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Cultural Criticism And Transformation
''Cultural Criticism and Transformation'' (1997), by bell hooks, is a two-part video that critiques stereotypical portrayals of race, gender and class in the media with extensive examples. In conclusion, hooks makes an argument for the power of cultural criticism. The interview style film is divided into two parts: * Part One is titled ''On Cultural Criticism'' and is divided into seven sub-categories including Why Study Popular Culture?, Critical Thinking as Transformation, the Power of Representation, Motivated Representations, an Example of Motivated Representation: ''Leaving Las Vegas'' & the Backlash Against Feminism, Why "White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy?", and Enlightened Witness. * Part Two is titled ''Doing Cultural Criticism'' and consists of eight subcategories: Constructed Narrative, Dealing with O.J., Madonna: from Feminism to Patriarchy, Spike Lee: Hollywood's Fall Guy, the Voyeur's Gaze, Rap: Authentic Expression or Market Construct?, Color Coding Black ...
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Sut Jhally
Sut Jhally (born 1955) is a professor of communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, whose work focuses on cultural studies, advertising, media, and consumption. He is the producer of more than 40 documentaries on media literacy topics and the founder and executive director of the Media Education Foundation.Sut Jhally lecture topics
Professor Sut Jhally, PhD.
Established in 1992, the Media Education Foundation (MEF) is a non-profit that "produces and distributes documentary films and other educational resources to inspire critical reflection on the social, political, and cultural impact of American mass media". Their aim is to inspire students to think critically and in new ways about the hyper-mediated world around them. Also the author of six books and numerous scholarly and popular articles, Jhally is a public sp ...
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Critical Theory
Critical theory is a social, historical, and political school of thought and philosophical perspective which centers on analyzing and challenging systemic power relations in society, arguing that knowledge, truth, and social structures are fundamentally shaped by power dynamics between dominant and oppressed groups. Beyond just understanding and critiquing these dynamics, it explicitly aims to transform society through praxis and collective action with an explicit sociopolitical purpose.Ludovisi, S.G. ed., 2015. Critical theory and the challenge of praxis: Beyond reification. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Critical theory's main tenets center on analyzing systemic power relations in society, focusing on the dynamics between groups with different levels of social, economic, and institutional power. Unlike traditional social theories that aim primarily to describe and understand society, critical theory explicitly seeks to critique and transform it. Thus, it positions itself as bot ...
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Gangsta Rap
Gangsta rap or gangster rap, initially called reality rap, is a subgenre of rap music that conveys the culture, values, and experiences of urban gangs and street hustlers, frequently discussing unpleasant realities of the world in general through an urban lens. Emerging in the late 1980s, gangsta rap's pioneers include Schoolly D and Ice-T, later expanding with artists such as N.W.A. In 1992, via record producer and rapper Dr. Dre, rapper Snoop Dogg, and their G-funk sound, gangster rap broadened to mainstream popularity. Gangsta rap has been recurrently accused of promoting disorderly conduct and broad criminality, especially assault, homicide, and drug dealing, as well as misogyny, promiscuity, and materialism. Gangsta rap's defenders have variously characterized it as artistic depictions but not literal endorsements of real life in American ghettos, or suggested that some lyrics voice rage against social oppression or police brutality, and have often accused crit ...
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Spike Lee
Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee (born March 20, 1957) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and author. His work has continually explored race relations, issues within the black community, the role of media in contemporary life, urban crime and poverty, and other political issues. Lee has won numerous accolades for his work, including an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, a BAFTA Award, and two Peabody Awards. He has also been honored with an Honorary BAFTA Award in 2002, an Honorary César in 2003, and the Academy Honorary Award in 2015. His production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, has produced more than 35 films since 1983. He made his directorial debut with '' She's Gotta Have It'' (1986). He has since written and directed such films as '' School Daze'' (1988), '' Do the Right Thing'' (1989), '' Mo' Better Blues'' (1990), ''Jungle Fever'' (1991), '' Malcolm X'' (1992), '' Crooklyn'' (1994), '' Clockers'' (1995), '' 25th Hour'' (2002 ...
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Mass Media
Mass media include the diverse arrays of media that reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit information electronically via media such as films, radio, recorded music, or television. Digital media comprises both Internet and mobile mass communication. Internet media comprise such services as email, social media sites, websites, and Internet-based radio and television. Many other mass media outlets have an additional presence on the web, by such means as linking to or running TV ads online, or distributing QR codes in outdoor or print media to direct mobile users to a website. In this way, they can use the easy accessibility and outreach capabilities the Internet affords, as thereby easily broadcast information throughout many different regions of the world simultaneously and cost-efficiently. Outdoor media transmits information via such media as augmented reality (AR) advertising; billboards; blimps; flying billboards (signs in tow of airpl ...
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Male Fantasies
In psychoanalytic theory, fantasy is a broad range of mental experiences, mediated by the faculty of imagination in the human brain, and marked by an expression of certain desires through vivid mental imagery. Fantasies are generally associated with scenarios that are impossible or unlikely to happen. Sexual fantasies are a common type of fantasy. Conscious fantasy In everyday life, individuals often find their thoughts "pursue a series of fantasies concerning things they wish they could do or wish they had done ... fantasies of control or of sovereign choice ... daydreams." George Eman Vaillant in his study of defence mechanisms took as a central example of "an immature defence ... ''fantasy'' — living in a 'Walter Mitty' dream world where you imagine you are successful and popular, instead of making real efforts to make friends and succeed at a job." Other researchers and theorists find that fantasy has beneficial elements — providing "small regressions and compen ...
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Entitlement (psychology)
In psychology, entitlement mentality is defined as a sense of deservingness or being owed a favor when little or nothing has been done to deserve special treatment; the belief that one is deserving of privileges or special treatment (the phrase "sense of entitlement" is often used). Entitlement can be seen through the actions of the individual, such as having a belief that they deserve the rewards which are due to their position, despite not performing effectively. Other factors can contribute to the formation of an entitlement mindset, especially when the individual is a child, such as helicopter parenting, and rewarding undeserving behaviors.The idea of entitlement is especially prevalent in the discussions of younger people who are accepted as students by collegiate institutions. A sense of entitlement can lead individuals to reinforce their beliefs if their image is damaged by external notions. While some people may genuinely be entitled to preferential treatment in some situati ...
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Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Harlem area encompasses several other neighborhoods and extends west and north to 155th Street, east to the East River, and south to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Central Park, and East 96th Street. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands. Harlem's history has been defined by a series of economic boom-and-bust cycles, with significant population shifts accompanying each cycle. Harlem was predominantly occupied by Jewish and Italian Americans in the late 19th century, while African-American residents began to arrive in large numbers during the Great Migration in the early 20th century. In the 1920s and 1930s, Central and West Harlem were the center of the ...
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Other (philosophy)
In philosophy, the Other is a fundamental concept referring to anyone or anything perceived as distinct or different from oneself. This distinction is crucial for understanding how individuals construct their own identities, as the encounter with "otherness" helps define the boundaries of the "self."''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'' (1995) p. 673. In Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology, the Other plays a particularly important role in this self-formation, acting as a kind of mirror against which the self is reflected and understood. The Other is not simply a neutral observer but an active participant in shaping the individual's self-image. This includes the idea of the "Constitutive Other," which refers to the internal relationship between a person's essential nature (personality) and their physical embodiment (body), reflecting the interplay of internal differences within the self. Beyond this individual level, the concept of "the Other" extends to broader social ...
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Bell Hooks
Gloria Jean Watkins (September 25, 1952 – December 15, 2021), better known by her pen name bell hooks (stylized in lowercase), was an American author, theorist, educator, and social critic who was a Distinguished Professor in Residence at Berea College. She was best known for her writings on race, feminism, and class. She used the lower-case spelling of her name to decenter herself and draw attention to her work instead. The focus of hooks' writing was to explore the intersectionality of race, capitalism, and gender, and what she described as their ability to produce and perpetuate systems of oppression and classism, class domination. She published around 40 books, including works that ranged from essays, poetry, and children's books. She published numerous scholarly articles, appeared in documentary films, and participated in public lectures. Her work addressed love, Race (human categorization), race, social class, gender, art, history, sexuality, mass media, and feminism. S ...
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Popular Culture
Popular culture (also called pop culture or mass culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of cultural practice, practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as popular art [cf. pop art] or mass art, sometimes contrasted with fine art) and cultural objects, objects that are dominant or prevalent in a society at a given point in time. Popular culture also encompasses the activities and feelings produced as a result of interaction with these dominant objects. The primary driving forces behind popular culture, especially when speaking of Western world, Western popular cultures, are the mass media, mass appeal, marketing and capitalism; and it is produced by what philosopher Theodor W. Adorno, Theodor Adorno refers to as the "culture industry". Heavily influenced in modern history, modern times by mass media, this collection of ideas permeates the everyday life, everyday lives of people in a given society. Therefore, popular culture has a way of influencing ...
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Cultural Criticism
Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, attitudes, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tylor, Edward. (1871). ''Primitive Culture''. Vol 1. New York: J. P. Putnam's Son Culture often originates from or is attributed to a specific region or location. Humans acquire culture through the learning processes of enculturation and socialization, which is shown by the diversity of cultures across societies. A cultural norm codifies acceptable conduct in society; it serves as a guideline for behavior, dress, language, and demeanor in a situation, which serves as a template for expectations in a social group. Accepting only a monoculture in a social group can bear risks, just as a single species can wither in the face of environmental change, for lack of functional responses to the change. Thus in military culture, valor is cou ...
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