Riley and Huey of the Boondocks discuss "no homo"
Tags: discourse/language, lgbtq, sex/sexuality, black satire, fag discourse, homophobia, masculinity, satire, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2010 Length: 0:42; 1:46 Access: YouTube (clip 1; clip 2) Summary: These short clips from the animated series The Boondocks stand as examples of Black satire exploring the topic of homophobia in American society. In the first clip Riley explains to his granddad the importance of not sounding gay and how to successfully guard against being misidentified as such. He warns his granddad, "Pause...You said something gay, so you got to say 'no homo' or else you a homo." The second clip features a conversation between Riley and Huey about whether Riley's friend, Gangstalicious, is gay, which is clearly a prospect that Riley has trouble even considering. For Riley anyway, the message is clear that being gay, being mistaken as gay, or associating with someone who is gay is something to be avoided at all costs. Make no mistake, The Boondocks deploys a complex brand of satire, and unlike other pronouncements of "no homo" in popular culture (for example, in hip hop music videos), the show invites the audience to criticize Riley's extreme aversion to all things gay. The clips would work well with a short monologue from Jay Smooth of the Ill Doctrine (here), in which he recounts the historical emergence and popularity of the phrase "no homo." Finally, I think it is also important to identify the emergence of "no homo" as a part of what C.J. Pascoe calls a "fag discourse," which calls attention to the way the term is deployed as a means of ostentatiously asserting one's masculinity as much as it is about denying a sexual preference. I would like to thank Aleia Clark for suggesting this clip. Submitted By: Lester Andrist
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Tags: discourse/language, inequality, knowledge, media, race/ethnicity, social mvmts/social change/resistance, genocide, media literacy, racism, representation, stereotypes, 61+ mins Year: 2009 Length: 88:00 Access: Netflix; YouTube (trailer; clip 1; clip 2; clip 3) Summary: Reel Injun explores the role Hollywood cinema has played in shaping the image of First Nations People. Starting with the silent film era, director Neil Diamond argues that "the Indian" first appeared in cinema as noble and dignified, but by the 1930s, classic westerns like, They Died with their Boots on, catalyzed the emergence of negative stereotypes. The Indian was newly imagined as treacherous, and Hollywood narratives began featuring white settler protagonists in their stagecoaches fending off attacks from the Indian hordes. Just as Indian characters in film became increasingly based on this one dimensional stereotype, native people were also losing the ability to play Indian roles. Instead, productions cast white actors, like Burt Lancaster, Charles Bronson, and Elvis Presley in Indian roles and even sprayed them with a toning agent to help them look the part. By the 1960s, films like Little Big Man, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and later, Dances with Wolves, introduced more complicated depictions of native people; however, dominant narratives still tracked the imperiled white heroes in their proverbial stagecoaches (see also our clip "Avatar Remix and Representations of the Other"). Not until the renaissance in native cinema did films like Once we Were Warriors and Smoke Signals portray native people as fully realized human beings and protagonists in their own right. In the documentary's conclusion, Lakota activist and poet, John Trudell, suggests that there has been a sustained effort to vanquish native people through war and violence and to erase or subsume their history. Attention to how native people have been represented in film suggests too that Hollywood has played a vital role in this genocidal project through its representations of the Indian in film. These persistent depictions of the Indian as treacherous, barbaric, and peripheral have worked to strip native people of their humanity. And those who lack humanity are easier to vanquish. Note that this documentary film would work nicely with another clip on The Sociological Cinema (here) that explores issues surrounding the representation and First Nations People in cinema and takes up the question, "Who has the right to represent whom?" Submitted By: Lester Andrist Tags: art/music, commodification, consumption/consumerism, discourse/language, gender, intersectionality, lgbtq, media, race/ethnicity, sex/sexuality, violence, femininity, homophobia, masculinity, media literacy, popular culture, sexism, sexual objectification, stereotypes, subtitles/CC, 21 to 60 mins Year: 2007 Length: 55:31 Access: YouTube (trailer here) Summary: Using his own relationship with hip-hop as a guiding light, filmmaker Byron Hurt presents "HIP-HOP: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, a riveting documentary that tackles issues of masculinity, sexism, violence and homophobia in today’s hip-hop culture. Sparking dialogue on hip-hop and its declarations on gender, HIP-HOP: Beyond Beats and Rhymes provides thoughtful insight from intelligent, divergent voices including rap artists, industry executives, rap fans and social critics from inside and outside the hip-hop generation. The film includes interviews with famous rappers such as Mos Def, Fat Joe, Chuck D and Jadakiss and hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons; along with commentary from Michael Eric Dyson, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Kevin Powell and Sarah Jones and interviews with young women at Spelman College, a historically black school and one of the nation’s leading liberal arts institutions. The film also explores such pressing issues as women and violence in rap music, representations of manhood in hip-hop culture, what today’s rap lyrics reveal to their listeners and homoeroticism in hip-hop. A “loving critique” from a self-proclaimed “hip-hop head,” HIP-HOP: Beyond Beats and Rhymes discloses the complex intersection of culture, commerce and gender through on-the-street interviews with aspiring rappers and fans at hip-hop events throughout the country." (Excerpt from the film's website on PBS IndependentLens.) Click here for excellent classroom materials and teaching resources, including a discussion guide, video modules, education guide, issue briefs, and more. Additional information also available at www.bhurt.com. Submitted By: Valerie Chepp Tags: discourse/language, lgbtq, media, sex/sexuality, homophobia, heterosexism, media literacy, remix, 21 to 60 mins Year: 2011 Length: 50:13 Access: YouTube Summary: This video is a montage of every homophobic joke included in the sitcom Friends. While it is not necessary to watch the entire clip in class, it provides an excellent example of how deeply embedded homophobia is within the show, an arguably popular media in general. The creator of the clip (in an interview available here) says,"the whole point of this project is to show the very extent to which homophobia pervades the show, and how it changes over the years." This video is useful in classroom discussions of homophobia, heterosexism, and the media as example of the level to which LGBT people are subject to discrimination and stereotypes within popular culture. It is also an excellent example of how those stereotypes evolve over time. Submitted By: Anya Galli Tags: bodies, children/youth, consumption/consumerism, discourse/language, gender, inequality, marketing/brands, media, political economy, sex/sexuality, social construction, violence, feminism, media literacy, representation, self-objectification, sexism, sexual objectification, stereotypes, symbolic annihilation, 06 to 10 mins, 61+ mins Year: 2011 Length: 90:00, 8:52 Access: no online access, Vimeo preview Summary: Jennifer Siebel Newsom directs this documentary, and following in the steps of the Killing Us Softly films, it draws attention to the very problematic ways women and girls are represented in contemporary media. To tell the story, Newsom weaves together a number of interviews from an array of experts and activists, including Erika Falk, Jennifer Pozner, Jean Kilbourne, Condoleezza Rice, Nancy Pelosi, Cory Booker, Katie Couric, Rachel Maddow, Margaret Cho, Rosario Dawson and Gloria Steinem. The dominant themes of Miss Representation can be described as the consequences of living in a world where one is virtually swimming in representations which consistently emphasize an unattainable beauty standard for women, and in a separate vein, encourage routine violence against women. In this environment, women increasingly self-objectify, they suffer from increased levels of anxiety and depression, a lack of political efficacy, and men increasingly perpetrate violence against women. Despite similarities, Newsom takes her film further than Jean Kilbourne's documentary, Killing Us Softly 4, by exploring more of the political economy behind these harmful representations. Specifically, she explores the large scale entrance of American women into the paid labor force during World War II as a watershed event (see also The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter). In Newsom's retelling of this story, once men returned to from fighting abroad, the media played a central role in encouraging women to surrender their high-paying jobs back to men in order to become domestic consumers in the brave new post-war economy. Today the marketing of corporations are regulated even less by Congress, and their ads continue to target women; they objectify them as part of a strategy aimed at creating ever more insatiable consumers. Submitted By: Lester Andrist Tags: discourse/language, gender, media, social mvmts/social change/resistance, culture, cultural trope, feminism, media literacy, subtitles/CC, 06 to 10 mins Year: 2011 Length: 10:20 Access: YouTube Summary: In this video from Feminist Frequency, the trope of the "Straw Feminist" is discussed and deconstructed using examples from a variety of films and TV shows. The video explains the Straw Feminist by pointing out the recurring introduction of a character who is identified as a "feminist" but which exists primarily to propagate and reinforce broad and frequently offensive stereotypes of feminists/feminism, and thereby to undermine the issues that feminism seeks to address. The video also discusses how the explicit separation of otherwise strong, well-realized female characters from "feminist" characters serves to encourage viewers to identify themselves as supporters of women's rights and equality--while at the same time to insist that they are not feminists. This is a good way to open or augment a classroom discussion of common popular (mis)conceptions of feminism and women's rights activists, including where the conceptions themselves come from, and what the consequences of their spread might be. Click here for additional resources from Feminist Frequency on the Straw Feminist. Two additional clips from The Sociological Cinema that would pair well with a class discussion on the Straw Feminist include posts on the Powerpuff Girls and Lady Gaga's disavowal of feminism. Submitted By: Sarah Wanenchak 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 Tags: art/music, bodies, discourse/language, gender, sex/sexuality, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2011 Length: 2:25 Access: YouTube Summary: In a recent post entitled, "The Clitoris: Most. Awkward. Discussion. Ever!" Sociologist Sarah Nell Rusche draws attention to the way culture and power act as a guiding force, "not only for what gets constructed as acceptable sexuality, but also comfortable conversation topics." Rusche begins by recounting her rather awkward experience of saying the word "clitoris" to a classroom full of snickering undergraduates. The above clip might be a way to move past the anxieties students typically have about discussing sex and sexuality. In only 2 minutes and 25 seconds, the clip (created by loveyourvagina.com) compiles a massive list of possible nicknames for vaginas into a song. More than an ice-breaker, the clip could also be used to introduce, trigger, or promote a rich discussion related to the representations and language associated with sex in American culture. It could also be a way of drawing attention to the meaning and purpose behind the countless euphemisms used to describe the penis, the clitoris and the downtown dining and entertainment district. Submitted By: Jessica Leveto Tags: art/music, discourse/language, knowledge, media, advertising, art history, culture, feminism, film studies, media literacy, representation, semiotics, sociology of culture, walter benjamin, subtitles/CC, 61+ mins Year: 1972 Length: 120:00 Access: YouTube (Episode 1: part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4) (Episode 2: part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4) (Episode 3: part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4) (Episode 4: part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4) Summary: This classic BBC miniseries, narrated by John Berger, critically examines Western visual culture from the Renaissance to today (or at least 1972). Together, four episodes focus on the role of context in creating meaning, the male gaze, and the different functions of depictions of wealth in early modern and late modern imagery. In episode 1, Berger remarks on the way meanings and interpretations of paintings and photographs can vary depending on context. For instance, the way in which a viewer sees an image can change depending on how the viewer confronts the image. In episode 2, Berger draws on paintings and photography to explore his thesis that Western culture is one in which "Men look at Women," and "Women watch themselves being looked at," thus locating the nude in Western art as an objectification of women. In episodes 3 and 4, Berger argues that oil painting was a medium, which celebrated the privileged lifestyle of European aristocrats. If oil painting was developed to represent the texture and tangibility of objects, then color photography serves a similar function today and is carried forward in the work of advertisers. Clips from Ways of Seeing can be used as an effective way to introduce students to the study of semiotics, and more broadly, the sociology of culture. Submitted By: Matt Tags: commodification, discourse/language, inequality, race/ethnicity, cultural imperialism, racism, representation, signification, 21 to 60 mins Year: 2011 Length: 22:50 Access: YouTube Summary: In this clip, Al Jazeera's The Stream interviews Adrienne Keene, who is a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, the author of the Native Appropriations Blog, and currently a graduate student in Boston. The clip is useful for examining cultural representation as a practice of domination. At the 2:28 mark, Keene orients the discussion by asking "Who has the right to represent whom?" This orienting question comes up again at the 22:40 mark when the host of the program acknowledges that cultural appropriation contributes to invisibility and marginalization but asks, as a practical matter, how one is to accurately and respectfully represent so many culturally distinct tribes. In her response, Keene denies the premise of the question, which attributes the role of First Nations' representation to non-members, and instead she insists that it must be "the right of the community to represent themselves." Furthermore, while students may counter that representations, such as those used as the mascots of professional sports teams, are forms of appreciation, Keene counters that the such representations are actually "a continuing form of colonialism and oppression." That is, they effectively "shrink an extremely diverse community of over 565 tribes in the United States alone down into one stereotypical image of the plains Indian." By selectively appropriating iconic artifacts from indigenous cultures, while also constructing caricatures said to stand for all indigenous people, one limits acknowledgement of diversity and engages in a practice of domination. For instance, war paint and the war bonnet become blunted as mere fashion statements among hipsters, and may no longer invoke memories of resistance to the genocidal policies of white settlers. Similarly, when the Navy Seals adopted "Geronimo" as a codename for Osama Bin Laden, they threatened to transform the historical meaning and significance of the real Geronimo and his resistance (see this response from a group named 1491s). As with another clip featured on The Sociological Cinema, which is critical of the deployment of photographs of African American lynchings, this clip offers an excellent opportunity for students to examine what is at stake in cultural representation and how it relates to power. Submitted By: Lester Andrist |
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