12.8 Going Deeper
Now that you know more about how representation and belonging can affect families, this page has some resources for you.
First, there are some resources and an activity that the authors used but could not fit into the chapter. If there was something that really piqued your interest and made you want to learn more, it may be listed in this table. This is also a resource for students who may have an assignment to research a particular topic or who need to identify a topic for a final project. Scan through “Want to Learn More?” and participate in an activity to go deeper.
Next, you will see a set of reflective questions. You may be assigned these questions as a chapter review, or perhaps you will be using them as discussion questions in class. These questions are designed to help you apply the chapter concepts, develop your sociological imagination, reflect, and use an equity lens. Look over the “Reflective Questions” if you’d like to explore your own thinking more thoroughly.
After that, you will see the same list of key terms that appeared at the start of the chapter. They may help you with your additional exploration or research.
Finally, some chapters include activities that the instructor may use in the classroom.
Want to Learn More?
- To read more about Andrew Douglas Campbell’s art and the outcomes of the college-wide discussions and to view additional photographs, read this article from The Commuter, LBCC’s student newspaper.
- Listen to the 46 minute podcast from the 1A Movie Club: Why ‘The Help’ Doesn’t Help here or on any podcast feed. They talk about the difference between movies that present racism from the perspective of Black artists and authors as compared to those that focus on a White perspective and/or contain White Saviour themes.
- To explore representation in video games, click on Leveling up Representation: Depictions of People of Color in Video from Independent Lens.
- Listen to the NPR story “The Number of Black Video Game Developers Is Small, but Strong.”
Activity: Representation and Humanization
Trans women characters are portrayed negatively in the media. Because most media is produced by cisgender heterosexual men, their assumptions and fears about trans women are often used as plot twists or objects of ridicule for comedic effect. For example, they are often represented as “actually men” who deceive men in order to “trap” them into having sex with them. These representations justify and normalize portrayals of disgust in response to trans women and violence against trans women, as shown in the video in Figure 12.24. These kinds of depictions of trans women as “evil deceivers” and “pretenders” have been used in court cases to pardon perpetrators who have murdered trans women (Bettcher, 2007).
https://youtu.be/q78qaT8JZ_A
Figure 12.24. Depictions of Transgender “Deception” in Media [YouTube Video]. This video illustrates these concepts and emphasizes that merely “representing” people who are transgender on screen is not enough; in fact, it is harmful. More responsible media portrayals include transgender people as those who have agency over their own lives, are attractive, and are leading players rather than “objects.”
Discussion Questions
- What was new or surprising to you in this video?
- How will this video affect the way you view the inclusion of people who are transgender in the media?
- This video was made in 2008. Can you identify more recent examples of people who are transgender in television or film? In what way(s) does your newer example seem more humane? In what way(s) does your example reinforce negative stereotypes?
- How does the concept of the “male gaze” relate to the ways that women who are transgender are portrayed?
Reflective Questions
- What is the value of creativity, art, and beauty to American families?
- How does art affect our understanding of American history?
- What are the benefits and the challenges of the unintended exposure to visual culture for individuals and families?
- Choose one of the topics from this chapter (e.g., using art to teach, protest art, or television). For that topic, reflect on the role of the parent in helping children to understand and interpret what they see.
- How does the dominant culture affect what is defined as “art”?
- How do socially constructed ideas about beauty affect one’s own identity and family experience?
- What are the effects of intersectionality on potential creators, artists, and art lovers?
Key Terms
- Artistic representation: the use of a medium, such as clay or paint, to construct a representation of the real thing. Artistic representations are constructions of reality.
- Beauty ideals: a specific set of beauty standards regarding traits that are ingrained in women throughout their lives.
- Colorism: prejudice or discrimination that favors people with lighter skin over those with darker skin, especially within a racial or ethnic group.
- Emphasized femininity: a concept rooted in the patriarchy that women must conform to the needs and desires of men by compliance with the normative ideas of femininity.
- Hegemonic masculinity: a specific type of culturally valued masculinity tied to marriage, heterosexuality, and patriarchal authority that legitimizes men’s dominant position in society and justifies the subordination of women, nonbinary people, gay men, and other marginalized groups of men.
- “Ism”: an oppressive and discriminatory attitude or belief.
- Life chances: a social science theory created by German sociologist Max Weber in 1920. The theory of life chances postulates that an individual’s opportunity to lead a successful and fulfilling life are correlated to a variety of factors, including social stratification, social class, social mobility, and social equality, all of which can give a person low or high life chances.
- Male gaze: the idealized notion of a heterosexual man as the intended audience in a way that facilitates men objectifying or sexualizing women and women seeing themselves as objects of men’s desire.
- Objectification: a social meaning imposed on one’s being that defines them as an object or thing, typically within a sexual context.
- Protest art: a way of using creative work to communicate used by activists and social movements.
- Public art: art in any medium whose form, function, and meaning are created for the general public, often through a public process.
- Symbolic annihilation: a concept that refers to how marginalized groups of people are left absent, condemned, or trivialized through mass media representations, instead portraying oppressive ideologies created and enforced by dominant groups.
- Typecasting: the act of casting a person in a media role often based on physical appearance or stereotypes.
- Visual culture: combinations of visual events in which information, meaning, or pleasure are expressed tangibly or visibly.
- Whiteness: the quality of being light or White skinned in color and the normalization of White racial identity throughout history in the United States.
Licenses and Attributions for Going Deeper
Open Content, Original
“Going Deeper” by Elizabeth B. Pearce. License: CC BY 4.0.
All Rights Reserved Content
Figure 12.24 “‘It’s a Trap!’: Depictions of Trans Deception” © @rantasmo. License: Standard YouTube License.