![]() Tags: discourse/language, gender, sex/sexuality, doing gender, fag discourse, social norms, socialization, subtitles/CC, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2010 Length: 3:17 Access: YouTube Summary: This humorous clip comes from a series called “Tales of Mere Existence” by Lev Yilmaz and seems to depict Yilmaz's experience in middle school. In a monotone voice, Yilmaz explains that he was never able to carry his books "correctly," or at least in a way that satisfied the boys who bullied him. I see this clip as being useful in a class on the sociology of gender or sexuality in a couple of different ways. First, one could certainly use the clip to open a discussion about West and Zimmerman's notion of "doing" gender. The clip is rather effective at demonstrating that gender is not simply ascribed, nor is it only achieved through overt presentations; rather, it is embodied in seemingly mundane acts like carrying books. Second, at about two minutes into the clip, Yilmaz explains that he began carrying his books against his chest by wrapping both arms around them. He soon learned that "there seems to be an unwritten but nonetheless common knowledge that this is the way that girls carry their books," but then in the very next sentence Yilmaz explains that this made him "the least heterosexual person of all time." Students can be directed to reflect on the ease with which Yilmaz moves from what is ostensibly a reflection about his gender presentation to one about his sexuality. I would argue that this easy slip from talking about gender to sexuality highlights the way in which these socially constructed categories are tightly intertwined, and it reveals the way that gender actually organizes one's sexual identity. Thanks to Sociological Images for suggesting this clip. Submitted By: Lester Andrist
2 Comments
![]() Encountering with the "Other" in Cameron's epic film "Avatar" Tags: media, race/ethnicity, colonialism, culture, othering, representation, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2010 Length: 5:00 Access: YouTube Summary: The caption below this YouTube video remix by Craig Saddlemire and Ryan Conrad describes it as highlighting " the overplayed racial tropes of Hollywood cinema using James Cameron's multimillion‐dollar epic Avatar as its visual anchor." The clip works as a " media literacy tool for deconstructing how whiteness and Other-ness are portrayed in mainstream films about humanitarian crises," and I would add, colonialism. The clip draws footage from seventeen different films, all of which tell the same narrative about a white protagonist's encounter with the "Other." It would work well as a means of beginning a class discussion on media representations and especially those which pertain to race and ethnicity. By taking footage from so many different films, the clip is able to give students a sense of how ubiquitous and deeply resonant the representations associated with this narrative are. Instructors can encourage students to consider that the story is consistently told from the white colonizer's perspective, and in each story, a "native," or person of color, plays the so-called "magical negro" role. This is a character in fiction, typically woven into the story to further the self-discovery of the white protagonist. The magical negro can be seen as a variant of the much older ideal of the "noble savage." Submitted By: Lester Andrist ![]() Tags: sex/sexuality, gender, gender stereotypes, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2010 Length: 3:16 Access: jezebel.com Summary: This clip examines the discourse surrounding a fuck list created by a female student at Duke University. The clip can be utilized to launch a discussion into the social construction of sexuality, sexual stereotypes, the performance of masculinity and femininity, and how this discussion might vary if it were a male student. Submitted By: Jillet Sam ![]() Tags: gender, gender performativity, masculinity, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2010 Length: 0:30 Access: YouTube Summary: A series of attractive women throw NFL jerseys at their partners and storm off as Leslie Gore sings "You Don't Own Me" in the background. Finally we see it is because women get their own NFL jerseys—"NFL Apparel Fit For You." These words flash on the screen as a woman models her "Fit For You" jersey for a man, who checks her out approvingly. The commercial suggests that for women, part of being an NFL fan is performing a sexualized femininity for men. Submitted By: Margaret Austin Smith ![]() Tags: race/ethnicity, class, inequality, cultural capital, privilege, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2006 Length: 4:33 Access: YouTube Summary: Ex-cop turned public school teacher Howard "Bunny" Colvin has taken it on himself to help reach the badly underprivileged children who have been deemed essentially unteachable by their West Baltimore junior high school. After his students do well on a project, Colvin decides to take them out to dinner at an upscale restaurant. Initially the students are excited and pleased--but over the course of the meal they become increasingly uncomfortable and discouraged. This is a good way to open a discussion of cultural capital in the context of class inequality, especially with an eye toward intersections of race and gender. Useful questions to ask: Why are Bunny's students so uncomfortable? What assumptions do they bring to their situation about what is expected of them? What if the situation were reversed and the people dining at the restaurant were on the streets of West Baltimore? The differences in the characters’ behavior at the beginning and the end of the clip are especially striking—why the change, and what does it say about what has happened in the scene? Submitted By: Sarah Wanenchak ![]() Tags: gender, sex/sexuality, social construction, comedy, social interaction, stereotypes, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2010 Length: 4:09 (Boys will be Girls) and 3:35 (Girls will be Boys) Access: YouTube: Boys will be Girls and Girls will be Boys Summary: These two sketch comedy clips by the "Harvard Sailing Team" can be used in tandem for highlighting the stereotypes we harbor around men and women's intra-gender group interaction. While the stereotypes are familiar, these clips are particularly useful for exploring how well our stereotypes map onto actual interactions. The fact that these stereotypical interactions are being performed by the "wrong" gender group accentuates the absurdity of the stereotypes. Instructors can ask students whether these are accurate portrayals of how they interact within their own groups of friends. If not, then why are these stereotypes so familiar to all of us? How do they perpetuate despite deviating from actual everyday group interaction? Further, what are the implications of this "mismatch" between perception and actuality? These two clips also demonstrate the use of comedy in teaching sociological concepts. Submitted By: Michelle Smirnova ![]() Tags: consumption/consumerism, gender, marketing/brands, organizations/occupations/work, housework, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2009 Length: 0:31 Access: YouTube Summary: In this clip, women are ushered into the Clorox 2 Stain Research Facility to observe the power of Clorox. The most obvious message in this commercial is that laundry is women's work. A second, complimentary message is that science is men's work. With the exception of a brief and fleeting appearence of a woman scientist at about 19 seconds, the serious and purposeful work of science is all performed by men. Notice too how even the dummies in the research facility are blatently gendered. The commercial works well for encouraging students to contemplate the ubiquity of gender stereotypes in the media. This is now the second commercial from The Clorox Company posted on The Sociological Cinema, which can be used to illuminate the way advertisements often reinforce gender stereotypes. The first Clorox ad was posted here. Thanks to Sociological Images for suggesting this clip. Submitted By: Lester Andrist ![]() Tags: crime/law/deviance, gender, organizations/occupations/work, violence, war/military, masculinity, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2010 Length: 4:57 Access: YouTube Summary: In this interrogation tape, Spc. Adam Winfield tells an Army investigator about a series of premeditated murders of innocent Afghan civilians by fellow platoon members. Speaking of the “ringleader” of the misconduct, Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, Winfield says, “He likes to kill things. He is pretty much evil incarnate.” While Winfield attributes “evil” to Gibbs’ predilection for killing and violence, Cynthia Enloe’s essay “Wielding Masculinity Inside Abu Ghraib” offers an alternative explanation. Contrary to arguments about a few “bad” (or “evil”) apples, Enloe points to the systematic masculinized culture of the US military. This culture (characterized by violence, assumptions around American/Western superiority, and the subjugation of femininity) goes unaccounted for in most military scandal investigations. Enloe argues men and women are pressured to endorse and participate in this culture of masculinity. Responding to how Gibbs might have reacted to Winfield’s refusal to take part in the killing, Winfield says, “I think -- one, he wouldn't have kept me in the loop on things and, if they had thought I had ratted, they would have come after me.” After the killing Winfield said Gibbs told him “he was part of the group.” The investigator asks, “Did he ever hold against you that you killed a man?” Winfield replies, “No, he told me I was a made man after that.” Coupled with Enloe's essay, this clip is useful for showing students how organizations are gendered, and the ways in which patriarchy functions as a system (and is not the product of "a few bad apples"). Submitted By: Valerie Chepp ![]() Bill Clinton describes global society in functionalist terms Tags: durkheim, theory, globalization, interdependence, structural functionalism, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2009 Length: 3:25 Access: YouTube Summary: Durkheim saw society as functioning like an organism with many inter-dependent parts, and he often referred to biological organisms as a metaphor for the functioning of society. This is demonstrated here with Bill Clinton's interview on Larry King Live, where Clinton defines global society by its "interdependence" and our commonalities. He even links human society to our similarity in DNA: "we don't have time to obsess about our differences any more...genetically we are all about 99.9% the same...from a political and social point of view that doesn't amount to a hill of beans." Note that the entire clip is 4:50, but the relevant section on interdependence ends at 3:25. Submitted By: Margaret Austin Smith ![]() Tags: children/youth, gender, culture, rape, sexual assault, 00 to 05 mins Year: 2010 Length: 1:43 Access: Jezebel.com Summary: This clip is taken from a local news report about a group of boys and men who drugged and raped a 16-year-old girl in a field nearby a party they were attending. Some time later, pictures of the rape were posted on Facebook, and according to reports, each time the pictures were taken down by Facebook, they were reposted. Note in the clip that against the victim's own claim of being raped and despite reports that she was given a date rape drug, the students who were interviewed by the news station assert their belief that consensual sex occurred, not rape. At about 40 seconds into the clip, the teens go further by suggesting that the victim was at fault. I see this clip as working well to facilitate two sorts of discussions. The first is a discussion of the concept of rape culture, which is articulated well in the book Transforming a Rape Culture: "A rape culture is a complex of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women." Feminist blogger, Melissa McEwan, has also posted an influential essay on the topic. A second more thorough discussion from this clip might draw from Elizabeth Armstrong's article, "Sexual Assault on Campus," to explore how rape is often the result of cultural factors working in tandem with organizational arrangements. Submitted By: Lester Andrist |
Tags
All
.
Got any videos?
Are you finding useful videos for your classes? Do you have good videos you use in your own classes? Please consider submitting your videos here and helping us build our database!
|