He looka like a terrorist!

This week we are discussing some of the effects of the constructions of social identities. Below is a link to a political ad for Dan Fanelli, a Florida Republican illustrating the construction of Arab identity.Dan Fanelli, a Florida Republican hoping to emerge from a competitive Republican primary field to challenge Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson, has released an ad in which he appears to argue that the United States should engage in racial profiling to fight terror. What is your response to this?



An effect of these images is stereotyping. While we discussed in class that stereotyping is a normal cognitive process, we also agreed that it can be harmful. Stereotype threat posits that people who are stereotyped are likely to internalize negative social perceptions such that it could harm their ability to perform and succeed. Below is a link to Anderson Cooper's replication of the Clark Doll Study. Review the videos.
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/17/ac360-series-doll-study-research/

What are your thoughts about the harmful effects of stereotyping? Are assumptions of stereotype threat valid today? What do you think is a solution?

The "non-issue" of Class

In addition to an individual's racial identification, class identification also has some implications for how we might self-identify and how others might see us. Portwood-Lacer discusses the myth of classlessness in the United States and problematizes the concept of what is referred to as "white trash". In addition, the video Class Dismissed, discusses the illusion of class definitions, social perceptions, and the construction of the working class on television. Scholars argue that the values of the protestant work ethic, rugged individualism and consumerism are evident in these programs and serves to reinforce beliefs about class and status as it relates the material wealth. Intersectionality theories suggest that the intersections of class with other identities have different impacts. The following videos illustrate the intersections and the real effects of class issues.

Start @ 2:02

On Privilege

Hi Class,
**PLEASE NOTE**
You have the option of responding to this post or to the one below.

We have discussed and read about how the concept of race has been created such that it promotes this illusion of difference, or social distance. In other words, we think we are more different than alike. Media scholars argue that it is the invisibility of ethnic groups that perpetuate the idea that these groups and the issues that concern them are unimportant. Instead the true diversity of America is misrepresented.

Tim Wise discusses the concept of privilege and its real effects. We were unable to watch these videos in class. But for those who are interested, you can watch this video and post your reactions to Tim Wise.

Visual Representations

We round up our discussion of social constructions of racial identity. Cultural studies scholar contend that images have a significant impact on how we view reality. Below is a video of Stuart Hall discussing the complexities of this process. What follows is a documentary about images in Disney films. What do you think? How else can you explain some of the representations that are seen?

The Last Air Bender: Bending air, race and gender

This week we talk about how writers and producers create social perceptions of racial groups. Oftentimes, prejudice and  stereotyping are unintended effects of how groups are portrayed in film and television. Review the following blog. What are your reactions to the idea that racial minorities are unfairly portrayed in light of dominant white film and TV characters? What do you think about casting decisions where the preference for lead characters are white males?


Posted by: Matthew Johnson (Media Awareness Network)

What colour is an Airbender? If this question is not at the top of your mind, it’s because you haven’t been following the controversy surrounding the casting of the film The Last Airbender, set to premiere in early July. The question of ethnicity in the film’s casting casts a valuable light on many of Hollywood’s decisions when it comes to race and gender – and the attitudes and assumptions that underlie them.

 

Avatar: The Last Airbender, a cartoon which originally aired on Nickelodeon, was a show with an unusual degree of ethnic diversity for both animation and American television in general. Not only were all of the main characters people of colour but the setting, drew primarily on non-Western culture, inspired by East Asian and Inuit cultures. (The producers’ dedication to cultural accuracy extended to the point of having an official calligraphy consultant to make sure the Chinese writing seen onscreen was always correct.) With its anime-inspired look, deep mythology and epic storyline, the show was tremendously successful, to the point where it was adapted into a live-action film. Live-action being the key word, because when the casting was originally announced it was quickly noticed that all of the lead actors were white. (A later change in casting replaced one of the leads with Dev Patel, the star of Slumdog Millionaire; the studio denies that this change was in response to fan protests.) Interestingly, the cultural origins of the settings seem to have been retained, with Inuit extras hired to play members of the “Water Nation” even though the lead characters from that setting are portrayed by white actors.

 

Why make this change? Unlike the casting of Jake Gyllenhaal in the title role of Prince of Persia, it’s certainly not because any of the actors are expected to be box-office draws; aside from Patel, all are about equally unknown. What seems more likely is that the producers and the director, M. Night Shyamalan, subscribe to the standard Hollywood view that white males will not pay to see movies in which they do not see themselves reflected. This applies to gender as well as race; screenwriter Jennifer Kesler has said that when she was in film school at UCLA a number of her instructors – most of them working screenwriters – told her that audiences, and by extension producers would not accept a film with significant female characters unless they served to further the male protagonist’s story. This notion can be found to a greater or lesser degree in almost every part of the entertainment industry; in children’s books, for example, white males are by far the most common protagonists (even animal protagonists are almost always male) and in video games – even those of the first-person shooter variety, where the protagonist is typically unseen – most protagonists are definitively identified as white men.  Where women or people of colour appear, they are almost always supporting characters – a phenomenon sometimes described as “the Smurfette Principle,” referring to the presence of a single token female in the otherwise all-male Smurf village. (A 2008 study of children’s television in several countries found 68% of shows had male leads.)

 

Given how widely held this attitude is, it’s reasonable to ask whether there is any evidence to support it. Unfortunately, that’s an almost impossible question to answer simply because there are so few movies released with protagonists that are either women or people of colour. What’s more, when such films are made a form of confirmation bias sets in where if these protagonists are failures they are seen as evidence to support negative attitudes, and even if they are successful, they are seen as flukes or otherwise explained away. In fact, this attitudes persists even in the face of quantitative data, such as the number of highly successful recent films with female leads  and the fact that Will Smith is the most bankable star in Hollywood (with Angelina Jolie being tied for #2). For instance, the relatively poor showing of a Wonder Woman animated film led to a moratorium on films with female leads from Warner Brothers’ animation studio, while an even worse performance by the Green Lantern animated film has not led to any similar ban on male leads.

 

Despite many protests by fans of the original animated series (most notably organized by the Racebending Web site), The Last Airbender is slated to open on July 2^nd with its mostly-white cast. It’s too bad that this film won’t be the one that proves that a movie with non-white leads can be successful, but fortunately we already have such an example. The Karate Kid, whose two leads are African-American and Chinese respectively, is on track to be one of the most successful movies of the summer. Meanwhile, the upcoming movie Salt features Angelina Jolie in an action lead originally written for Tom Cruise. Of course, a few adjustments had to be made to the script – such as cutting a scene in which the hero rescues his/her spouse from assailants, on the grounds that this would “castrate his [the spouse’s] character a little.” And, of course, if the movie flops you already know the reason why… 

http://www.media-awareness.ca/blog/index.cfm?catID=11

Introduction: Is Perception Reality?

I'm not quite sure who first expressed this thought, but it is resonant of the primary assumptions of media studies and media effects. What we perceive is real to us and is usually uncontested. Sometimes no one can tell you anything. It is the way you see it. Undoubtedly, the mass media via images in magazines, representation (or exclusion) in film and television, the framing of news stories in news papers and 24hour cable news construct for us a reality that we do not usually challenge.

Media literacy requires that we understand the historical and economic factors that shape message content through various media channels. There exists a polygamous marriage between media outlets, Big Money, and government--none of which is consistently in the interest of the people. Taking these relationships into consideration, we ought to be careful that we ingest mediated content critically.

For me, the most painful effects of media's creation is its influence on  social perception--the way we see others and more importantly, the way we see ourselves. This blog will be dedicated to discussing the role that the media play in constructing identities. Even more concerning is the commodification of some identities--those that are packaged and sold.  While there are a number of other factors such as identification, personal beliefs, and environment that shape a person, the impact of media is more real than not. This blog is intended to illustrate this reality. . .and hopefully insert a little Truth. Welcome to Media and Identity.