Tags: bodies, health/medicine, media, prejudice/discrimination, fat shaming, obesity, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2012 Length: 2:04 Access: msnbc Summary: This video is from the Today Show and can be used to highlight the very real health concerns associated with obesity, a problem which stems in part from living in a society that encourages people to move less and eat more. According to the news report, Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and West Virginia are the "fattest" states, while Colorado, Massachusetts, and Vermont are the leanest. While there is a tendency for people to conclude the issue boils down to personal choices, this report draws attention to a more systemic reason for obesity. The lowest rates of obesity tend to occur in the wealthiest states, suggesting that leaner states are able to encourage exercise by building more pedestrian friendly infrastructure. Class discussion can also be pushed beyond the explicit message of the report, and students can be encouraged to critically examine the discourse on obesity in the United States. Much like this news report, people often connect weight and health, but it is simply not the case that being overweight is the same as being unhealthy. Similarly, students can also be encouraged to examine the phenomenon of fat shaming and how the widespread practice of photographing overweight bodies without heads (a.k.a., "headless fatties") reinforces the message that having an overweight body is so shameful, identities need to be disguised. Submitted By: Vicky Herbel, Associate Professor of Sociology
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U.S. Olympic athlete McKayla Maroney, August 5, 2012. Tags: gender, media, sex/sexuality, sports, athletes, male gaze, olympics, self-objectification, sexual objectification, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2012 Length: 2:18 Access: LiveLeak Summary: Hockey blogger for Yahoo! Sports, Greg Wyshynski, offered a scathing critique of NBC's video ode to the women athletes of the 2012 London Games. He sees straight through the flimsy defense that the video montage was merely a celebration of the human form, and he exposes it for the vulgar artifact of sexual objectification it truly is. He writes: "The 2012 London Games have been labeled 'the women's Olympics' thanks to record-setting performances and watershed moments like the dawn of women's boxing as well as the participation of female athletes from Saudi Arabia. How did NBC decide to help celebrate this incredible time for women in sports? With meaningless objectification, of course! 'Bodies in Motion' was an online video produced by NBC in which women competing in various Olympic sports were featured in softcore, fetishist slow-motion highlights, while porn-tastic jazz music played on the soundtrack. It looked like something a horny teenager with a DVR would have spliced together for YouTube; instead, it was the official rights holder of the Olympics in the U.S. that produced it.” Wyshynski's admonishment is spot on, but he doesn't go far enough. The sexual objectification during the 2012 Olympics needs to be discussed, not because its execution is reminiscent of low budget porn, but because widespread sexual objectification is harmful to girls and women. As political scientist Caroline Heldman has argued, an environment of sexual objectification leads women to self-objectify, which is the "phenomenon of girls and women viewing themselves from an external vantage point, constantly monitoring their behaviors and bodies to maximize their appeal." The harm for girls and women is quite measurable. For instance, Heldman notes the psychological harm. Women who self-objectify are more prone to depression, have lower self-esteem, and lower personal efficacy. They are also more likely to feel body shame, including shame about their menstrual cycles, and they are more likely to exhibit symptoms of anorexia and bulimia. They have lower cognitive functioning on average as well, which is expressed by lower grade point averages. Finally, they are more likely to experience sexual dysfunction, and Heldman's own research links self objectification to lower political efficacy. Image by Brian Snyder/Reuters Submitted By: Anonymous Lupe Fiasco Tags: art/music, children/youth, discourse/language, emotion/desire, gender, media, sex/sexuality, feminist criticism, hip hop, male gaze, madonna-whore complex, misogyny, rap, rhetoric, sexism, slut shaming, socialization, 06 to 10 mins Year: 2012 Length: 5:35 Access: YouTube Summary: In this music video, rap artist Lupe Fiasco addresses the issue of images in the media and how they are absorbed by children and incorporated into their lives as adults. He appears to be critical of the hip hop music industry for sending confusing messages when it broadcasts words like "bitch," sometimes as a deprecation, and other times as a compliment (e.g., Kanye West calls Kim Kardashian a "perfect bitch" in a recent song he wrote). Before Fiasco, cultural scholars already contemplated the use of the word "bitch" in hip hop. For instance, in her book Prophets of the Hood, Imani Perry discusses the way women artists deploy the term, and how some have even succeeded in subverting its negative connotations in an effort to create new space for women. It is clear, however, Fiasco is plotting a different course with his criticism. He raps: "You see the fruit of the confusion / He caught in a reality / She caught in an illusion." While it should be said that neither character can see things more realistically than the other, the line suggests that Fiasco is really interested in the term's inherent dualism, and in this way, his criticism maps onto a broader feminist theory that attempts to expose the modern workings of what Freud originally coined as the Madonna-whore complex. This complex refers to a dualism in Western patriarchal discourse, which seeks to circumscribe the behavior of women and the desires of men. On the one hand, women are rewarded for being the sexual play objects of men (i.e., whores), and on the other hand, women are given clear messages that true grace only derives from marital chastity (i.e., Madonna). The video might be useful for triggering a discussion about how this game is clearly rigged for women, but it can also be used to begin a discussion about how the discourse negatively affects men. Submitted By: Kim Ward Tags: children/youth, education, media, science/technology, social problems, subtitles/CC, 61+ mins Year: 2009 Length: 90:00 Access: Frontline Summary: This PBS special challenges the advertising image of technology as always "progress" or a "solution" to contemporary problems. Instead, this series of short topics highlights how technology has actually created a whole host of its own social problems related to digital over-saturation. This video is paired well with Kenneth Gergen's "The Saturated Self," or other readings that deal with how technology has changed our daily lives in very powerful ways. It can also be used to encourage students to disconnect when reading or writing for classes in that the video presents research that indicates that multitasking makes us dumber. I have found that students have strong (often defensive) reactions to this video, so I also make time for classroom discussion, or I assign a reaction paper. Submitted By: Michelle Smirnova Barak Obama speaks at a rally to promote diversity Tags: discourse/language, knowledge, media, politics/election/voting, race/ethnicity, theory, derrick bell, critical race theory, fear, 11 to 20 mins Year: 2012 Length: 13:10 Access: YouTube Summary: In the Academy Award-winning documentary Bowling for Columbine, filmmaker Michael Moore highlights, among other things, the ways in which fear—and specifically white fear of black men—is manufactured through the American media (e.g., here). Moore places the history of American gun policy and gun violence within this context. This American tendency to invent fear using racial justifications is also a useful framework for contextualizing the "controversy" over the video footage released in March 2012 that depicted then-law student Barak Obama introducing law professor Derrick Bell at a rally to promote diversity among Harvard faculty (Professor Bell was the first tenured African-American Professor of Law at Harvard Law School). The conservative group Breitbart.com used the video as evidence of Obama's support of critical race theory (CRT), an intellectual project developed by Bell and others to illustrate the intersection of race, law, and power, and the ways in which American institutions are fundamentally organized by racialized power structures that disadvantage people of color. CRT is rooted in a tradition of social justice. While much buzz surrounded the story, this particular video clip is useful for highlighting how the racialized politics of fear gets used to shape American discourse and ideology (as well as discredit knowledge). Viewers can watch the invention of fear unfolding before their very eyes, bearing witness to the myriad of ways the more-or-less innocuous footage is described as a "bombshell," the likening of Bell to Rev. Jeremiah Wright (another black man who was successfully deemed radical and worthy of fear), and how Obama "forced" his students to read Bell at the University of Chicago. The racial politics of fear is explicitly evoked at the 6:27 minute mark. As the November elections draw near, viewers can be encouraged to look out for similar projects around the invention of fear unfold, particularly around Obama's race. Submitted By: Valerie Chepp Tags: discourse/language, gender, inequality, media, prejudice/discrimination, decentering, eve teasing, india, sexual harassment, sexism, street harassment, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2012 Length: 3:32 Access: YouTube Summary: It is often the case that when incisive critiques are leveled against an oppressive system, such as patriarchy, there will be efforts to derail or decenter that conversation. For example, one might critique patriarchy in India by pointing out that there is a marked tendency to blame the victim in cases of harassment. Defying all probability, time and again the original critique of power slips from the conversation, and those who were instrumental in exposing the problem suddenly find themselves defending whether their critique is in fact proof of their own prejudice against men. Or, even more befuddling, the focus of the conversation shifts from the problem of sexual harassment to the hurt feelings of a few men who claim they have never harassed women. As explored elsewhere on The Sociological Cinema, YouTube videos can be understood as social activism, and in that context, any single clip can be seen as a discrete contribution to an unfolding public conversation about a particular social issue. In the above video, one finds a young man catching a ride on a not-so-crowded Delhi bus. In the course of the ride the driver abruptly presses on the brake, and the young man accidentally falls on the woman standing next to him. On the mistaken assumption that the man was attempting to physically harass her, the woman slaps him across the face (a perfect Indian response!), and the woman's friend chides the man for “not having any manners.” Later in the ride, the driver again abruptly presses the brake, but in this instance, it is the woman who falls on the man, and it is now his turn to slap her. The video encourages the viewer to see the man's response as entirely valid and even legally justified (The video's caption references Article 15 of the Indian constitution, which prohibits gender based discrimination). It is a cautionary tale, which promotes the absurd idea that men must frequently bear the burden of being unjustly accused of street harassment, or what is euphemistically referred to as eve teasing in India. The conversation no longer contemplates the tendency to blame the victim, and it no longer dwells on why violence against women is now the fastest-growing crime in India. Instead, this video and others like it attempt to reorient the discussion so that people must now contemplate the indignity suffered by a minority of men who have been unjustly accused. Submitted By: Manjistha Banerji Image by Blank Noise Tags: gender, inequality, marketing/brands, marriage/family, media, social construction, commercial, culture, domestic labor, gender socialization, motherhood, stereotypes, unpaid work, women's work, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2012 Length: 2:02 Access: YouTube Summary: In this advertisement for P&G (Proctor and Gamble) products the claim is made that a mother's job is the hardest job in the world, but also the best job. The short clip constructs a very narrow representation of motherhood throughout the world as it takes viewers through a dramatization of several Olympic athlete's upbringing. In each case, and in the various cultures, the mother is responsible for things such as: waking the child, getting the child off to school, feeding and clothing the child, dressing injuries, and taking them to extra-curricular (sporting) activities. Men are excluded from any form of domestic labor, and they are only present for the viewing of the sporting events. Throughout the dramatization, the assumption is that these are the tasks that mothers perform, and if the job is done well the child will reach success. The last few seconds of the clip show the mothers reaping the reward of their efforts while celebrating their grown child's Olympic success. This clip could would fit nicely with discussions of the social construction of familial/gender roles. This depiction is a narrow and stereotypical construction of a woman's role in the family. The media is a major socializing force in society, and they have the power to create and uphold these ideal types through the images and stories they produce. Viewing of this video could also lead to an in-depth discussion of gender inequality within the family with regard to unpaid, domestic labor. Why are women the only ones performing these duties? Do men contribute to the birth of an Olympic athlete (maybe they're saving this for Father's Day)? Furthermore, it could result in a discussion about the appropriation of holidays and other cultures to market and sell products. Submitted By: Tracy DeHaan, University of Oregon 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: 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: 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 |
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