![]() Loretta Ross Tags: gender, intersectionality, knowledge, race/ethnicity, social mvmts/social change/resistance, feminism, identity politics, women of color, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2011 Length: 3:00 Access: YouTube Summary: Here is a clip of Loretta Ross, co-founder and national coordinator of SisterSong-Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, commenting on the origins of the term "women of color". As Ross suggests, people often forget that the term "women of color" is not a biologically-based description but has a political and ideological history. Ross explains that the term stems from meetings in 1977 at the International Women's Year Conference (WYC) in Houston, Texas. In response to the growing awareness that the unique concerns and challenges of Black women were not being addressed in the women's movement more broadly, a group of Black women from Washington DC traveled to the conference to propose a Black women's agenda. At the conference, groups representing other minority women joined the Black Women's Agenda (BWA), and the new alliance adopted the more inclusive term "women of color". Thus Ross notes that the term is "a solidarity definition; a commitment to work in collaboration with other oppressed women of color." Ross recounts a history which emphasizes the need for women of color to come together as a distinct political community. She emphasizes a moment of affiliation for a political cause within the women's movement, but she is also implicitly discussing the importance of recognizing the varied and distinct, intersectional identities of women. After showing the clip, instructors might provocatively ask students to consider how they would respond to the usual attack leveled against identity politics, which would claim that the BWA splintered the women's movement and made it less effective. Submitted By: Lester Andrist
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![]() Verbotene Liebe Tags: gender, lgbtq, sex/sexuality, violence, gender socialization, heteronormativity, masculinity, representation, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2009 Length: 4:02 Access: YouTube Summary: This four-minute remix is composed of scenes cut from the Dutch film, De Vierde Man, the British television drama, Hollyoaks: In the City, the German soap opera, Verbotene Liebe, and at least four other sources. Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" plays in the background. The clip features scene after scene of gay men expressing love, affection, and genuine vulnerability. The fact that this queer affection lasts more than a scene and is not reduced to a token moment in an otherwise heteronormative media world will strike many as unusual. If one focuses on gender exclusively, it is also striking to see such nurturing and emotionally vulnerable depictions of men in cinema in such a sustained way. I would argue that representations of men as essentially violent so thoroughly saturate the media landscape that it becomes quite rare to find spaces which depict men as caregivers, attentive lovers, and nurturers. Jean Kilbourne makes a similar point in her documentary, Killing Us Softly 4, arguing that the media socialize through their capacity to divide up human qualities based on gender. Stoicism, confidence, compassion, and the capacity to nurture—to name just a few—become either feminine or masculine, and men are encouraged by the media to repress their so-called feminine qualities. Using the clip, students can be asked to consider how men are socialized differently than women, and in particular, how violence gets attached to masculinity. Submitted By: Lester Andrist ![]() Tags: discourse/language, immigration/citizenship, race/ethnicity, comedy, representation, stereotyping, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2008 Length: 1:40 Access: ComedyCentral.com Summary: In this short clip from his stand-up performance on Comedy Central's "Live at Gotham," Hari Kondabolu discusses the racism often aimed at Mexican immigrants in the form of stereotypes, or unreliable generalizations about all members of a group that do not recognize individual differences. A stereotype can be a claim about an essential personality trait of all people in a group, as when all Mexicans are derided as lazy. It can also be a claim about the motivations or objectives of all people in a group, as when someone suspects Mexicans are taking all "our" jobs. Kondabolu jokes about the logical contradiction suggested in the idea of lazy Mexicans who are all after American jobs. But I think Kondabolu also puts his finger on a common feature of stereotypes. Even if Mexican immigrants could debunk one generalization by achieving exceptionally high levels of employment, they would only be confirming another—i.e., their greedy pursuit of American jobs. Thus stereotypes belong to a system of ideas; one which is not designed to be overthrown, but instead to stabilize power and privilege. Note that this clip contributes to The Sociological Cinema's growing collection of comedy clips that are useful for illustrating or beginning a discussion about sociological concepts. Submitted By: Lester Andrist ![]() Tags: gender, organizations/occupations/work, prejudice/discrimination, comedy, dominance, dual labor market, occupational sex segregation, sexism, sexual harassment, subordination, 00 to 05 mins Year: 1980 Length: 3:25 Access: YouTube Summary: The 1980s movie 9 to 5 follows the story of three (female) secretaries who wish to pay their (male) boss back for treating them badly in the workplace. In light of cultural images of women as the weaker sex that needed to be “put in their place,” this clip shows one woman’s (Dolly Parton's) fantasies about murdering her boss, and making him suffer the way he made her suffer. She embarrasses him, degrades him, and treats him like an object just as he did to her days before. The clip shows that he is visibly uncomfortable with her advances, but that he has no choice considering he wants to keep his job. Viewers may find that the more common workplace discrimination (men discriminating against women) is offensive, but that this clip is humorous. Students may be encouraged to think about why they find this humorous, and what this seemingly humorous role reversal tells us about gender relations and gendered ideologies. It is a good way to introduce sexual discrimination in the workplace, and the role of power in such gender discrimination. Finally, given that lower-level occupations (e.g. secretaries) are more likely female-dominated occupations, while upper-level occupations (e.g. managers) are more likely male-dominated, students can further consider the role of occupational sex segregation as reinforcing gendered inequality and discrimination. Submitted By: Lia Karvounis ![]() Tags: media, prejudice/discrimination, race/ethnicity, internalized racism, socialization, stereotypes, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2010 Length: 2:30 Access: YouTube Summary: This clip features ten excerpts from late 20th century cartoons, which have been sharply criticized for their illustration of ethnic and racist stereotypes. The stereotypes on display include the scheming, buck-toothed Chinaman, the Jazz loving Black entertainer, a disruptive Black child who is easily appeased with watermelon, the gun-wielding but perpetually lazy Slowpoke Rodriguez, and the Black mammy who has trouble spelling the word "out." What is striking is how blatantly racist these scenes are in a medium which is primarily enjoyed by children. The depiction of Blacks as slaves, presumably for humorous effect, is particularly appalling in an excerpt from a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Students can be reminded that stereotypes are unreliable generalizations about all members of a group that do not recognize individual differences. Because stereotypes work to reduce complex people and groups into caricatures, and in this way confound understanding, they are perhaps always harmful. However, one could argue that they become truly racist when they promote ideas about people along racial lines and particularly when those ideas can be easily arranged in a hierarchical order. Slowpoke Rodriguez's laziness and inclination toward violence, then, reaffirms a negative stereotype about Latinos, but it is also one that works in tandem with ideas about whites as inherently non-lazy and non-violent. The clip might also lead to a useful discussion about the idea of internalized racism, or the idea that stereotypes are one way in which members of minority groups subconsciously come to incorporate negative ideas into their own racial identities. Submitted By: Lauren McLendon and Lester Andrist ![]() Tags: gender, inequality, media, sex/sexuality, gender roles, gender socialization, representation, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2003 Length: 2:46 Access: YouTube Summary: The 2003 film Mona Lisa Smile depicts Wellesley College, a women-only Massachusetts school, in the 1950s. The film is centered on the classroom of Katherine Ann Watson (Julia Roberts), a socially progressive art history instructor. In the film, the tensions between the traditional ideology of a woman’s role in society as a domestic homemaker and the new idea of an educated, autonomous woman are constantly present in Watson’s classroom. Watson strongly encourages her students to be independent women, seeing their potential to be more than subservient accessories to a man’s household. Watson’s advocacy for an uncompromising lifestyle is met with criticism and resentment from conservative students, who argue that it challenges "the roles you were born to fill." This tension reflects the common misperception of gender as a biological, rather than social, construct, and prompts Watson to use a powerful and emotionally-charged slide show critiquing depictions of women in a variety of 1950s advertisements. Like modern day advertisements found elsewhere on this site (e.g. here, here, and here; see documentary of women in advertising here), this clip offers an example of gender socialization and a means to think about how gender inequality is reproduced through media and ideology. When paired with these other clips, it also begs the question of how much has really changed since the 1950s? Students can be encouraged to think about how women both continue to be depicted in traditional gender roles in today's media culture but with an ever greater degree of sexual objectification. Submitted By: Caitlin Orr, Nina Carr, and Paul Dean ![]() Tags: bodies, gender, media, prejudice/discrimination, sex/sexuality, social construction, sports, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2006 Length: 4:46 Access: YouTube Summary: Shown by ChallengingMedia, this clip critically examines post-Title IX media by discussing the difference in the coverage of female vs. male athletes. While female athleticism challenges gender norms, female athletes continue to be depicted in traditional roles that reaffirm their femininity as wives, mothers, or sex objects. Yet, male athletes are shown in a heroic light illustrating their courage, strength, and endurance. Submitted By: Shinta Herwantoro Hernandez ![]() Jerome Delay / Associated Press Tags: gender, nationalism, violence, war/military, rape, rape camp, war rape, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2011 Length: 1:05 Access: New York Times Summary: This news footage is of a Libyan woman, Eman al-Obeidy, who recently entered a Tripoli hotel full of foreign journalists. Although not shown in the video, al-Obeidy claimed to have been detained at a checkpoint in the Libyan capital by forces loyal to Muammar el-Qaddafi and some time thereafter raped by 15 men. She reportedly showed the journalists at the hotel a number of bruises and scars and mentioned that her friends were still being detained by militiamen. David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times quotes the woman as saying, “I was tied up, and they defecated and urinated on me. They violated my honor.” Soon thereafter plain-clothed government minders entered the hotel, and with some assistance from the hotel's servers and in the face of protests from many onlookers, forcibly put al-Obeidy into a car and drove away. Her whereabouts and well being are currently unknown. The raw footage of this woman being physically removed is heart wrenching, and it certainly grabs the viewer's attention. Perhaps this is because the coercion is so plain to see, but the clip is also engaging because we know it is not archival footage from a settled conflict, but is instead taken from a developing civil war in Libya. Instructors can use this clip as a means of catalyzing a discussion about war rape, which is used systematically as a means of humiliating the enemy and destroying communities. Students can also be reminded that rape is not only something the soldiers of "Other" nations do. Another clip on The Sociological Cinema (here) features testimonies, which describe rape committed by American soldiers during the Vietnam War. 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 ![]() Tags: inequality, race/ethnicity, de facto segregation, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2000 Length: 2:15 Access: YouTube Summary: Remember the Titans is an Academy Award winning movie based on one of the first desegregated high schools in Virginia during the 1970s. Throughout the movie, characters are shown trying to overcome their racial prejudices in order to work together and become a winning football team. This particular clip focuses on a scene in which the players board two buses by segregating themselves by race (there is an all-white bus and an all-black bus). As opposed to the legally mandated segregation that characterized Virginia before the Civil Rights movement, this scene illustrates de facto segregation, which is a subtler process of segregation that results from other processes, such as housing segregation. Students may be asked why the athletes would have segregated themselves despite any legal force to do so? Furthermore, the video shows the coach’s efforts to de-segregate the football team, which creates significant racial tensions. Students can be encouraged to think about the challenges of racial desegregation and how these tensions may help reproduce segregation despite those formal mandates. One could also document the persistence of de facto segregation today by showing statistics on residential segregation, or discuss how race and class intersect to produce de facto segregation in schools and inequality in educational quality; indeed, much of the US remains "separate and unequal." Submitted By: Lauren Morgan, Emily Alt, & Paul Dean |
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