Tags: children/youth, crime/law/deviance, discourse/language, emotion/desire, lgbtq, sex/sexuality, bi-curiousity, conversion therapy, 21 to 60 mins Year: 2007 Length: 21:26 Access: southparkstudios.com Summary: [Trigger warning: Not all instructors will feel comfortable screening an episode of South Park in the classroom, a show that is notorious for its "crude language and dark, surreal humor" on a wide range of often taboo topics. This episode is no exception. Specifically, instructors might be uncomfortable with this episode's treatment of youth suicide, violence, sex, sexual consent, and cultural/ethnic insensitivity.] In this South Park episode (season 11, episode two), South Park Elementary School student Cartman takes a photo of his own penis in his friend Butters's mouth while Butters is sleeping. Afterwards, Cartman tells his friends about what he did in order to ridicule Butters. However, Cartman didn't count one thing: this behavior is interpreted as a homosexual act and his friends start calling him "gay." Hoping to prove that he's not gay, Cartman believes he must convince Butters to reciprocate the act. Just as Cartman is about to carry out his plan in front of a blindfolded and unknowing Butters, Butters's father walks into the bedroom. Concerned that his little boy is bisexual, his father takes Butters to the priest, who diagnoses Butters as "confused" and suggests Butters attend a bi-curious boy's camp to heal Butters from this "disease." This video can be used as an example of how bisexual people are perceived as being confused about their sexual identity. As Ryle (2012) writes in Questioning Gender: A Sociological Exploration: "Bisexuals can receive negative reactions from both homosexuals and heterosexuals." She cites Ault's (1996) work that showed how some lesbian feminists "insist that there is no such thing as bisexuality. Bisexuals are either confused lesbians or heterosexuals who are experimenting" (201). The clip can also be used to initiate a discussion about cultural definitions of sexual orientation: Is it about behavior? Desire? Identity? Finally, the episode offers a framework for talking about sexuality as a choice or innate, and illustrates the ways in which heterosexuality gets defined as "normal" through a discourse of shame, guilt, and "fixing" or "curing" anything that deviates from a cultural heterosexual norm. Submitted By: Nihal Celik
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Duneier's research on NYC book vendors is presented in film.
Tags: class, community, crime/law/deviance, inequality, intersectionality, methodology/statistics, organizations/occupations/work, prejudice/discrimination, race/ethnicity, rural/urban, ethnography, homelessness, urban poverty, visual sociology, 21 to 60 mins Year: 2010 Length: 60:00 (film) Access: Film (part 1; part 2; part 3) Discussion (part 4; part 5; part 6; part 7; part 8) Summary: This documentary, directed by Barry Alexander Brown, is based on the ethnographic fieldwork that sociologist Mitchell Duneier conducted for his seminal book, Sidewalk (1999). Framed in the film's introduction as an "epilogue" to the book, Brown offers a plot summary: "SIDEWALK chronicles the lives of primarily black homeless book vendors and magazine scavengers who ply their trade along 6th Avenue between 8th Street and Washington Place in New York City. By briefly comparing those book vendors with the history of book vending along the Seine in Paris, the film speaks to the efforts of North American and European societies to rid public space of the outcasts they have had a hand in producing. The film takes us into the social world of the people subsisting on the streets of New York by focusing on their work as street side booksellers, magazine vendors, junk dealers, panhandlers, and table watchers. The sidewalk becomes a site for the unfolding of these people living on the edge of society in order to give us a deeper understanding of how these individual's are able to survive. It also becomes a site for conflicts and solidarities that encompass the vendors and local residents. We followed half dozen vendors for most of this past decade. By the end of shooting the film, their lives had taken a myriad of routes..." Like other urban ethnographic films (e.g., here), Sidewalk would be excellent to show in an urban sociology course, as well as an introductory sociology class, as it engages core sociological concerns around race, poverty, homelessness, underground economies, interactions with police, and community support networks, among others. Ethnography professors might also find the film useful—the film opens with several screens of written text, describing the film as a "set of fieldnotes." There is also discussion of the film available online. One of these discussions entails Duneier's introductory lecture on ethnographic methods, in which two sidewalk vendors visit his class. Here Duneier presents his approach to doing ethnography, particularly within the context and medium of film. The other is a panel discussion about the film with Cornel West and Kim Hopper at the American Sociological Association's annual meeting. Submitted By: Valerie Chepp Tags: class, community, crime/law/deviance, inequality, intersectionality, methodology/statistics, prejudice/discrimination, race/ethnicity, rural/urban, ethnography, gentrification, housing, urban poverty, visual sociology, 21 to 60 mins Year: 2005 Length: 52:00 Access: no online access Summary: Directed by sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh, this documentary film is based on ethnographic field research conducted by Venkatesh at the (now demolished) Robert Taylor Homes public housing development in Chicago, IL. A description of the film is provided on the film's website: "In February 2002, families living in the Robert Taylor Homes public housing development were given a 180 day notice of eviction. In six months, the community that had been their home for generations would be demolished. DISLOCATION chronicles the lives of tenants in one building as they move through the six-month relocation process. The filmmakers follow three families as they prepare for their own move and as they help others around them. DISLOCATION is a story of a community coping with its own impending demise. It is a tale of courage, hope, and survival." This film is an ideal compliment to most topics covered in an urban sociology course, which include discussions of gentrification, urban poverty, racism, underground economies, community and family support networks, police interactions, and much more. The ideas explored in the film are expanded in more detail in Venkatesh's books, American Project: The Rise and Fall of a Modern Ghetto (2000) and Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets (2008), which are based on the same ethnographic field research. The film (and books) would also be excellent to use in an ethnography course, and could help guide class discussions around written vs. visual ethnographies, and the (subjective) role of the ethnographer and her relationship to her research subjects. To gain access to the film, check out your university library or you can find purchasing information here. Submitted By: Valerie Chepp _Tags: bodies, crime/law/deviance, gender, sex/sexuality, violence, rape, sexual violence, violence against women, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2011 Length: 2:04 Access: wusa9.com news Summary: This local DC newscast notes that a government study just found that sexual violence is more pervasive than previously thought: 1 in 5 women experience rape or attempted rape at some point in the lives; 1 in 4 women are beaten by their partners. The newscasters critically respond by asking how seriously does society respond to that? They note that a fraternity at the University of Vermont recently circulated a questionnaire that asked respondents "who would you like to rape?" It briefly gives the perspective of a recovering rape victim who was sexually molested by her step-father since she was 3 years old. A local community activist describes how the experience of sexual violence is very traumatic, and how it affects how they experience daily life and relationships. This raises the question of how we, as a society, respond to sexual violence and crime? Is rape somehow glorified by certain groups, and if so, why and how? This video is a good complement to another video on Rape and Blaming the Victim, and reflection on our rape culture, which is articulated well in the book Transforming a Rape Culture. See also this video about how sexual violence against women is perpetuated through popular culture, specifically music video. On a more uplifting note, see activist Tony Porter's efforts (as depicted in this video) to end violence against women. Submitted By: Paul Dean Tags: crime/law/deviance, durkheim, gender, theory, anomie, family, in-groups, out-groups, social change, subtitles/CC, 61+ mins Year: 1998 Length: 124:00 Access: no online access (trailer here) Summary: The film Pleasantville depicts an idyllic 1950's community that experiences profound challenges to its unquestioned, taken-for-granted social norms. The movie works well in an introductory sociology class as an allegory about a settled or stable society that undergoes rapid social change following a major disruption in the worldview and widespread norm breaching. Specifically, the film depicts challenges related to the use of language, modes of communication, family formation, sexual norms, social deviance, art, and media. I recommend using the film in its entirety to demonstrate how in-groups resist change, while out-groups often challenge norms and produce positive (or negative) adaptations to society. One could also use segments of the film to demonstrate concepts like alienation, anomie, and deviance. Submitted By: Michael Gillespie
Darcus Howe
Tags: class, crime/law/deviance, discourse/language, goffman, government/the state, inequality, knowledge, media, race/ethnicity, social mvmts/social change/resistance, theory, violence, collective action frames, politics of signification, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2011 Length: 4:24 Access: YouTube Summary: What shall we name what is happening in London? While investigating gun crimes, police shot and killed Mark Duggan, a 29 year-old Black man who was carrying a loaded gun (though it should be said, he never fired the weapon on police). Catalyzed by Duggan's death, protests, looting, and destruction of public and private property have rapidly spread across London. Is it a riot, an uprising, a rebellion, a social movement, or is it an insurrection? Whatever frame we choose has important consequences for the shape of things to come. For instance, the word riot suggests disorganized destruction, whereas an insurrection suggests an organized effort against oppression. One frame will likely garner more support for this social upheaval than the other. In this clip, the BBC interviews Darcus Howe, a television journalist and long time grass-roots activist. At the 3:08 mark, Howe keys the current turmoil, which is spread throughout London, to that which took place in 1981 in Brixton. He then insists that what is happening in London is an "insurrection of the people." At 3:40, the BBC reporter appears to challenge Howe's credibility by naming him a rioter. "Mr. Howe," she interrupts, "if I could just ask you, you are not a stranger to riots yourself, I understand, are you?" Howe refuses this frame in his reply: "I have never taken part in a single riot. I've been on demonstrations that ended up in a conflict." The clip would work well with a class grappling with social movements and the importance of collective action frames. To quote Benford and Snow (2000, p. 613), the confrontation between Howe and the reporter is a rather vivid example of two signifying agents "actively engaged in the production and maintenance of meaning for constituents, antagonists, and bystanders or observers. [Signifying agents] are deeply embroiled, along with..local governments, and the state, in what has been referred to as a 'politics of signification' (Hall 1982)." Submitted By: Lester Andrist Tags: children/youth, crime/law/deviance, gender, masculinity, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2011 Length: 2:20 Access: YouTube Summary: This YouTube video from CBS News discusses the controversy behind the J.Crew advertisement showing a mother with her young son and his neon pink toenail polish. The image has sparked a debate, which has been discussed in terms of "appropriate" gender identities and the role parents play in cultivating such identities for their children. Marysol Castro interviews a number of parents for the report and finds that many have mixed feelings about the advertisement. CBS News discusses the significance of this advertisement and suggests that it might be indicative of changing ideas about gender. Note that this video is similar to a growing number of other videos on The Sociological Cinema, which draw attention to the policing of masculinity (see here, here, here, and here). This particular clip works nicely with Tony Porter's recent Ted Talk (here), where he reflects on his role as a parent who actively policed the boundaries of masculinity for his young son. Submitted By: Beatrice Sorce Tags: crime/law/deviance, psychology/social psychology, breaching experiment, ethnomethodology, harold garfinkel, norms, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2008 Length: 2:22 Access: YouTube Summary: Over 200 people freeze in place on cue in Grand Central Terminal in New York. This is one of over 100 different missions Improv Everywhere has executed over the past nine years in New York City. In this video, people freeze at the exact same moment in Grand Central Station in order to seek out non-participants’ responses to determine how people understand and define reality. Note that many of the non-participants desperately try to make sense of the situation and construct meaning. The clip can be used in class to demonstrate a typical example of an ethnomethodological breaching experiment, which is typically associated with the sociologist, Harold Garfinkel. As is the case with the "frozen Grand Central" performance, breaching experiments refer to moments when social norms are intentionally disobeyed for the purpose of examining people's reactions. Typically, when assumptions about a situation are breached (i.e., norms are broken), people tend to look for explanations, which reaffirm the continued existence of the original assumptions. Thus when a person freezes in a busy space and engages in "doing nothing," non-participants will attempt to define what is happening in a way that rescues the violated norm, and in this case, reasserts that people should do something in the middle of Grand Central. Another clip on The Sociological Cinema, which examines what happens when people do nothing in public spaces, can be found here. Submitted By: Ahn Tags: crime/law/deviance, demography/population, economic sociology, education, causality, correlation, incentives, preferences, rational choice theory, 61+ mins Year: 2010 Length: 93:00 Access: no online access, YouTube preview Summary: Freakonomics: The Movie is based on the 2004 best-selling book of the same name by journalist Stephen Dubner and economist Steven Levitt. The film is broken up into a number of short segments, all of which might be useful in a sociology course tackling rational choice theory or wrestling with the idea of causality. (1) "A Roshanda by Any Other Name" explores whether the name a child is given can be plausibly blamed for the child's successes or failures in life. (2) "Cheating" and (3) "Pure Corruption" examine how cheating in Chicago public schools and Japan's sumo wresting circuit can be explained by uncovering hidden incentives. (4) "Cause and Effect" succinctly and clearly illustrates the aphorism, "correlation is not causation." In (5) "It's Not Always a Wonderful Life," Steven Levitt offers a relatively detailed and multi-causal account of the drop in US crime rates beginning in the 1990s. According to Levitt, nearly half of the drop in crime can be explained by the unintended consequences of the Roe v. Wade decision by the United States Supreme Court. (6) "Incentives" explores how well intended incentives often lead people to act in unexpected ways, and finally, in (7) "Can a 9th Grader Be Bribed to Succeed?" we see Levitt and other researchers experiment with paying students cash incentives to improve their grades. Thanks to Jessie Daniels for suggesting this film. Submitted By: Lester Andrist Tags: crime/law/deviance, goffman, theory, folkways, mores, norms, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2011 Length: 4:55 Access: YouTube Summary: What happens when more than 250 Soc101 students do absolutely nothing in a public place for 15 minutes? Find out in this video and discover how doing nothing can teach us a lot about norms, deviance, and Goffman's Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. This video would work well in an intro to sociology class, in a class on the sociology of crime/deviance, and even a social theory course. Better yet, watch the clip and then have your class do nothing on your campus. Note, this activity is based on “The Sociology of Doing Nothing: A Model ‘Adopt a Stigma in a Public Place’ Exercise” by Karen Bettez Halnon (2001) in Teaching Sociology. Submitted By: Nathan Palmer |
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