Tags: aging/life course, art/music, emotion/desire, marriage/family, methodology/statistics, biography, data visualization, divorce, memory, narrative, storytelling, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2001 Length: 2:34 Access: Vimeo Summary: In this clip "Polly", a 65 year old woman from the Midlands in the UK, recalls the time as a child when her parents sat her down and asked her which of them she wanted to be with. Her story, re-narrated by three players, represents how this traumatic event became an enduring memory throughout the various stages of her life. This video exhibits how sociologists can draw upon biography and narrative to explore any number of sociological concepts; in this particular clip, Polly's narration of her own biography can be used to explore sociological understandings of memory, emotion, family, and the life course. For example, the clip could be useful in a class on cognitive sociology, highlighting how cognitive processes, such as memory, are shaped by socio-cultural events, such as divorce. In addition to using the clip as a way to interrogate biography and narrative as sociological methods of research, the clip could also be a nice launching pad from which to introduce an assignment where students create their own videos, using their own biographical narratives as a window through which to explore larger sociological phenomena, much in the way C.W. Mills suggested. The clip's Vimeo webpage provides production details about the video, as well as a link to a paper by Kip Jones, the video's writer and producer, "The Art of Collaborative Storytelling: Arts-Based Representations of Narrative Contexts," which tells more about Polly's story and Jones' method. Kip Jones describes the clip as an "experiment in visualisation of research data." Submitted By: Kip Jones
1 Comment
Tags: commodification, consumption/consumerism, bodies, emotion/desire, food/agriculture, gender, health/medicine, marketing/brands, media, eating disorders, subtitles/CC, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2011 Length: 0:33 Access: YouTube Summary: This commercial for LAY'S® potato chips can be used to illustrate the common practice among advertisers to represent women's consumption of junk food as a (commodified) act of romantic love, intimacy, or sexual pleasure. In this particular spot, shot entirely in slow motion with Al Green crooning his classic "I'm So In Love With You" in the background, anticipation builds as the woman prepares to encounter her salty prince, err...snack. As she opens the bag, a flirtatious smile spreads wide across her face. She performs all the ritualistic feminine acts of falling in love (bites at her lip, bats her lashes, averts her eyes), adhering to a familiar cultural narrative of a school girl falling in love: she's playful, coy, and unmistakably giddy. Across the bottom of the screen the following words appear: "one taste and you're in love." Feminists have well-documented the ways in which women are persistently depicted as being tormented by an obsessive relationship with food (e.g., Bordo 1998). Recently, scholars have pointed to the ways in which chocolate has been marketed to women, equating chocolate to delightful yet sinful indulgence, sex, and a pseudo form of female empowerment. In the article "Women and Food Chains: The Gendered Politics of Food," Allen and Sachs (2007) place this marketing strategy in a socio-health context, stating that "dieting, anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and obesity—all on the rise—mark the confused messages that women should have perfect (thin) bodies at the same time that they are encouraged to over consume and indulge in junk food. Advertising and media play an enormous role in perpetuating women's obsession with thinness" (2). As these commercials about junk food suggest, advertising and the media also play a role in perpetuating the message that, for women, the junk food eating experience is similar to that of sex, love, and intimacy, all of which perpetuate a complex and often unhealthy relationship with food. In another version of this commercial, Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" plays in the background. Submitted By: Valerie Chepp Tags: goffman, psychology/social psychology, theory, backstage, corrective practice, defensive practice, definition of the situation, dramaturgical discipline, front stage, impression management, interaction repair, protective practice, roles, symbolic interactionism, working consensus, 00 to 05 mins Year: 1993 Length: 4:51 Access: YouTube Summary: Clips from Seinfeld seem to be full of interesting insights about human interaction. Economists have been using Seinfeld clips to illustrate insights from rational choice theory, and here at last is a clip that demonstrates concepts from the symbolic interactionist perspective in sociology. In this clip from season 5, episode 10, "The Cigar Store Indian," Elaine and some other women are playing poker when Jerry shows up. He enters from the "outside," and it quickly becomes apparent he does not completely share the women's definition of the situation. The role he tries to enact (i.e., friend, comedian, potential lover) is completely bungled once he unwraps his gift of a cigar store Indian for Winona, who is Native American. Elaine tries to protect Jerry to no avail and attempts an interaction repair with her friend, Winona, but Jerry's errors are too great to overcome. The scene is a vivid illustration of what Goffman called a break down in his essay, "Embarrassment and Social Organization." Other useful scenes come from the episodes, "The Barber," "The Raincoats," and "The Lip Reader," all of which feature examples of disruption, embarrassment, and break down. Submitted By: Caitlin Cross-Barnet Tags: capitalism, commodification, corporations, economic sociology, globalization, inequality, marx/marxism, organizations/occupations/work, capital flight, feminization of poverty, maquiladoras, world-systems theory, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2006; 2012 Length: 4:04; 2:58 Access: clip 1 on YouTube; clip 2 at the New York Times Summary: These two clips examine the role of low wage work in the global economy. The first clip looks at maquiladoras (multinationally-owned factories operating in tax-free zones in low wage countries) from the documentary Maquilapolis (city of factories). It presents the stories of two female maquiladora workers. Carmen works the graveyard shift at a factory that produces television parts. She was attracted to the maquiladoras because it paid better wages than the rest of Mexico. However, she ultimately suffers from kidney damage and lead poisoning from her years of exposure to toxic chemicals and her employers that do not allow workers to drink water or go to the bathroom during their shift. In a global economy, corporations are attracted to places like Mexico because of their tax-free zones that offer tax breaks and cheap labor that is easily exploitable. Employers expect labor, which is mostly female, to have "agile hands and would be cheap and docile". Ultimately, Carmen's employer moved from Mexico to Indonesia to find cheaper labor and earn higher profits. The clip discusses female labor as a "cheap commodity" that is easily discarded if they become less productive or defend their labor rights. The second clip documents workers at a Chinese Foxconn factory that employs 120,000 workers with low pay and dangerous working conditions. The clips offer a good illustration of world-systems theory, and viewers can be encouraged to think about the role of maquiladoras in the global economy. How does value flow through the global economy? How is work, gender, and inequality linked to maquiladoras and the mobility of transnational corporations around the world? Do maquiladoras reproduce poverty or can they help nations rise in global value chains? Submitted By: Paul Dean Tags: science/technology, theory, empiricism, logic, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2011 Length: 2:53 Access: YouTube Summary: This clip is titled, "A Precautionary Tale," and is part 6 from the series, Argument: A Field Guide. The clip offers an animated discussion of what is called the precautionary principle, which refers to the idea that agents (e.g., people, corporations, governments) should be cautious, even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully understood. This can be a guiding principle for ethical action, as when a government errors on the side of caution by legislating a reduction of CO2 emissions, even if a minority of scientists still refute anthropogenic climate change. Agents cannot wait for certainty because absolute certainty is logically impossible. Agents must act with some uncertainty; they must take risks, and they do this by relying on theory. So the next time someone dismisses your sociological theory as opinion and demands "facts," remind your accuser that theory isn't mere conjecture. Theory is typically a well-tested set of rules. It's based on logic. It is supported by repeated observation, and it has been used to make accurate predictions. Note that the agents described in sociological theories often wind up responding to those theories in some way, which makes repeated observation and prediction difficult in sociology. However, this is only an added layer of complexity and is not an indication that sociological theory is only as useful as the latest conspiracy "theory" posted on YouTube. Submitted By: Lester Andrist Tags: discourse/language, emotion/desire, politics/election/voting, social mvmts/social change/resistance, framing, political sociology, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2012 Length: 1:26 Access: colbertnation.com Summary: Frank Luntz is a Republican Party strategist, pollster, and frequent commentator on the Fox News Channel. According to Luntz, his specialty is “testing language and finding words that will help his clients sell their product or turn public opinion on an issue or a candidate.” Comedian Stephen Colbert, recently hired Luntz to help him frame the language of his Super PAC, which he formed as a way to satirize the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. Through humorous exchanges with Luntz, Colbert reveals some of the linguistic and political aspects of framing and attempts to create or engage with memes. The clip provides a light way to introduce work on the importance of framing in social movements, but it could also be useful for political sociology classes. I successfully paired the clip with an overview of Snow and Benford's work on framing, mobilization, and collective identity. The clip is also useful as a precursor to discussing Francessca Polletta's brilliant book, It Was Like A Fever. Note that another clip on The Sociological Cinema that explores framing as it pertains to social movements can be found here. Submitted By: Kim Simmons Tags: commodification, consumption/consumerism, media, theory, cultural trope, culture industry, mass production, max horkheimer, theodor adorno, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2006 Length: 1:25 Access: YouTube Summary: This video spoof of the classic American psychological horror film The Shining (1980) can be used to teach the concept of a cultural trope or, a highly recognizable cultural formula, narrative, or pattern. Specifically, the clip takes scenes from the original movie and arranges them according to the formula of a typical romantic comedy movie trailer, which includes a predictable set of characters, plot line, (male) voiceover, and background music. This spoof is particularly effective in that the cultural trope of the romantic comedy becomes even more apparent when we see it applied to such a familiar story about horror. The clip can also be used to illustrate Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer's concept of the culture industry, whereby contemporary cultural productions have become gimmicky imitations, routinized and commodified through mass media. Instructors can further highlight the concepts of the cultural trope and the culture industry by screening the trailer for the romantic comedy In Good Company (2004) alongside this spoof of The Shining, and viewers can be encouraged to identify the parallels between the two clips. To view the original trailer for The Shining, click here. For related clips on The Sociological Cinema, click here for a post on the cultural trope of the "Straw Feminist" in film and TV, and here for a post on how the culture industry recycles cultural content in Disney films. Submitted By: Valerie Chepp Tags: methodology/statistics, race/ethnicity, social construction, racial formation theory, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2012 Length: 3:41 Access: NYTimes.com Summary: This short case study of the Garifuna community (who are part African, part Caribbean, and part Central American) in New York City examines racial identity and classification. It notes that when completing their census forms, the Garifunas "say they don’t fit into any box. Increasingly, there is a disconnect between how different ethnic and racial groups identify and how the Census wants to count them. In the 2010 Census, more than 18 million Latinos rejected the standard race categories, instead picking the catch-all known as 'some other race.'" Viewers may reflect on what are the common conceptions of how race is defined, and how do the Garifunas differ from that conception? Like sociologists, everyday Garifunas are thinking of race more as a social construct, determined by cultural factors rather than skin color. For a more in-depth exploration of this issue, see also this excellent documentary on race as a social construction. This clip might also be useful in a discussion about methodology, and how researchers can objectify their research subjects by forcing them to fit into the researcher's pre-defined classifications and reifying socially constructed categories. Submitted By: Paul Dean Tags: art/music, gender, media, bechdel test, feminism, film, oscars, patriarchy, privilege, subtitles/CC, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2011 Length: 5:11 Access: YouTube Summary: This humorous clip from Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency explores the predominance of male-centered plots among films that have won the Academy Award for Best Picture in the last 60 years. I like to use this clip as an example of what it means to live in a male-dominated society. It works especially well when paired with Allan Johnson's reading "Patriarchy" (here), or one could also use the chapter "How Systems of Privilege Work" from Johnson's book Privilege, Power, and Difference. This clip works well as a launch pad for discussing how Oscar-winning films are also films that reflect our white-centered, able-bodied-centered, and heteronormative society. Note too that Sarkeesian has recently updated her thoughts on this topic with a feminist critique of the Academy Award Best Picture Nominees for 2011. For more information about the ubiquity of male-centered stories and the Academy Awards, check out "Oscar Was a Dude: America's Celebration of Men," which is also published on The Sociological Cinema. Submitted By: Kendra Barber Rape humor on prime time television _Tags: discourse/language, gender, media, violence, comedy, media literacy, rape culture, symbolic violence, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2012 Length: 1:14 Access: nymag.com Summary: Before watching this remix of the 2012 television season's many rape jokes, take a minute to view an excerpt from the documentary Vietnam: American Holocaust, where American soldiers testify that they raped civilian women during the Vietnam War. "We found one hiding in a bomb shelter," one soldier explains, "She was taken out [and] raped by 6 or 7 people." You might also watch this recent speech from Tony Porter, where he recounts a moment from early adolescence when he came upon a group of older boys raping a mentally disabled girl from his neighborhood. Rape most easily stirs anger and depression, so a joke about it would seem to be a risky proposition for any comedian; yet that is exactly what happens with relative frequency in a number of new sitcoms this television season. The remix above features scenes from 2 Broke Girls, Wilfred, Up All Night, Workaholics, Whitney, Two and a Half Men, Modern Family, Glee, Work It, and a few others. More than just insensitive content in an era when 1 in 5 American women experience rape or attempted rape at some point in their lives, the use of rape as humor can potentially minimize the brutality of this crime. While humor can sometimes be an effective means of leveling social criticism (as argued elsewhere on The Sociological Cinema), that does not appear to be what is happening in the scenes that compose this remix. This short clip provides an excellent foray into discussions about how rape humor is part and parcel of rape culture (defined here). The humor stands to reinforce deeply problematic values, norms, and ideas of that culture, especially when they are blended with other more innocuous punchlines and canned laughter from a studio audience. Submitted By: Lester Andrist |
Tags
All
.
Got any videos?
Are you finding useful videos for your classes? Do you have good videos you use in your own classes? Please consider submitting your videos here and helping us build our database!
|