![]() Tags: culture, discourse/language, inequality, knowledge, media, race/ethnicity, colonialism, neocolonialism, postcolonialism, privilege, rule of colonial difference, white savior industrial complex, subtitles/CC, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2012 Length: 3:45 Access: YouTube Summary: The broad claim that certain groups have power over others—that racism, sexism, and classism exist—is hardly controversial. Yet mention privilege and tempers flare. But privilege is simply the other side of the power coin. Just as some racial groups are systematically oppressed and marginalized, other racial groups are systematically privileged, and just as forms of oppression vary, so too do forms of privilege. For instance, a white privilege might simply be living in a world where one can count on being paid more on average than Blacks or Latinos. While pay gaps may be easily quantified, forms of privilege that are less amenable to statistical analysis exist as well. Consider the male privilege of being immersed in a media environment that consistently depicts men as important and powerful. Or consider the white privilege of living in a media environment that assures audiences that white heroes are nearly always capable of transcending adversity. The above clip is from "Africa for Norway" and parodies the narrative typically deployed by Western charity organizations in their campaigns to secure funds and drum up support. It draws attention to a kind of Western privilege, a privilege both forged from and bound up with the experience of colonialism, the application of the rule of colonial difference (i.e., representing the 'other' as inferior and radically different), and Western racism. Whether it is the Kony 2012 campaign or the 1985 song "We Are the World," the story being peddled to publics is of a compassionate West saving the 'other' from unbearable poverty or some other grave injustice. Author Teju Cole famously named this dominant cultural narrative and the practices it calls forth the white savior industrial complex. While the components of the narrative can be spotted in the viral videos of these NGOs, Cole points out that it can also be found in countless Hollywood films, such as Out of Africa and The Constant Gardener. Time and again, moviegoers and YouTubers are asked to consider a rather narrowly defined hero. He's a compassionate white westerner, who stands apart in his uncommon ability to recognize the basic humanity of the many black and brown foreigners he has encountered while on his journey through an unfamiliar land; and against the advice of civilization, he heroically commits himself to the mission of saving these people from their plight. Although the perception that it is a criticism against charity will likely be a point of contention with viewers, the real critique, which is aimed at neocolonialism and the privileges it supports is incisive. It is a peculiar kind of Western privilege to be able to wade through the media pool each day, soaked by the various incarnations of this narrative, a day full of subtle reminders of one's intrinsic goodness and extraordinary abilities. Submitted By: Lester Andrist
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![]() Insult gestures, including the middle finger, vary across cultures. Tags: bodies, culture, discourse/language, cultural relativity, gestures, non-material culture, 06 to 10 mins Year: 1994 Length: 9:06 Access: YouTube Summary: Culture is a fundamental concept within sociology and anthropology. Culture includes the ideas, values, practices, and material objects that enable human cooperation within groups and societies. Symbolic culture includes non-material forms of culture such as language, which consists of meaningful symbols that enable communication. Beyond written and spoken language, we also communicate via gestures, or body language. This excerpt from the BBC's Human Animal series discusses gestures and their meanings in different cultures around the world. The video illustrates many common gestures (e.g. the use of the middle finger, head nod, thumbs up, and handshake) and documents the diverse messages these gestures send in different countries. It also draws upon certain ideas, such as the notion that someone is "crazy", and illustrates the various gestures used to communicate this same message. Viewers may find this video useful in introductory classes to illustrate one dimension of culture, and how it varies throughout the world. Submitted By: omowbray ![]() Cultures have unique ideas of beauty, such as long neck length. Tags: bodies, culture, emotion/desire, gender, multiculturalism, sex/sexuality, social construction, cultural relativity, ideal beauty, 06 to 10 mins Year: 1997 Length: 9:56 Access: YouTube Summary: What is beauty? Is beauty an objective feature or is it in the "eye of the beholder"? According to a 2012 competition hosted by Lorraine Cosmetics, the most "natural" and "objectively" beautiful woman was determined "scientifically" through such measures as facial symmetry. While the incident ignited a public debate about the ability to "scientifically" measure beauty, a review of the research shows that people's sense of beauty varies across time and culture. In this video, famous anthropologist Desmond Morris notes that while there is a "biological language of sex" in which people are attracted to others through physical characteristics, this process is mediated through a "complex cultural adventure." Throughout cultures across the world, people exaggerate the features of beauty that their culture deems attractive. A study looking at beauty across 200 different cultures found hardly any qualities that existed across all cultures. The video documents several of these physical features on women, including neck length, foot size, and lip size. It illustrates the cultural evaluation of beauty and the (often painful) techniques used to achieve the unnaturally extreme forms of beauty. What notions of female beauty in your culture might be similar to or different from conceptions of beauty found in the video? Viewers may also note the heteronormativity of the video, in which beauty is explicitly stated to attract members of the opposite sex. Submitted By: omowbray ![]()
Tags: art/music, capitalism, commodification, consumption/consumerism, marketing/brands, marx/marxism, theory, baudrillard, commodity fetishism, exchange-value, labor, lacan, surplus value, signified, signifier, symbols, use-value, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 2011 Length: 5:33 Access: YouTube Summary: Seattle rapper Macklemore's music video for his thought-provoking song “Wings” is an excellent way to introduce students to Marx’s theory of commodity fetishism. Commodity fetishism is the process of ascribing magic “phantom-like” qualities to an object, whereby the human labour required to make that object is lost once the object is associated with a monetary value for exchange. Under capitalism, once the object emerges as a commodity that has been assigned a monetary value for equivalent universal exchange, it is fetishized, meaning that consumers come to believe that the object has intrinsic value in and of itself. The object’s value appears to come from the commodity, rather than the human labor that produced it. In “Wings,” Macklemore associates this process of commodity fetishism with Nike Air Max athletic shoes, explaining his belief as a child that the shoes would make him into a superstar athlete like Michael Jordan. The value of Nike shoes is displaced from the labour time that went into creating them, and instead is infused with an intrinsic value that comes into being through celebrity endorsement or symbols such as the iconic Nike “Swoosh.” “Wings” becomes a statement on how market capitalism seduces us into purchasing products that promise to make our lives better. Macklemore comes to this realization through the song’s narrative, exclaiming, “Nike tricked us all,” before finally realizing as the song comes to an end that “it’s just another pair of shoes.” Through tracks like “Wings,” Macklemore explores the darker side of consumption, urging listeners to critically rethink the messages imposed on us in capitalist societies that make us feel the need to constantly consume. This video can also be used to teach and distinguish among Marx's notions of use-value and exchange-value, as well as his concept of surplus-value, which is the surplus or profit earned by the capitalist, above and beyond the use-value (labour power) required to produce the object. Viewers may be urged to identify the use-, exchange-, and surplus-values of the Nike shoe in the video. How is value made? Why do we pay $180 for a pair of Nike shoes, but only $20 for a pair of Sketcher shoes? In addition, this video bolsters discussion about the power of symbols and signification (and Baudrillard’s notion of sign-value) in creating cultural meaning embodied in a commodity sign (e.g., the Swoosh on the Nike shoe, or the Apple symbol on an iPhone). Instructors can ask students to name other symbols in popular culture and what they mean to them. Drawing upon Jacques Lacan’s idea of the signifier and signified, instructors can expand the discussion of symbols by asking students to discuss the role of brand symbols in their life. Have they become a part of their identity? Their culture? Their daily lives? In the end, Macklemore speaks to this point: his Nikes are “so much more than just a pair of shoes.” They are “what I am… the source of my youth… the dream that they sold to you.” For another post on The Sociological Cinema that uses Macklemore's music videos to teach sociological concepts, click here. Submitted By: Patricia Louie ![]() The Internet is an important tool for shaping knowledge about race Tags: knowledge, media, prejudice/discrimination, race/ethnicity, internet, subtitles/CC, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2012 Length: 5:27 Access: Vimeo Summary: This video, created by sociologist Jessie Daniels, explores how race is depicted on the Internet. It begins by arguing that how we think about the Internet is a utopian vision where "this is no race, there are no genders, there is no age ... there are only minds" (quoting from an MCI commercial). But as Daniels notes, "the reality is different. Rather than a 'raceless' utopia in the US today, hate groups are on the rise." The video illustrates quantitative data showing the rise of hate groups, and questions how this might be related to the Internet? Contrary to popular belief, Daniels argues the issue is not with people using the Internet to "recruit" people into hate groups; instead, the issue is how the Internet shapes knowledge and how people perceive realities of race. Everyday people use the Internet to spread racist messages. They create content themselves and share it with friends, normalizing common stereotypes. For example, the video documents "The Funny Racist" on Twitter with over 366,000 followers. She notes that one of the top searches for Martin Luther King, Jr, is a cloaked site that appears legitimate but was created by Storm Front, one of the largest hate groups online. Daniels argues the danger of this new medium is not its capacity to recruit people into hate organizations but through shaping knowledge, such as people's understanding of slavery or civil rights leaders. She argues we need more than "Internet literacy" but also "racial Internet literacy." Viewers may reflect on why Daniels argues that racism is built into the Internet? How does the Internet create new opportunities for promoting racism, and does this reflect the idealist notions we often associate with the Internet and "free information"? Submitted By: Paul Dean ![]() Tags: discourse/language, knowledge, media, war/military, ideology, noam chomsky, propaganda model, representation, 06 to 10 mins Year: 2012 Length: 6:09; 3:41 Access: clip 1; clip 2 Summary: Strike up a conversation with a crowd of students about the media and odds are you will encounter a deep-seated suspicion that even in democratic political systems propaganda exists. Many people believe the media powerfully shape the public's vision of the world; yet when pressed, few are able to pinpoint whose view is being propagandized. Thus the public is suspicious, but divided on where to direct its suspicion. Fewer still are in agreement as to how the media most effectively succeeds in shaping public knowledge. In their book Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the Mass Media, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky famously proposed a propaganda model, which argues that government entities and powerful businesses are able to control the information the media reports through five kinds of filters: 1) ownership (i.e., media outlets filter information that is incompatible with the interests of their parent companies); 2) advertising (i.e., advertisers pressure the media to filter information that is incompatible with the advertiser's interests); 3) sourcing (i.e., the media are dependent on government and major corporations for news bulletins, and these sources filter the information they share); 4) flak (i.e., the government and major corporations are able to pressure media outlets to filter information); and 5) anticommunist ideology (i.e., the media is influenced by dominant ideologies and filters information to align with ideology). In the first clip above, Norman Solomon, founder of the Institute for Public Accuracy, echoes this propaganda model. For instance, at the 2:35 mark, Solomon describes Herman and Chomsky's sourcing filter when he notes that journalists must take their cue from government organizations as to what is even worth mentioning. Lest students get the impression that propaganda is simply a matter of information either being "filtered" or reported, the second clip explores the way euphemism is deployed to cover up unpleasant events or avoid discussing events that reveal powerful actors, such as the state, in an unflattering light. William Lutz describes this use of euphemism in his influential essay "The World of Doublespeak," where he notes that in 1984 the U.S. State Department announced it would no longer use the word "killing" in its reports and would opt instead for the phrase "unlawful or arbitrary deprivation of life." Note that this is the second post on The Sociological Cinema to take up the topic of contemporary propaganda. Submitted By: Lester Andrist ![]() Tags: class, economic sociology, inequality, absolute mobility, american dream, income mobility, relative mobility, stratification, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2011 Length: 3:02 Access: Pew Video Summary: Mobility is a difficult concept to both define and conceptualize because people’s movement up and down the socio-economic ladder must be assessed both in relation to a point of origin, and measured across time. This video from the PEW Economic Mobility Project helps us overcome this difficulty by providing visual animations that depict income mobility. It looks at how absolute mobility (when a person earns more money in inflation-adjusted dollars than their parents did at the same age) and relative mobility (a person's rank within the income distribution as a whole) work—while also highlighting how both types of movement relate to American Individualism. It shows that the US is doing well in absolute mobility, but not relative mobility. When explaining relative mobility, the video highlights “stickiness at the ends” by showing how there is a great deal of movement in the middle classes—but the poor and the wealthy at the top and bottom of the social hierarchy tend to experience little if any movement both within, and across generations. Towards the end, the video uses two escalators to outline an especially difficult premise; the possibility that individuals and families can simultaneously experience upward absolute mobility and downward relative mobility. Submitted By: Jason T. Eastman ![]() The Jets sing "Gee, Officer Krupke" in West Side Story. Tags: children/youth, crime/law/deviance, juvenile delinquincy, subtitles/CC, 00 to 05 mins Year: 1961 Length: 5:44 Access: YouTube Summary: Why do people break society's laws and norms? In this scene ("Gee, Officer Krupke") from the musical West Side Story, members of a gang (the Jets) are confronted by a police officer who sees them as trouble makers. After he leaves, the men mock various authority figures by sarcastically singing about the causes of their behavior. For example, they sing "all our mothers are junkies ... we're misunderstood ... deep down inside us, there is good ... my parents treat me rough ... they didn't want to have me ... we're psychologically disturbed." Despite their sarcasm, they accurately identify the various reasons that psychologists, judges, social workers, and society more generally gives for explaining crime and deviance, further noting "juvenile delinquency is a social disease." As an intro to teaching a module on Crime & Deviance I regularly introduce the idea that there is more than one point of view of why people offend. I ask students before and after showing the clip to mind map as many reasons as they can think of as to "Why do People Offend?" Viewers may be encouraged to identify the various factors shaping crime and deviance, and how people perceive these factors from different social positions. Going deeper, we can also consider the role of reflexivity in their actions. What does their sarcasm say about these causes and their attempt to understand them? In his essay, “Some Politically Incorrect Reflections on Violence in France and Related Matters,” Slavoj Zizek argues this about violent offenders: "when really pressed for the reasons for his violence, and if capable of minimal theoretical reflection, he will suddenly start to talk like social workers, sociologists and social psychologists, quoting diminished social mobility, rising insecurity, the disintegration of paternal authority, the lack of maternal love in his early childhood… in short, he will provide a more or less precise psycho-sociological account of his acts so dear to enlightened liberals eager to 'understand' the violent youth as a tragic victim of their social and familial conditions." As noted in The Kugelmass Episodes, "the members of the Jets can easily re-frame their own experiences to win the maximum of sympathy from each successive 'handler' ... [but] the Jets aren’t simply making fun of the notion of delinquency. They are genuinely confused about their own actions, and suspect that somebody educated has the answer, but meanwhile there is a fundamental and unresolvable problem: the Jets like their gang, and the people in authority don’t." Submitted By: Stephen Base ![]() Julia Roberts acquires cultural capital in Pretty Woman Tags: class, culture, inequality, knowledge, theory, bourdieu, cultural capital, economic capital, social capital, symbolic capital, 00 to 05 mins Year: 1990 Length: 2:46 Access: YouTube Summary: This video clip combines two scenes from the film Pretty Woman (1990). In the first scene, Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts), a working class sex worker, is given dinner etiquette lessons from a newly befriended hotel manager in preparation for a fancy dinner she is attending with Edward Lewis (Richard Gere), a rich business man who has hired Vivian to attend social events with him throughout the week. The second scene depicts Vivian at dinner with Edward and his business affiliates, trying to apply her recently acquired etiquette knowledge. Taken together, these scenes are useful for illustrating various dimensions of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's understanding of capital. For Bourdieu, capital refers to goods or resources, and he distinguishes between four different types of capital. Economic capital refers to money, property, and other assets. Social capital refers to networks of influence or support based on group membership (such as family), friends, or other contacts. Cultural capital refers to forms of knowledge, educational credentials, and skills. Symbolic capital refers to socially recognized legitimization such as prestige or honor. Bourdieu links these various forms of capital by illustrating how social, cultural, and symbolic capital convert back into economic capital. The film clip from Pretty Woman is useful for discussing and distinguishing among all four types of capital. Vivian's lesson in dinner etiquette, such as knowledge about which fork to use at dinner, illustrates cultural capital. Edward's relationship with his business affiliates illustrates social capital, and his ability to afford an expensive setting for his business meeting (not to mention hiring a person to accompany him all week to social events) illustrates his economic capital. Bourdieu's concept of symbolic capital is more difficult to grasp, and it's closely related to cultural and social capital. However, viewers might consider the ways in which Vivian lacks symbolic capital, as sex work is socially stigmatized and associated with the loss or absence of prestige or honor. Indeed, throughout the film Vivian is frequently looked down upon by others—such as hotel staff, boutique salespeople, and the young businessman depicted in this clip—who suspect she is a sex worker. Consistent with Bourdieu's theory, viewers might consider examples of how social, cultural, and symbolic capital can convert back into economic capital, and therefore maintain class inequality. Submitted By: Valerie Chepp ![]() Part of a racist performance at the 2013 Mummer's Parade Tags: prejudice/discrimination, race/ethnicity, cultural appropriation, representation, stereotypes, white privilege, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2013 Length: 2:16 Access: YouTube Summary: This video is from the 2013 Mummer's Parade, a long-standing tradition of people dressing up in elaborate costumes to perform on New Year's Day in Philadelphia. Here, the Venetian New Year's Association enacts a show they call "Indi-Insourcing." It begins with 4 white males dressed as Indians with telephone headsets and unveiling the "New Delhi Call Center," while dancing Gangnam style. Images of the Taj Mahal are in the background. Next, a teepee is brought forward and a group of white men dressed as American Indians emerges on toy horses to take over the Indians and transform the call center into the "New Jersey Call Center" (emphasis added). They are joined by a larger number of other (white) people dressed as American Indians, and perform a group Gangnam dance while the commentators describe their performance theme as "bringing jobs back to America ... a tribe of American Indians emerge with the Tomahawk chop; they charge, surround and take over the call center." Referring to the costumes and performance, the second commentator describes "the posh culture of Gangnam" and that if PSY were here today, "he could really see how fancy we [Philadelphians] could go." Both the performance and the commentators' narration are highly problematic and can be used to expose white privilege, racism, and stereotypical portrayals of the groups mentioned above. Viewers may consider not only how the performers portray the groups through stereotypes, but the irony of American Indians in taking over Indian call centers. After all, it was white Europeans who colonized Native American land and destroyed their way of life, and it is white Americans who claim to have special rights to jobs that are outsourced to places like India. Through images of the "Tomahawk chop" and use of horses to "take over" a call center, the performers appropriate and misrepresent American Indian culture while disregarding the role of whites and their colonial past. Viewers should also consider the significance that the parade organizers allowed this performance, and the commentators had a positive reaction to it. For example, the female commentator refers to the costumes and performance as "fancy" (consistent with the event's descriptive language) while disregarding the underlying racist stereotypes and messages. What does this acceptance of such depictions suggest about American culture and how white privilege operates? Submitted By: Nickie Michaud Wild |
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