initially developed in the philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau; however, sociologist Max Weber further specified the social contract as it relates to violence by highlighting how all forms of political organization including democracy, entrust "the state" (e.g. government at all levels) as the only social institution that can legitimately use physical force. In this video, political scientist and pundit Melissa Harris-Perry applies this Weberian approach by arguing that the State of Virginia failed to force women to undergo an invasive procedure, known as a transvaginal sonogram, prior to having an abortion because social consensus concluded it was not a legitimate use of force (or even violence) by the government. In other words, the state was in breach of the social contract. For a similar discussion on the same political issue, Rachel Maddow explores the fringe pro-life movement’s use of illegitimate violence against abortion doctors in her full-length documentary, The Assassination of Dr. Tiller. Submitted By: Jason Eastman _Tags: bodies, gender, lgbtq, sex/sexuality, identity, lesbian, masculinity, transgender, 11 to 20 mins, 61+ mins Year: 2005 Length: 13:58 (entire documentary is 75:00) Access: YouTube Summary: The Aggressives is a documentary "look at the lesbian women who prefer to dress and act as men and who participate in NYC's predominantly African-American lesbian drag balls." Viewers may explore issues of identity, gender, and sexuality with this group of lesbians that identify as butch/stud "aggressives," and adopt a very masculine gender. Part of this excerpt shows the daily practices to portray a masculine physique, including constantly working out to build muscle tone, grinding their teeth in order to have a strong masculine jaw line, taking hormone pills to grow facial hair and other mail traits to reduce feminine features and using duct tape, ace bandage and girdles to tape/hold down their breasts so they are less visible. As the respondents discuss their identity, this excerpt also explores what it means to be a man or woman, illustrating West and Zimmerman's concept of "doing gender." The women in the documentary are constantly fighting against societal constraints of a gendered female norm. This highly provocative excerpt can be a great discussion starter on issues of gender and sexuality, but the film more generally also examines issues of race. Submitted By: Jasmine Jowers and Rachele Macarthy Americans underestimate U.S. economic inequality. Tags: capitalism, class, economic sociology, inequality, wealth distribution, subtitles/CC, 11 to 20 mins Year: 2011 Length: 11:46 Access: YouTube Summary: This PBS NewsHour report explores the extraordinary and rising levels of economic inequality in the U.S. The top 20% of Americans now hold 84% of U.S. wealth, and more and more families are falling out of the middle class. Yet, despite drastic increases in inequality, average Americans perceive their country to be relatively equal. While this clip is useful in that it draws upon economic research to support this claim about Americans' perceptions of economic inequality, students might find reporter Paul Solman's survey conducted on the streets of New York City to be espeically compelling. Time and again, Americans underestimate the extent of U.S. economic inequality. The clip highlights that most of the inequality is explained by gains made at the "tippy-top" -- that is, gains made by the super-rich. The clip features research showing that overall, Americans (both Democrats and Republicans) want more economic equality. A transcript of the clip is also available. Check out other clips on The Sociological Cinema that address the truth about the current U.S. economy and a survey conducted on the streets of NYC. Submitted By: Lindsey Baker Tags: children/youth, discourse/language, gender, media, critical theory, media literacy, feminism, 11 to 20 mins Year: 2011 Length: 17:28 Access: Vimeo Summary: At least in the genre of children’s animated series, it appears that narrow representations of women and femininity are being seriously challenged. It is no longer wholly uncommon to learn of a show that depicts girls as heroic and powerful, and nowhere is this more evident than in the Cartoon Network's The Powerpuff Girls, which ran from 1995 to 2006. While the series generally challenges dominant representations of femininity, one of the episodes, titled "Equal Fights," functions more as a morality tale meant to caution young women against a radical feminism and against pursuing any fundamental challenges to patriarchy. The episode can be used by instructors who seek to promote media literacy, and in this case, arm their students with the ability to spot content that works to uphold the patriarchal status quo (even when that content is otherwise lauded as socially progressive). In the episode, the young superheroes capture the villain, Femme Fatale, but they immediately free her after she convinces them that women are underrepresented as superheroes and villains. Femme Fatale's observation makes a lasting impression on the girls, and as the story develops, they are shown overreacting and misapplying their knowledge of patriarchal injustice. In the final act, the mayor's assistant and the girls' teacher intervene, and effectively condemn the girls' behavior. In her paper on the series, "Saving the World before Bedtime," Lisa Hager similarly takes issue with the "Equal Fights" episode and points out that it never confronts the question raised by Femme Fatale—who, besides Wonder Woman, is a heroine in her own right? It is my view that "Equal Fights" also adds fuel to a discourse, which attempts to equate feminism with male bashing. It is a discourse which seeks to supplant a moral outrage against patriarchy with an outrage against the "injustices" visited on men when women go too far. The moral of this story seems to be that the girls need to be more cautious about their activism; when women are too feminist—when they want too much equality—everyone loses. Submitted By: Lester Andrist |
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