Tags: art/music, consumption/consumerism, environment, gender, knowledge, marketing/brands, media, social mvmts/social change/resistance, culture jam, détournement, guerrilla semiotics, sociology of culture, subvertising, 00 to 05 mins
Year: (1) 2007; (2) 2008 Length: (1) 1:20; (2) 1:27 Access: (1) YouTube: "Onslaught" (Dove) (2) YouTube: "Onslaught(er)" (Greenpeace) Summary: The pair of clips above by Dove and Greenpeace are excellent examples of commercials which appear to transcend the narrow concern of increasing market share and actually aim to promote social justice. However, more cynical viewers will likely protest that, at least in regards to the Dove spot, the appearance of corporate social responsibility is little more than a sophisticated marketing ploy. By attempting to raise public awareness about the role visual media play in rigidly defining what counts as attractive and truly feminine, Dove is actually attempting to position itself as a responsible brand. In response, Greenpeace created a spoof of the ad, but unlike the original version, viewers are not urged to talk to their daughters before the beauty industry does; rather, they are urged to talk to Dove about Dove's use of palm oil and its role in the destruction of Indonesian forests in order to harvest this oil. The Greenpeace clip can be understood as a practice of détournement, which is a concept originally developed by a Paris-based group of radical artists known as the Letterist International. Détournement refers to the practice of "finding" an artifact, then reconfiguring or re-situating it with the goal of making it newly relevant. The reconfigured artifact typically suggests ideas, which are in opposition to the those promoted by the creator of the original artifact. Thus a commercial about a caring company which bravely invests in exposing dangerous media messages about feminine beauty standards is reworked to expose the caring company's role in the destruction of Indonesian lowland forest. This post is just one in a growing number of posts on The Sociological Cinema, which feature examples of détournement or what is sometimes called culture jamming (see here, here, and here). In the sociological classroom, the clip might work well as a way to discuss what sociologists mean by culture and cultural resistance, which often involves the transformation of meanings and meaning-making practices. Submitted By: Lester Andrist
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Tags: du bois, immigration/citizenship, inequality, prejudice/discrimination, race/ethnicity, theory, double consciousness, jim crow, white supremacy, 06 to 10 mins Year: 2011 Length: 7:05 Access: YouTube Summary: In this YouTube video, Baratunde Thurston vehemently declares the release of President Obama’s birth certificate an outrage and indicative of the continued existence of a white supremacy in the United States. He discusses the implications and meaning behind the release of the birth certificate, and briefly discusses the messages conveyed to the American public through the wealthy White man who took credit for stirring up the Birther controversy, Donald Trump. He argues that the demand that President Obama release his birth certificate in order to prove he is eligible to run for the Presidential office is racially motivated. One could liken the request for Obama to produce a birth certificate to similar demands on Black Americans to pass literacy tests in order to vote during the Jim Crow era. This video could be used to introduce students to Du Bois's concept of a double consciousness. In The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois wrote, "One ever feels his two-ness—an American, a Negro; two warring souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder" Du Bois was articulating the experience of African Americans as being both insiders and perpetual outsiders to the nation; as being American but the wrong type of American. Thus, even after being elected to the highest, most respected American office, Barack Obama was still asked to prove that he belongs to the American nation. Submitted By: Beatrice Sorce Tags: children/youth, inequality, knowledge, methodolgy/statistics, prejudice/discrimination, psychology/social psychology, race/ethnicity, social construction, essentialism, experiment, racial socializaiton, internalized racism, stereotypes, white bias, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2010 Length: 5:15 Access: YouTube Summary: This clip from Anderson Cooper 360 shows an experiment where a child is given a line-up of children with light to dark skin and is asked to point to the bad child, good child, nice child, and so on. The child, who associates positive characteristics with the lighter skinned children and negative characteristics with the darker skinned children, is asked why he responds that way. He simply states that it is "because they are white" or "they are black." Cooper's guests comment on the experiment, including discussing how the child has developed these racial biases (e.g. his exposure to racial minorities in his neighborhood and school) and the importance of talking to children about race. Students can be encouraged to think about how children internalize conceptions of race, where these conceptions come from and how this may lead to the development of stereotypes and racial inequality. Submitted By: Paul Dean Loretta Ross Tags: gender, intersectionality, knowledge, race/ethnicity, social mvmts/social change/resistance, feminism, identity politics, women of color, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2011 Length: 3:00 Access: YouTube Summary: Here is a clip of Loretta Ross, co-founder and national coordinator of SisterSong-Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, commenting on the origins of the term "women of color". As Ross suggests, people often forget that the term "women of color" is not a biologically-based description but has a political and ideological history. Ross explains that the term stems from meetings in 1977 at the International Women's Year Conference (WYC) in Houston, Texas. In response to the growing awareness that the unique concerns and challenges of Black women were not being addressed in the women's movement more broadly, a group of Black women from Washington DC traveled to the conference to propose a Black women's agenda. At the conference, groups representing other minority women joined the Black Women's Agenda (BWA), and the new alliance adopted the more inclusive term "women of color". Thus Ross notes that the term is "a solidarity definition; a commitment to work in collaboration with other oppressed women of color." Ross recounts a history which emphasizes the need for women of color to come together as a distinct political community. She emphasizes a moment of affiliation for a political cause within the women's movement, but she is also implicitly discussing the importance of recognizing the varied and distinct, intersectional identities of women. After showing the clip, instructors might provocatively ask students to consider how they would respond to the usual attack leveled against identity politics, which would claim that the BWA splintered the women's movement and made it less effective. Submitted By: Lester Andrist Tags: art/music, children/youth, discourse/language, education, knowledge, pedagogy, performance poetry, spoken word, 11 to 20 mins Year: 2011 Length: 18:29 Access: TED Talks Summary: In this TED Talk, 22-year-old spoken word poet Sarah Kay discusses her personal and professional experience with spoken word performance poetry. Throughout the talk, Kay highlights the pedagogical possibilities of spoken word, describing the ways in which New York City’s Bowery Poetry Club became her “classroom” when she was just 14 years old, as well as her current educational work with students across the country, using spoken word as a site of engagement. Such pedagogical possibilities point to the ways in which spoken word poetry might serve as a productive site for sociological analysis as well, in that it provides an accessible and entertaining medium through which students can “figure things out,” allowing them to draw upon their personal stories and experiences to explore something previously unknown to them. Echoing insights from C.W. Mills, Kay describes the pedagogical utility of using our personal stories (i.e., biographies) as a way through which to discover and connect to social phenomena “out there," seemingly detached from our own lives (i.e., history). As sociology instructors, we can draw upon this pedagogical approach. A class assignment might ask students to write (and perform) a spoken word poem about a topic germane to the class content; this can involve an explicit requirement for students to weave their personal stories into a potentially abstract sociological concept or subject area (the subject can be anything, e.g., social networks, gender violence, disability, stratification, hegemonic masculinity, rural poverty, conspicuous consumption, etc). This video clip can serve as an introduction to the assignment, providing a background on spoken word performance poetry; Kay also offers a few poetry writing exercises in the clip. Examples of how spoken word poetry can serve as a site for sociological analysis can be found here and here on The Sociological Cinema. Other TED Talks on the site can be found here, here, and here. Submitted By: Valerie Chepp Verbotene Liebe Tags: gender, lgbtq, sex/sexuality, violence, gender socialization, heteronormativity, masculinity, representation, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2009 Length: 4:02 Access: YouTube Summary: This four-minute remix is composed of scenes cut from the Dutch film, De Vierde Man, the British television drama, Hollyoaks: In the City, the German soap opera, Verbotene Liebe, and at least four other sources. Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" plays in the background. The clip features scene after scene of gay men expressing love, affection, and genuine vulnerability. The fact that this queer affection lasts more than a scene and is not reduced to a token moment in an otherwise heteronormative media world will strike many as unusual. If one focuses on gender exclusively, it is also striking to see such nurturing and emotionally vulnerable depictions of men in cinema in such a sustained way. I would argue that representations of men as essentially violent so thoroughly saturate the media landscape that it becomes quite rare to find spaces which depict men as caregivers, attentive lovers, and nurturers. Jean Kilbourne makes a similar point in her documentary, Killing Us Softly 4, arguing that the media socialize through their capacity to divide up human qualities based on gender. Stoicism, confidence, compassion, and the capacity to nurture—to name just a few—become either feminine or masculine, and men are encouraged by the media to repress their so-called feminine qualities. Using the clip, students can be asked to consider how men are socialized differently than women, and in particular, how violence gets attached to masculinity. Submitted By: Lester Andrist Tags: discourse/language, immigration/citizenship, race/ethnicity, comedy, representation, stereotyping, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2008 Length: 1:40 Access: ComedyCentral.com Summary: In this short clip from his stand-up performance on Comedy Central's "Live at Gotham," Hari Kondabolu discusses the racism often aimed at Mexican immigrants in the form of stereotypes, or unreliable generalizations about all members of a group that do not recognize individual differences. A stereotype can be a claim about an essential personality trait of all people in a group, as when all Mexicans are derided as lazy. It can also be a claim about the motivations or objectives of all people in a group, as when someone suspects Mexicans are taking all "our" jobs. Kondabolu jokes about the logical contradiction suggested in the idea of lazy Mexicans who are all after American jobs. But I think Kondabolu also puts his finger on a common feature of stereotypes. Even if Mexican immigrants could debunk one generalization by achieving exceptionally high levels of employment, they would only be confirming another—i.e., their greedy pursuit of American jobs. Thus stereotypes belong to a system of ideas; one which is not designed to be overthrown, but instead to stabilize power and privilege. Note that this clip contributes to The Sociological Cinema's growing collection of comedy clips that are useful for illustrating or beginning a discussion about sociological concepts. Submitted By: Lester Andrist Tags: discourse/language, media, race/ethnicity, violence, comedy, culture, orientalism, othering, representation, stereotyping, terrorism, subtitles/CC, 06 to 10 mins Year: 2008 Length: 10:47 Access: YouTube Summary: Comedians have an uncanny ability to peddle controversial conclusions and uncomfortable insights because they can claim it's "all in good fun" (see, for example, this clip and this clip). Uninhibited by those troublesome defenses, the audience can accept unsavory criticisms about the society in which they live. However, not all comedians use the stage as a venue for delivering social criticism, and in fact it is just as easy to reinforce a stereotypes or a prejudice as it is to criticize one. In this clip, Jeff Dunham draws upon a number of stereotypes about Arabs and Muslims in his ventriloquial act with "Achmed the Dead Terrorist." Here, Dunham is not deploying social criticism for humor, but is instead uncritically drawing on racist representations of Arabs or Muslims for laughs. In line with the observations detailed in an earlier post (here), the Achmed character displays an irrational anger, and in very short order, the audience learns he foolishly follows the dictates of a fundamentalist Islamic faith. The set closely tracks the format of a classic comedic duo, whereby Dunham plays the straight man and triggers Achmed's many buffoonish responses to a series of seemingly rational questions. Instructors can use the clip to encourage a discussion with students about how readily stereotypes are promoted in popular media, even when they are billed as "all in good fun." For a more detailed analysis of the comedian's role in challenging or reinforcing stereotypes, check out our post on the comedy that kills us. Submitted By: Lester Andrist Anthony Robles wrestles for the 2011 NCAA Championship Tags: bodies, disability, goffman, sports, theory, master status, stereotypes, stigma, subtitles/CC, 06 to 10 mins Year: 2011 Length: 9:43 Access: YouTube Summary: Anthony Robles is an Arizona State University student who won the 2011 NCAA Wrestling Championship, despite having only one leg. His case is an interesting example of stigma (i.e. a social or individual attribute that is devalued and discredited in a particular social context). When looking at him, people are likely to place an immediate stigma on him (note that many videos and headlines refer to him as a "one-legged wrestler" rather than "wrestler"), discrediting his physical abilities and perhaps assuming a poor performance in competitive sports. As noted by Goffman, this link is done through stereotypes, rather than objective attributes, which becomes clear in this video showing his 7-1 victory in the championship match. The tendency to qualify him as a one-legged wrestler and continually comment on his disability, as these announcers do, suggests the way a disability is used to form one's master status. In other words, Robles' missing leg becomes his primary identifying characteristic, overshadowing all other markers of status. This clip can be used in class to discuss disability, stereotypes, and master status, but it would also be useful to use the clip as a means of discussing how people often resist the stigmas assigned to them. Submitted By: Lia Karvounis Tags: gender, organizations/occupations/work, prejudice/discrimination, comedy, dominance, dual labor market, occupational sex segregation, sexism, sexual harassment, subordination, 00 to 05 mins Year: 1980 Length: 3:25 Access: YouTube Summary: The 1980s movie 9 to 5 follows the story of three (female) secretaries who wish to pay their (male) boss back for treating them badly in the workplace. In light of cultural images of women as the weaker sex that needed to be “put in their place,” this clip shows one woman’s (Dolly Parton's) fantasies about murdering her boss, and making him suffer the way he made her suffer. She embarrasses him, degrades him, and treats him like an object just as he did to her days before. The clip shows that he is visibly uncomfortable with her advances, but that he has no choice considering he wants to keep his job. Viewers may find that the more common workplace discrimination (men discriminating against women) is offensive, but that this clip is humorous. Students may be encouraged to think about why they find this humorous, and what this seemingly humorous role reversal tells us about gender relations and gendered ideologies. It is a good way to introduce sexual discrimination in the workplace, and the role of power in such gender discrimination. Finally, given that lower-level occupations (e.g. secretaries) are more likely female-dominated occupations, while upper-level occupations (e.g. managers) are more likely male-dominated, students can further consider the role of occupational sex segregation as reinforcing gendered inequality and discrimination. Submitted By: Lia Karvounis |
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