Tags: knowledge, marketing/brands, media, social mvmts/social change/resistance, culture jam, sociology of culture, 06 to 10 mins Year: 2010 Length: 9:49 Access: YouTube Summary: The caption below this YouTube clip notes that "culture jamming...is a mechanism [that seeks to] disrupt or subvert mainstream cultural institutions or corporate advertising. Culture jamming is often seen as a form of subvertising. Many culture jams are simply aimed at exposing questionable political assumptions behind commercial culture so that people can momentarily consider the branded environment in which they live. Culture jams re-figure logos, fashion statements, and product images to challenge the idea of "what's cool," along with assumptions about the personal freedoms of consumption." In teaching an introduction to sociology, I found this clip useful for underscoring the definition of culture as a set of ideas and meanings which people employ to carry out their collective lives. The clip further illustrates the way those meanings are always contested and negotiated. This clip works as an excellent accompaniment to the Frontline episode on the "merchants of cool," and works well to set the stage for a culture jamming video assignment, also posted on The Sociological Cinema. Submitted By: Lester Andrist
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Tags: children/youth, consumption/consumerism, education, gender, inequality, knowledge, media, social construction, standpoint theory, 00 to 05 mins Year: 1998 Length: 1:31 Access: YouTube Summary: The YouTube caption for this clip reads, "By Phil Lord and Chris Miller - This was a fake commercial we made in 1998 for a series of educational shorts about action figures based on historical figures. Its educational value was somewhat suspect. It was never aired." While the clip may not offer quantitative data, it works well to broach the topic of gender inequality. The Bronte sisters action figures must fight evil publishers who discriminate against women authors. At a minute and a half, the clip is brief but incredibly useful for stimulating discussion about one way gender inequality works. For instance, students can be encouraged to contemplate that the standpoints of women are systematically suppressed through a publishing bias in favor of works written by men. A second point to take away from the clip is the positioning of women as action figures who fight evil. I would argue that even as toys women are rarely represented as such in the United States unless they are also sexually objectified. In this clip, the Bronte sisters are dressed rather modestly. I would like to thank Elisa Kreisinger for suggesting this clip. Submitted By: Lester Andrist Tags: government/the state, media, politics/election/voting, chomsky, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2009 Length: 5:58 Access: YouTube Summary: In this clip, professor Justin Lewis discusses the role of the US media in "manufacturing consent." The media, Lewis explains, is not used as a device which necessarily tells people what to think, but rather, it tells them what to think about and is therefore an agenda setting device. Lewis further discusses the role the media plays in elections by giving the American public the illusion of a distinct choice between political candidates, when in fact differences between Democrats and Republicans across substantive economic issues are often very minor. I have successfully used this clip in an introductory sociology class as a means of sparking discussion about the power of the media. The clip works particularly well as a means of supplementing Noam Chomsky's book, Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda. Submitted By: Lester Andrist Tags: discourse/language, gender, media, sex/sexuality, social construction, masculinity, popular culture, 06 to 10 mins Year: 2009 Length: 6:70 (segment 1) and 1:30 (segment 2) Access: YouTube Summary: In the summer of 2009, the reality TV show The Bachelorette featured a fascinating discussion about "Man Code." Originally appearing in the men's magazine Maxim, Man Code is a "collection of rules that every man should live by." I use this clip in my Sociology of Gender class, asking student to use Connell's concept of hegemonic masculinity and Kimmel's concept of masculinity as homophobia to make sense of (1) what Man Code is, (2) how it is policed, and (3) who does the policing. The discussion of Man Code takes place in segment 1 (starts around min. 3:36) and segment 2 (runs until approx. min. 1:30) of this episode. Submitted By: Valerie Chepp Tags: gender, marketing/brands, media, sex/sexuality, violence, doing gender, masculinity, rape, representation, sexual objectification, sexual violence, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2008 Length: 5:33 Access: YouTube Summary: The description under this YouTube clip reads, "Dreamworlds 3...examines the stories contemporary music videos tell about girls and women, and encourages viewers to consider how these narratives shape individual and cultural attitudes about sexuality." Specifically, this five minute excerpt links popular media with the objectification of women and the masculine violence directed toward them. This clip might also work well as a means of introducing the concept of "doing" gender. The clip makes it clear that men must learn masculinity, and it is not something that flows from them naturally. Submitted By: Lester Andrist Glenn Beck and other television personalities use rape metaphors Tags: gender, intersectionality, media, nationalism, rape, masculinity, femininity, subtitles/CC, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2009 Length: 2:15 Access: YouTube Summary: This remix features conservative commentators such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Michael Savage employing rape metaphors when discussing various political policies. A number of references in the remix rhetorically position women as the victims of rape and unscrupulous men as the rapists. Thus the clip can be used to underscore the way gendered violence is often keyed to a host of political issues in order to provoke the public or suggest a greater sense of urgency. Taking the analysis a step further, one can trace symbolic intersections between gender and nation, as when Rush Limbaugh suggests that his listeners are being "gang raped" by the Democrats. Here Limbaugh's listeners represent the nation and the Democratic Party becomes the assailant. In another example, Michael Savage remarks that "The Statue of Liberty is crying; she's been raped and disheveled...by illegal aliens...How about missing country and the rape of a nation." By suggesting the Statue of Liberty is a victim of rape and undocumented immigrants are the assailants, commentators are able to connect gender violence to nation, thereby shoring up the basis for their outrage. "This is no longer about the tragedy of an individual," the commentators seem to be saying, "it is instead an attack against the American community." The video can be useful to illustrate the way nation and gender are constitutive of each other and how these two dimensions often work together to give meaning and urgency to political issues. Submitted By: Lester Andrist Tags: bodies, emotion/desire, gender, marketing/brands, media, race/ethnicity, violence, hegemonic masculinity, ideal beauty, rape, representation, sexual violence, 06 to 10 mins Year: 1999 Length: 7:03 Access: YouTube Summary: This clip, featuring Jackson Katz, examines popular media representations of men and masculinity in the United States. The excerpt is only the first 7 minutes of an 84 minute documentary (find more information about the film at mediaed.org). In it, Katz explores the harmful consequences associated with contemporary masculinity. Some students might perceive the examples used in "Tough Guise" to be outdated, but Katz's recent book, "The Macho Paradox," can be used effectively to update and supplement the film. Note that instructors might find this clip useful for introducing Connell's concept of hegemonic masculinity. Submitted By: Lester Andrist Tags: consumption/consumerism, emotion/desire, gender, media, culture, feminism, gender stereotype, representation, sexual liberation, subtitles/CC, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2010 Length: 5:15 Access: YouTube Summary: Sociologist Tracy L. Scott, from Emory University, explains what effect Sex and the City has had on culture and society. She attempts to answer whether the program had a positive impact in promoting gender equality and whether the show was truly as ground breaking as people believed. She concludes that while the show initially explored sexual liberation among women, it gradually moved toward a traditional story about women being preoccupied with romantic relationships. In this sense, the show resembled other programs of the 1970s and did not necessarily challenge gender stereotypes. A good point is made about the way this show promotes a particular kind of consumerism among women. This clip would work well in a class that seeks to introduce the concept of gender stereotypes and the way they are reinforced in popular media, particularly in shows which claim to be modern and progressive. Submitted By: Lester Andrist Tags: class, gender, intersectionality, marriage/family, media, race/ethnicity, representation, welfare, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2010 Length: 4:10 Access: YouTube Summary: This is Sade’s music video for the song “Babyfather.” The video depicts Sade in what many Americans identify as the traditional homemaker role from the 1950s. On the one hand, this video can certainly be criticized as yet another sexist attempt to pair women with homemaking. On the other hand, the video's protagonist is a Black woman in a role the media almost exclusively reserves for white women. The video further challenges stereotypes by featuring this Black woman in a reasonably affluent suburb, thereby derailing easy and problematic associations of Blacks and poverty. The clip might be useful for jump starting a discussion about how the characters of visual media are so often narrowly written with a set of attributes, which are closely tied to the character's race and gender. Perhaps it's true that the re-creation of these raced and gendered archetypes are aligned with audience expectations, but one shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the media was instrumental in creating those expectations in the first place. Because so few stories about Americans during the 1950s ever prominently feature Blacks as residents of the growing suburbs, this music video can be analyzed as an example of subversive media, and on that score, it works well with Beyoncé’s video "Why Don't You Love Me," (here) which similarly depicts an affluent Black woman homemaker in 1950s America. Submitted By: Lester Andrist Tags: consumption/consumerism, marketing/brands, media, multiculturalism, race/ethnicity, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2010 Length: 0:31 Access: YouTube Summary: Although this commercial exhibits multicultural marketing strategies (like this Sprite ad), casting a racially/ethnically ambiguous spokesperson, what's most intriguing about the ad is that the marketers actually name the marketing strategies employed throughout the commercial. I find this clip is useful to use with students who critique sociology for "reading too much into" a particularly situation. Also noteworthy is the product name; marketed as having "you" in mind, this new Kotex product is called "U by Kotex." But we might also point to the (not so) subliminal messaging: "you buy Kotex." Submitted By: Valerie Chepp |
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