Avatar: Recasting the Veil with Special Effects

On By econnellIn Class and Stratification, Popular Culture and Consumption, Race and Ethnicity16 Comments

Jason-Smith By Jason Smith

Graduate Student, Sociology

George Mason University

I found myself perplexed as I left the theatre on the opening night of the new super-smash hit blockbuster film Avatar. As a graduate student studying sociology, and focusing specifically on issues of race and popular culture, I found it hard to say that I enjoyed the special-effects laden sci-fi epic that lasted an equally epic 160 minutes. Leaving the film I was surrounded by audience members going over their favorite parts and which scenes really “wow’d” them. In my head though, all I was thinking about was the blatant use of “orientalism ” discourse that plagues a large portion of the culture we live in. The lackluster plot that recycled notions of the “white savior” and the “noble savage” really irked me, as Sally Raskoff recently blogged about.

Here’s a brief plot summary of this film for those who have yet to see it. In the future, where space travel and planet colonization is a reality, the moon Pandora holds a valuable mineral called unobtainium and is thus the site for a project by corporate and military interests to create an artificial body (an Avatar) of the native people, called the Na'vi, to infiltrate their ranks and convince them to leave their settlement; this would grant access to large amounts of unobtainium. Jake Sully is a crippled soldier who takes control of his deceased brother’s Avatar and is ordered to get the Na’vi to leave. After going native and learning the Na’vi ways, as well as falling in love with the tribal chief’s daughter, Jake turncoats and abandons his mission to rally the Na’vi people to oppose their own colonization.

About five weeks from when this film opened it still is making ridiculous amounts of money – it has been the top box office earner for all five of those weeks. The film has surpassed its huge production budget with revenue already totaling more than $1 billion worldwide. The Golden Globes (the pre-Oscar awards) has even recognized the film with two of their major awards – “Best Film-Drama” and “Best Director.”

As more of my friends and peers see this film, they go on and on about how great it was. When I bring up the issues I have with the film I receive, for the most part, a roll of the eyes and a backward head nod – these actions occur simultaneously by the way, adding to the “oh gawd” effect of being burdened by the information I bring up. No one seems to want to hear about a plot that helps assuage white guilt as the audience roots for the hero to help the native tribes on Pandora. When I bring this up to my friends I get a line that sounds similar to this paraphrase, “You’re being a sociologist.” This actually translates to meaning that I’m thinking too much, and…how dare I.

Now I don’t deny that director James Cameron has made a visually stunning and well-made film. Throw in the special effects and this is by definition a recipe for “good filmmaking.” And it is often the rebuttal I’m faced with when critiquing the film with others, an argument that the special effects “were soooo good.” A lot of media buzz has centered on the use of technology in the production process; James Cameron even helped invent a new camera for filming his 3-D scenes. Many reviews have also forgiven the weak plot and instead applaud the technology used in the film. One article from Popular Science even mentions that Cameron and the production company, 20th Century Fox, “better hope those same audiences don’t think too much on the way out of the theater lest bad word of mouth does more damage to Pandora than the corporate marines.”

My own experiences and the success that this film is enjoying suggest that the spectacle of technology is overshadowing the more important and detrimental aspects of this film. To be fair to Cameron, there is an effort to show the value of saving natural resources over the lust for profitable business enterprises. However, the depiction of the native tribes follows typical orientalist themes in which the white westerner is accepted and is able to help the natives achieve what couldn’t be achieved without him.

Obscuring this theme is the audience’s obsession with the technology used to make this film.. Technology is one of many pieces of our racialized society in which a veil is placed over whites to shield them from the effects of racial inequality and burdens of privilege. W.E.B. Du Bois originated the concept of the veil to describe the situation of African Americans in the early parts of the 20th century, working in a fashion that allows it to interpret and be changed by the forces surrounding it – at both the individual and institutional levels. Howard Winant has noted that the veil has shifted in the new century to apply to whites, as they create their own brand of double-consciousness in which desiring aspects of the other allow them to confirm their own non-racist tendencies. The technological prowess of this film seems to act as the buffer that obscures the film’s orientalist discourse; where the veil is ever present to hide the costs of race, so the technology in the film hides the plot’s racial undertones.

As I recall my own discomfort with the film and ponder over the reasons that my peers fail to see these discomforts , I wonder how technology can blind a worldwide audience to the depictions of people who fall outside the western norm. A movie of this size, along with the profits that it’s seeing, raises alarming questions about film production. In a land of blockbuster profits and copy-cat products, does the success of Avatar have the potential to lead to more backward depictions of racialized groups? Looking more deeply into why this film is such a success we might also start to wonder who is making these types of films, why films like this continue to be made, and what power and resources allow these individuals/groups to make them.

Colonialism and Haiti’s Earthquake: The Role of Economics, Politics, and History

On By econnellIn Behind the Headlines, Class and Stratification, Globalization, Janis Prince Inniss, Race and Ethnicity, Social Problems, Politics, and Social Change18 Comments

new janis By Janis Prince Inniss

I was in Los Angeles when the Northridge Earthquake jolted us out of bed at 4:31 a.m. It was an unforgettable experience. I was up late after one of my parties, held on a Sunday night because the next day was the holiday in celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I also remember it because the earthquake and its aftermath was one of the scariest times of my life! Each aftershock—real or my personally created and experienced—re-traumatized me. I could not sleep in my apartment for several days because my fear and the aftershocks made sleep there impossible. The Northridge earthquake measured 6.7 on the Richter scale, but because so many were sleeping when it struck many lives were spared. The time of the earthquake and the relative safety of California’s building codes made people safer than they would have been, but nevertheless 57 people died and more than 5,000 were injured.

clip_image002 clip_image004

Left: My kitchen after the earthquake. Above: One bookcase down!

 

 

Recent media attention to Haiti’s earthquake has focused on the tremendous destruction, but seldom has coverage addressed Haiti’s history and how it might have contributed to the suffering taking place there today.

On the first day of 1804, Haiti became the first independent black republic in the West. Enslaved Africans fought their French captors; in fact they were victorious over Napoleon Bonaparte’s famous army. At that time Africans were still enslaved in many areas of the world. Think about the similarities of the two countries emerging from European colonizers: In Haiti, former enslaved Africans proclaimed their independence from France, not long after the U.S. declared its independence from Britain. In the long arch of history, we might think of the two countries as being born at about the same time. What was happening in the U.S. at this time regarding slavery? It would take another 60 years before slavery was ended in the U.S., so this may explain why the two young independent countries—also geographically close—were not automatic friends; the U.S. greeted the news of Haiti’s independence with a cold shoulder, and like France, refused to recognize the nation until about the time of the Emancipation Proclamation.

The French demanded to be compensated for the financial loss that Haiti’s independence cost them; the county had been one of their most lucrative colonies, producing rum, sugar, and tobacco. In 1825, the French stipulated 150 million gold francs as reparations to recognize Haiti. (This is quite different from the direction of payment we think of regarding reparations in the U.S. and a terrible deal when compared to what the U.S. got from France for the Louisiana Territory [60 million francs], an area more than 70 times larger than Haiti!) With loans from the U.S., France, and Germany, it took Haiti 122 years to pay the reduced sum of about 90 million francs to France; these reparations sucked up most of the country’s budget.

You may have heard one other fact repeated in the coverage of the Haiti earthquake: It is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Two related facts? I could not help but think of them in tandem as much as I heard them repeated. Was the second punishment for the first, or at least because of it? What made Haiti so poor? Do you think that the cost of its freedom has had a lasting impact? What has been France’s response to the idea that Haiti receive $22 billion in restitution from its ”mother” country?

Haiti’s history is complex. Reading about it will acquaint you with terms like “gunboat diplomacy”, isolation, military coups, dictatorships, and military occupations. (Read more about its history here.) Hamstrung by international financial arrangements that strangled it, the Haitian government has not been able to right itself.

Click here to see images of Haiti

Decades of poverty meant that small farmers have been forced to move to the cities, creating large slums in the capital. Brutal deforestation has left the hillsides bare. All along Haiti’s forests have been used for charcoal and fuel; the French started this in the 17th and 18th centuries for sugar mill fuel. The next two centuries saw more heavy deforestation as mahogany was turned into tourist gifts. How much of the billions of dollars in foreign aid to Haiti has been lent to attempt to rectify the deforestation and soil erosion? Why is it important? Because it impacts where most Haitians live; deforestation has left many particularly vulnerable in times of natural disasters.

Thankfully, I have to look at my pictures to recall the physical damage in my apartment due to the Northridge earthquake. An earthquake measuring 7.0, such as the one in Haiti, would cause lots of damage and injury in any city – especially at 4:30 on a weekday afternoon. But to understand the impact of the January 2010 earthquake and even the 2004 and 2008 hurricanes in Haiti—not to mention earlier natural disasters—it is instructive to think about the role of the country’s history and politics in their impact.

Men and Marriage

On By econnellIn Behind the Headlines, Class and Stratification, Karen Sternheimer, Relationships, Marriage and Family, Sex and Gender36 Comments

new karen 1 By Karen Sternheimer

Once upon a time, marriage was the bedrock of social mobility and economic stability for women. A recent Pew Research report indicates that there has been a major reversal: according to their analysis, men actually benefit financially more from marriage than women do.

But not by much. Pew researchers point out that the median household income for American -born men aged 30-44 increased 61% between 1970 and 2007, compared with 60% for married women of the same age. Unmarried women’s income increased 59% during this time, while unmarried men’s income rose only by 16%.

Pew researchers suggest that:

From an economic perspective, these trends have contributed to a gender role reversal in the gains from marriage. In the past, when relatively few wives worked, marriage enhanced the economic status of women more than that of men. In recent decades, however, the economic gains associated with marriage have been greater for men than for women.

At first, the story seems to be about unmarried men aged 30-44: why have their incomes grown more modestly?

clip_image003

There are two key factors to consider here. In 1970, unmarried men in this age group were the highest earners, so they had started off well ahead of the others. Single men still significantly out earn single women, as you can see in the graph below. What’s happened is that working women’s wages have caught up a bit with men’s. According to U.S. Census data, women earned about 59% of what men earned annually in 1970; in 2008 their earnings rose to 77% of men’s annual wages. Still a big gap, but a smaller gap no less.

Today, married men have the benefit of a partner with stronger earning power compared with 1970, when fewer married women were in the labor force. Both men and women are much more likely to be college educated today compared with 1970, but women now comprise nearly 54% of college graduates, in contrast to just 36% in 1970. This education gap means that a growing number of marriages includes a wife who has more education than her husband, and in some cases a higher income, as the graph below details. While the percentage of wives who earn more than husbands has grown significantly, keep in mind that the vast majority or women in 2007 did not earn more than their husbands.

clip_image006

Note that one thing is remarkably consistent: men and women are very likely to marry someone with levels of education similar to their own. As sociologist Dalton Conley told Time magazine, "High-income women marrying high-income men is one of the drivers of inequality." Conley added that, "This leads to family instability and a cycle of disadvantage," for less educated lower earners, particularly as higher levels of education and income are associated with greater marriage stability.

Basically, the better educated you are the more you earn, and the more likely you are to stay married. This means that education provides a double advantage economically: not only are you likely to earn more, but you are likely to benefit from a working partner. And according to the Pew researchers, college educated women “are more financially desirable as marriage partners.”

But it’s not that single men are “screwed”, as Time magazine’s headline boldly suggests. Single men earn 89 cents on the dollar annually compared with married men, while single women’s annual household income is just 65 percent of married women’s income. Men still earn more than women within every educational category; in fact, one might argue that the greater proportion of women earning bachelor’s degrees is a result of a greater need for credentials for women in the workforce.

If anything, the first graph above serves as a reminder of how single women continue to lag behind their male counterparts. While single women’s income gains might have outshone single men’s in terms of percentage, in actual dollars women still seem to benefit economically from marriage more than men. If we consider that single women with children likely bear additional financial responsibilities, a second income is all the more important.

Sociologist Kathryn Edin has studied this issue for many years, and points out that marriage for low-income single mothers might not hold the economic benefits many presume. She interviewed many women who talked about their desire to get married, but noted that marriage to a low-earning man could mean more financial hardship rather than less. It might sound like a good idea for low income women to find a high earning man, but as the data above reveal, people are highly likely to meet and marry people with similar levels of education. The Cinderella story of a poor woman meeting and marrying a prince might be common in fairy tales, but in reality it is very uncommon. A recent New York Times blog includes a discussion of these and other important points about the realities of marriage today from sociologists and other scholars.

The moral of this story is that higher educational attainment can lead to both higher earnings and a greater likelihood of marital stability. Another good reason to earn your degree!

Colorism: The Hierarchical Nature of Skin Tone that makes “Light Alright”

On By econnellIn Behind the Headlines, Janis Prince Inniss, Race and Ethnicity, Social Problems, Politics, and Social Change20 Comments

new janis By Janis Prince Inniss

If you’re black, get back.

If you’re brown, stick around

If you’re light, you’re alright

I thought of this old saying when I heard that according to the authors of Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid assessed then Senator Obama’s chances at the presidential nomination as good because he is “light-skinned” and “speaks with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." There has been much debate about whether Senator Reid’s comments are racist, but I want to focus on the “light-skinned” element of his remarks.

Skin tone issues abound. Time magazine darkened O. J. Simpson’s mug shot on their cover in June 1994; this alteration was heightened by the fact that an untouched image of Simpson ran on the cover of Newsweek. (See the two covers here and read more about the covers here.) And today, skin lightening creams continue to be a booming business, with sales growing in countries from the Caribbean to Africa and Asia.

clip_image001I have long noticed that a large portion of African Americans who are prominent now or were in the past are very light-skinned. (Many are light-skinned enough to have “passed” for white in an earlier time—a subject discussed in this post.) Think about and/or look at pictures of the following people: Colin Powell, Julian Bond, Eric Holder, Harold Ford, Thurgood Marshall, Edward Brooke, Debra Lee, Douglas Wilder, David Paterson, Deval Patrick, Malcolm X, and of course President Obama. Although these people are light-skinned, some more so than others, as a trained sociologist—or at least as someone beginning to think like one— you are probably wondering whether this is real or whether I am simply overlooking noteworthy African Americans who have a darker complexion, such as Dr. Martin Luther King.

However, research findings indicate that lighter skin is positively related to job status, education, income, and marital status among blacks; dark-skinned African Americans even receive longer prison sentences than the light-skinned. And light-skinned African Americans are over-represented in politics (as reflected by the list above). Further, another study indicates that our political orientation “colors” how we see the skin color of politicians. Partisans who agree with a candidate see him as lighter than he really is, and those who disagree, darken the candidate. Liberal study participants were most likely to rate lightened pictures of Barack Obama as most representative of him, while those who considered themselves conservative rated a darkened picture as most representative of candidate Obama.

Many black people think of colorism as a within group phenomenon. In other words, they think that black people are the ones who use the shade of a person’s skin to assess their worth, affording those with lighter skin better treatment and higher value. In fact, when Spike Lee released the film School Daze (a film in which light-skinned black women and dark-skinned black women battle), many said that Lee was airing dirty laundry. Whatever else you may think of Reid’s comments, they suggest an understanding of the colorism dynamic among Americans, not only African Americans.

What are we to make of this? Because they more closely resemble whites, than their darker-skinned counterparts, both white and black Americans have annointed light-skinned blacks with the higher status attributed to whites. This goes at least as far back as the “house slave”—someone born to a slave owner and an enslaved woman—who may have been treated more kindly and allowed to be in the “big house”.

It is important to note that light-skinned people who were enslaved were sometimes subject to harsher treatment, perhaps because their color broadcasted “slave/master” relationships. This phenomenon—colorism—is not unique to the U.S. In fact, in his recent best seller Outliers: The Story of Success (discussed by Karen Sternheimer in this post), author Malcolm Gladwell, writes of the role of colorism in his mother’s Jamaican family and points to the advantages light skin afforded some of his family and lists this as a factor contributing to his family’s success.

Given the importance of race—skin color—in the larger society, why would gradations of color not be important? Let’s employ stratification theory as a lens to examine this phenomenon. In simplistic terms, this theory tells us that the dominant group has the most access to wealth, power, and prestige; achieving these is also controlled by the dominant group and those who look more like that group can more easily blend into (assimilate) into that group. And through socialization processes we gravitate towards dominant views of beauty and standardization.

Colorism, then, may be seen as learned, an unconscious acceptance and belief that “white is right”. Notably, one historical moment during which the preference for light-skin color, even among blacks, was challenged was during the Black Power Movement of the 1960s, a time during which James Brown’s “Say it Loud—I’m Black and I’m Proud” was a major hit. Does that time period teach us anything about how we can combat colorism both in the broader society and within the black community? Do you think rese
arch conducted during that time period might have yielded different results than those I described above?

Dominance and Disadvantage: Avatars and Blind Sides

On By econnellIn Popular Culture and Consumption, Sally Raskoff, Social Problems, Politics, and Social Change, Theory10 Comments

new sally By Sally Raskoff

Have you seen Avatar? The Blind Side? If not, you may want to wait to read this until after you see them!

Both movies deal with issues of power, dominance and subordination, privilege and disadvantage. Both have at least one member of the dominant group as the hero who “saves” at least one member of the subordinate group.

Avatar serves up a battle between humans and the Na’vi for their home planet’s resources, which amounts to a battle over the very lives of the Na’vi. To the Na’vi, all life is interconnected: on their planet any destruction of life, including plants, is tantamount to killing them. James Cameron gives us a beautiful glimpse into a world, culture, and society where there is little inequality and stratification, although leadership positions are inherited.

The paraplegic Marine whose avatar “goes native” (as did Kevin Costner’s character in Dances with Wolves) emerges as the savior, rescuer, and leader of the Na’vi. They prevail over the human invaders with their flying partners, ”borrowed” armory, and bows and arrows.

image

The Blind Side is based on Michael Lewis’s book about the true story of how a rich, white family changed the life of pro-football star Michael Oher, who was a troubled and homeless young man when the family found him. The story culminates with a pro-football contract and snapshots of the real family posing for photos on the football field and other venues.

Throughout the movie, the mother, Leigh Anne, gets some guff from friends for her decision, but has complete support from her family as she takes on the task of saving this young man from the streets and his drug addicted mother.

image

In both movies, the subordinate group (or the person in the disadvantaged group) is saved by a person from the dominant group. It appears that they have the knowledge, skills, connections, and guts to save the person(s) who are at a disadvantage. Both stories are told from the perspective of the hero or savior..

The “white savior” is a common theme in American films, from Dances with Wolves, Gran Torino, The Soloist, Ghosts of Mississippi, Mississippi Burning, and all the way back to To Kill a Mockingbird. The movies often purport to be about the disadvantaged person, but the narrative is focused on the white savior as hero. We learn much more about who they are and their experience in helping the others rather than seeing the story from the perspective of the disadvantaged person. The purported victim is often simply a device that allows us to reflect on the hero’s actions and motivations – and to identify with the hero.

If one analyzes these movies in the order in which they were released, one does see some improvement in how the disadvantaged person(s) are depicted. In more recent movies, the disadvantaged character is developed more fully and more time is devoted to suggesting how social context and life changes may have been responsible for their plight. On the other hand, all of these movies assume some inability of the disadvantaged to prevail without the white savior’s help. In reality, one does need coalitions between groups to change society from an unjust one to one in which equal rights are afforded to all. It was paramount that white people support the civil rights movement for racial equality, just as it was crucial for men to participate in giving women the vote and important for straight people to understand why marriage rights are important to people who are gay and lesbian.

However, to see so many movies in which the disadvantaged are rescued from their plight from someone in the dominant group is to see our societal power structure and stratification reflected and even justified.

Avatar has the one human save the entire Na’vi society, although this only happens once he partners with the biggest flying creature and assumes leadership. It really bothered me that Cameron gives us this glimpse into a society based on interconnectedness and equality, yet in the end the leader is still chosen by having the biggest weapon. This reliance on our own culture’s emphasis of competition and dominance – success comes from using the biggest gun in the rack – was somewhat disappointing and disruptive to the story line for me.

image

The Blind Side’s Leigh Anne mentions setting up a scholarship program to give the school “more color”. She also shows some concern about Michael’s biological mother’s struggles with addiction. While saving one person from a life in poverty and violence is certainly a positive activity, nothing is done to alter the situation of other young men and women in the same situation. Nothing is changed in society to deal with the source of the problem so that more young men and women could also live better lives with more opportunities and quality education.

The school that Michael Oher actually attended, Briarcrest Christian School doesn’t appear to have any more “color” or fund raising for these purposes. This movie does seem to be more sensitive and complex than the others listed here. It does include scenes such as the one in which Leigh Anne reflects on her assumptions after the NCAA investigates whether she and her family had taken Michael in solely because they wanted him to play football for their alma mater.

These stories, real or imagined, are stories of the savior hero, not of the disadvantaged person(s). Even when the movie’s purported subject is the person at risk, the story is told from the perspective of the savior. In the Blind Side, we learn much more about Leigh Anne and not much about Michael. In Avatar, we see the world from the Marine’s eyes, not the Na’vi. We are then forced to identify with the role of the “hero”, not with that of the person(s) at risk, as the character becomes our own avatar. However, this blinds us to the other side of the situation as the person(s) at risk become symbolic and unreal, partial characters who serve as foils to our heroism.

Volunteering to help one person does indeed help that one person. But it doesn’t do anything to deal with the conditions that put that person at risk. It doesn’t change the status quo. It can help people in the dominant group feel like they’re doing something important. And while they may be doing just that for that one person, it doesn’t alleviate the context of the problem thus no one else will be spared. Those with privilege will continue to enjoy it at the same time those without it will continue to live in their disadvantaged state. Helping one person may provide some insight into such struggles but it can sometimes help the savior mor
e than the oppressed.

What other movies present this type of story? Here are a few others I thought of: Radio, Hardball, Finding Forrester, Dangerous Minds, Cool Runnings, Thunderheart, Cry Freedom, and Blackboard Jungle.

Public Behavior in Private Spaces

On By econnellIn Crime and Deviance, Karen Sternheimer, Popular Culture and Consumption, Social Problems, Politics, and Social Change21 Comments

new karen 1

By Karen Sternheimer

clip_image002Did you spend a lot of time at malls this holiday season? I did recently, although I didn’t go into very many stores to shop. Malls are great places to go when it’s cold and you want to get out of the house and get some exercise. While visiting my family this holiday season, nearly three feet of snow fell and local malls were just about the only place we could go to take a walk without freezing.

There’s a big difference between taking a walk outside and walking in a mall. Malls tend to be more crowded and walking space can be limited, so we often found ourselves walking in circles around some of the bigger department stores. Free samples in the food court can defeat the whole purpose of walking, too.

clip_image004The most significant difference between walking in a mall and walking outside is that malls are private spaces. Seemingly anyone can enter a mall, walk around and use the restroom if necessary. But unlike a truly public place, management has the right to ask people to leave for a variety of reasons that might seem vague and could be arbitrarily determined.

One upscale shopping center had its list of rules posted by the restroom, which I have posted below. (I decided to remove any identifying information, since as you can see in rule #4 any unauthorized photography is forbidden there).

Some of the “codes of conduct” seem like common sense rules that only the most disruptive of shoppers would violate: vandalism, drag racing, and fighting seem like good things to ban, and they are illegal anyway.

But take a look at some of the others—they might be open to a variety of interpretations. “All guests are to be treated as you would like to be treated….standing, walking or sitting in areas that might cause an inconvenience to others, is not permitted” according to rule #1. Wearing clothes not deemed to be “appropriate attire” violates rule #5. Sitting in your car for too long violates rule #7.

If you have ever been someplace where people violated these expectations, you know it can be uncomfortable when others are rude and disruptive. But my guess is that these rules might be bent for someone who drops a load of money at one of the pricey shops. Someone carrying a dog in their bag violates rule #9, yet I have seen exceptions made for people who appear to be wealthy and thus possibly good customers. As Sally Raskoff blogged about, here in Los Angeles dogs are most common in malls with upscale clientele. I’ve been barked at in dressing rooms on more than one occasion. IMG_1020

Several rules focus specifically on young people. “Minors must not continually congregate in groups larger than four” according to rule #2. Rule #3 follows: “To enforce the rules applicable to minors, we require all patrons on our property to carry appropriate identification with proof of age.” Finally, rule #8 states that, “All persons under the age of 18 are expected to be in school during school hours and may be asked to leave the property.”

Teens in public are routinely seen as potential problems, and yet for many teens the only “public” spaces they can visit are actually privately owned. Sociologist Christine L. Williams observed this while conducting ethnographic research in toy stores. In her book Inside Toyland: Working, Shopping, and Social Inequality, she notes that poor kids of color were routinely asked to leave stores even if they weren’t causing any trouble.

I spent a lot of time in malls before I earned my driver’s license; in fact, one of the malls I recently walked in was the local hangout for my peers. I had no proof of age until I was 16 (except a birth certificate, which my parents kept in a secure file at home), and by that time was mobile enough that hanging out at the mall didn’t appeal to me anymore. It wouldn’t have been unusual for me to be there during “school hours” either. Sometimes my friends and I went there for lunch, and my senior year I arranged my schedule to have the last period free so I could work in a store at the mall part time.

But since my friends and I contributed to the economic activity of the mall, no one ever asked us to leave, even if our group grew large or we were loud. If we clip_image008didn’t have spending money, our presence might have been considered more troubling. And consider that many retail stores tend to hire white, affluent teens, as 60 Minutes detailed in this story on Abercrombie and Fitch. This means that the mall rules can be applied disproportionately to lower income teens of color, who might have few other places to congregate.

The rule that might have the most important implication is rule #4. “Soliciting, picketing, rallying…distributing literature…soliciting signatures or personal information of any kind…is prohibited without the express written consent of the owner.” Essentially this rule outlaws any political activity in the mall, a rule that is common in shopping areas nationwide.

As historian Lizabeth Cohen points out in A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America, after World War II Americans’ gathering spaces became increasingly privatized, leaving fewer places for protests or political activity. Cohen concludes that during the second half of the twentieth century, Americans came to see themselves predominantly as consumers, not citizens. While the Internet has helped create a new space for organizing to some degree, with fewer public gathering places, it becomes more challenging for traditional organizing and creating community awareness of a particular issue.

Thinking of my recent walks in the malls I visited, I admit noisy protests or picket lines would have made me want to leave. And yet Cohen’s point isn’t that people should cause disturbances in malls and shopping areas, but rather that our public spaces have become commercialized–so much so that it might be difficult to think of public places that are truly public anymore. Especially in a snowstorm.

Tiger Woods and the Hyper-Sexualization of Black Men

On By econnellIn Behind the Headlines, Crime and Deviance, Janis Prince Inniss, Race and Ethnicity, Relationships, Marriage and Family13 Comments

new janis By Janis Prince Inniss

The Wanda Sykes Show recently spoofed The Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes. Sykes and the rest of the Prize Patrol pay women for denying that they have had sex with golfing legend, Tiger Woods with this offer: “(The Tiger Woods Cleaning House Damage Control) is giving away millions to girls who know how to zip it!” When the Prize Patrol tries to award a $10 million check to Kelly O’Brien, and a Black woman answers the door, Sykes says, “Clearly, we have the wrong house!”

With that line, Sykes and her show state what is obvious but not much commented on in the Woods sex scandal: All the women who claim to have had sex with Woods are white.

Tiger Woods has said his self identity is that of “Cablinasian”—a term he created to account for his Thai, African American, Chinese, Native American, and Caucasian racial and ethnic heritage. By describing himself this way, Woods set himself apart from other mixed race Americans who are usually identified as African American—both by themselves and by others in the society. (Click here to read more about racial classification in the U.S.) Regardless of our self-identity, however, others classify us based on their own ideas about race. No matter how Tiger Woods describes himself, most Americans probably think of him as African American.

Given the country’s racial legacy, what role does Woods’ race play in the news coverage of his extramarital affairs? There is no lab in which we can run an experiment to answer this question definitively and all comparisons to other famous people—whether athletes, politicians, or actors—will be have limitations revolving around at least two issues. First, as one of the most famous and most accomplished athletes today, Woods is very unique. Second, a perfect comparison would have to include enough people who are very similar on a number of variables. Without the ability to make such precise comparisons, this public conversation is still a platform from which we can reflect on issues of race that this story raises.

How is race relevant in this case? Elin Nordegren, Tiger Woods’ wife is white and so are all of the women he is alleged to have had affairs with. (Woods admits to infidelity but does not say with whom he has dallied.) How much of the frenzied chasing of this story is related to those two factors, when most see him as African American? And what of the steam coming out of reporters’ ears as they discuss the case? Do they seem even more revved up than usual? For example, Pat Lalama was Guest Host on CNN’s Nancy Grace Show and she made no objections to the following comments by Lou Palumbo, a private investigator

LALAMA: Lou Palumbo, private investigator, former Nassau County Police investigator. You`ve seen a lot of this kind of thing, how does this rank to you, this case?
PALUMBO: As low as you can go, quite frankly. I mean.
LALAMA: Really?
PALUMBO: Yes, he`s somewhat on himself here. It wasn`t an issue that he wasn`t finding comfort or rapport in his home with his wife and he sought comfort with someone else. This guy was a sociopath. I mean, he traveled through continents to do this. And it`s unconscionable and quite frankly his complete lack of regard first and foremost for his children is inexplicable.

And I really don`t think this guy cares, quite frankly, and I think he`s a coward. In fact, what he should do is come out of hiding and just confront this issue and try to make some sense of it with people which we know he cannot do but he needs to confront this issue. He`s just hiding.

Palumbo’s comments and demeanor have been common among television commentators who seem to feel no need to appear journalistic as they discuss the Woods saga. How much of this vitriol is really based on the old stereotypical threat of African American men pursuing white women and defiling them?

That old fear was at the root of many lynchings and other racially motivated crimes against blacks. In 1955, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American boy was beaten, shot, and then tied to a 70-pound cotton gin fan before being thrown into a river. His crime? Allegedly whistling at or maybe touching a white woman when he visited Mississippi from Chicago.

According to Jane Dailey, Till’s murder is seen by many historians as being directly tied to the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. How so? The decision was seen as opening white women to the sexual advances of black men in school; Walter C. Givhan, an Alabama state senator said the real purpose of the decision was “to open the bedroom doors of our white women to Negro men."

The tone of some of the coverage of the Tiger Woods sex scandal is suggestive of those earlier days. To be sure, Tiger Woods is no Emmett Till. (And I’m no apologist for Woods and his wandering ways!) In some ways, the 34 years between their births might as well be 134 years: Woods is married to a white woman, is wealthy, and famous. He’s famous for being the best in the world in a sport that has been mainly played by rich whites. I am reminded, though, that in other ways 34 years is not very long. For example, although interracial marriages have increased since Till’s time, they are still relatively rare—they make-up about 7% of all U.S. marriages. Coverage of the Tiger Woods affairs tinged with a lens that says that he has ‘gone too far’ –first by marrying a white woman and worse by cheating on her with even more white women—underscores some of that recent history.

Speaking about Woods, celebrity judge Jeanine Pirro exclaimed, “Men are pigs!”, and although tamped down, there was intense coverage of a physician who treated Woods because the doctor was being tied to performance enhancement drugs. With all of the non-stop coverage of this story, I have seen none of the contempt for Woods directed at the ever-growing list of women who agreed to have sex with the married superstar athlete, a subject for another post.

Do you detect a racial subtext in the coverage of this story? How do you imagine the coverage of the story would be the same, or different, if Woods was married to a black woman? Or if he were white? What if the women alleging that he was their paramour were women of color? How does this story reinforce the stereotype of the hyper-sexualized black man?

Living in a McDonaldized World

On By econnellIn Popular Culture and Consumption, Theory, Todd Schoepflin18 Comments

todd_sBy Todd Schoepflin, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Niagara University

tas@niagara.edu www.niagara.edu/sociology

 

I first read George Ritzer’s book The McDonaldization of Society in 1996, my first year of graduate school. I loved the book right away. It described perfectly the world I lived in, and still does. What was true in 1996 for me is even truer today. I am surrounded by fast-food establishments and other businesses that follow the McDonald’s model.

Our culture continues to value efficiency, predictability and quantity. Workers and consumers are controlled more than ever by technology. I am careful not to be hypocritical when it comes to this subject; I definitely take advantage of some conveniences that come with living in a McDonaldized world.

As I write this in Buffalo, New York, it is twenty degrees outside, so you better believe that I occasionally make use of a drive thru in order to get my morning coffee. And once in a blue moon it even comes from McDonald’s. I also go to McDonaldized places when it’s time for an oil change. Although I’d prefer to leave my car with a mechanic for a day, the convenience of stopping at Jiffy Lube or some other specialized auto service business is too easy to pass up. There’s one  place I go for an oil change where you don’t even leave your car! What’s more efficient than staying in your car while you get an oil change in ten minutes? But I try to patronize Mom and Pop businesses as often as possible. I’m always on the lookout for establishments that are creative, unique and interesting. Places where size and speed are not equated with quality.

It’s getting harder to find places that don’t follow the McDonald’s way of doing business where I live. That’s why it’s so special to me to spend time at places Marottosthat aren’t McDonaldized. One of my favorite examples is a restaurant near my house named Marotto’s. I don’t go often, just on special occasions, and my father is always with me when I go because it’s his favorite restaurant. Despite the fact that we aren’t regulars, we get the royal treatment whenever we go. Owner Mark Marotto always stops by our table to chat with us. Not only is he the owner but also the head chef! Aside from making time to visit every table, he brightens everyone’s experience by playing the harmonica. When my family recently dined there for my father’s birthday, he came out of the  kitchen to play “Happy Birthday” on the harmonica.

Such unique treatment brings a huge smile to my face (as you can see from the picture during one of our visits to Marotto’s…I’m the one with the big nose, glasses and oversized grin). If you want to see Mark in action, look at the story that a local news station did about him that’s posted on the restaurant's website. I just love the genuine feel of Mark playing the harmonica to entertain his customers.

Compare this to what happens when you enter a place like Moe’s Southwest Grill, a McDonaldized establishment in which workers shout “Welcome to Moe’s!” in unison when you enter. It seems to me that the workers half-heartedly shout this phrase because they are merely following a corporate script. It doesn’t feel real or authentic. While writing this I looked at their website and I immediately saw a graphic that said “Welcome to Moe’s, where size matters.” This was unsurprising because in a McDonaldized world, bigger is a promise of better.

It’s important to remember that the McDonaldization theory does not only apply to restaurants. Think of Christmas trees as another example. Buying a fake Trees_for_saletree from Home Depot is an example of McDonaldization (especially if you use the technology there to purchase the tree without any help from an employee). A fake tree is efficient because no messy pine needles fall to the floor and there’s no problem getting the box through the front door. But it sure is bland compared to buying a tree from a local family farm. I recognize that not everyone lives near a tree farm, but if you’re within reasonable driving distance of one, I highly recommend the experience.

This year my wife and I took our two-year-old son to a tree farm located forty minutes from our house. When we arrived they gave us a saw to cut down our tree. We walked a few hundred feet and found a beautiful tree. It took me a while to saw through the tree, and I almost gave up, but I persisted and was thrilled when I finally got the job done. A worker helped me get the tree on top of our car, and sort of helped me tie it down.

I say “sort of” because that’s where the adventure began. We drove off and made our way back to the highway, driving 60 miles per hour and hoping the tree was properly fastened. It wasn’t long before two young guys in a car drove past us laughing and pointing at us. Our worst fear was confirmed—the tree was sliding off the top of our car. We pulled off to the side of the road and did our best to reposition the tree and secure it with a bungee cord. As my wife and I worked on the task with cars zooming by us, our son was crying his eyes out. Maybe it was the loud sound of cars flying by or maybe he was scared of seeing his parents climbing around the car, struggling to tie down a tree. Either McDonaldizationway, we finally got the tree where we wanted it and eventually made our way home. We  shared a good laugh about our morning and I suggested we go to the tree farm every other year.

I’m not sure I can handle a day like that every year! But I think that experience embodied the spirit of doing things in a way that aren’t McDonaldized. Sure it’s easier to buy a tree from a store but it’s more fun and unpredictable to cut down your own tree. A common sight this time of year where I live is Christmas trees in a parking lot. You can park, pick out your tree, pay for it and be home in a matter of minutes. So you can even get a real tree in a McDonaldized way. I took a picture of one of these parking lots near my house, and from where I took the picture I also took a shot of a common McDonaldized scene: a Dunkin’ Donuts, Baskin-Robbins and Valvoline all situated on a corner lot.

I guess it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. In other words, I don’t think one has to totally avoid a McDonaldized way of life. I think it’s about balance. Some encounters with McDonaldized places are inevitable in many of the places people live. My advice is to enjoy those places around you that offer something different. Sameness is comforting but it’s also boring. As the saying goes, “variety is the spice of life.” I think that saying holds true when we spend time in a way that isn’t McDonaldized.

Consuming Philanthropy

On By econnellIn Popular Culture and Consumption, Sally Raskoff, Theory4 Comments

new sally By Sally Raskoff

There are many motivations for giving one’s time and money. Altruism was once considered the primary rationale for giving. Our current societal context for giving assumes that the giver, whether a business or a person, gets something for their giving, so giving is not entirely selfless.

Pure altruism exists when people give with no benefit to themselves. That type of giving is not common in our society. Instead, people are encouraged to give and get at the same time; volunteering appears on one’s college applications, corporate philanthropy gives tax breaks and publicity.

clip_image002

“Cause marketing” gives us the “Red” campaign of the Gap and Starbucks, events like “Shopping for the Cure” and many other partnerships between charities and corporations. I’ve long been concerned about such pairings as they link consumerism with charitable activities in ways that are impossible to separate.

A recent NPR story mentions the net benefit for society and the assumptions that once people give, they will see the intrinsic value of giving and thus continue even without an extrinsic reward. However, research doesn’t necessarily support that outcome. Are those people sentenced to community service able to see it as a non-punishment? Are students capable of seeing volunteering as a non-requirement?

In a study I co-authored several years ago, we found that many students define volunteering as an activity they no longer have to do once they have satisfied their graduation requirements, rather than realizing that such activity can enrich one’s life and community.

The original intent of mandated volunteering (an oxymoron if ever there was one) is to socialize people into giving to one’s community. However, when one exchanges the volunteering or monetary giving – in obvious and explicit ways – for some commodity or other benefit, the giving becomes a commodity as well.

For sustainable societies, education is not a commodity, schools are not businesses, giving time and money are not a commodity nor are the people that give of their personal time and funds corporate entities. However, we increasingly talk about education as though it is a service to be exchanged like other services in our economy. As a result, schools are pressured to run like businesses, and giving time and money are increasingly part of commodity and consumerist exchanges.

I bristle at those discussions on our campus where education is equated with business, where students are seen as customers, since education is a far bigger enterprise, potentially, than simple business. Education – and giving – are much greater than the sum of their “services.” Society benefits in large ways from their effective functioning. Students who learn how to think create a much more vibrant society than those who don’t learn to think or who those who only learn to take tests. People who volunteer or give see their communities enriched in ways far beyond the time or dollar amounts spent.

imageThat such activities are increasingly tied to commodity exchanges cheapens and demeans not only those activities but also leaves our society much less enriched since those behaviors are not seen as life-long pursuits.

How to explain all this with sociology? I’ve already begun this explanation with a Marxian analysis. Tying giving to consumerism and commodity exchanges enables us to see who profits and how the capitalist form of our economy is involved in the creation of “selfish giving”.

Capitalism, especially as it exhausts its profit sources, co-opts more and more of society’s institutions. This example of linking giving to consumer activity is a clear co-option of democracy by capitalism. Democracy depends on the service of its people to fulfill its ideals – one needs an informed and vigilant people to fully enact a democratic society.

If people’s vigilance in ensuring society functions well is weakened by tying services to consumer activities, people no longer participate in ensuring strong and vibrant communities. Instead, they buy things and are satisfied that their philanthropic duty is done. They give their time because their employer, judge, or school  have told them to and they are satisfied when their requirement is completed. While they may learn that they can feel good by doing good, they are not necessarily likely to do more – or to see how their community and the democracy in which they live depend on such behaviors.

So what can we do about this? Marx’s theory suggests that as capitalist crises continue to increase in frequency and scope, even as more and more institutions are co-opted into the capitalist enterprise, capitalism has indeed exhausted itself and its sources of profit. It follows that the structure of our economy is in dire need of revision. Yet whether we have the will to do so remains to be seen.

Infidelity, Tiger Woods, and Émile Durkheim

On By econnellIn Behind the Headlines, Crime and Deviance, Karen Sternheimer, Relationships, Marriage and Family, Theory24 Comments

new karen 1

By Karen Sternheimer

By now you might be tired of hearing about Tiger Woods and his alleged mistresses. I know I am. And yet when high profile figures are thought to cheat on their spouses it becomes big news again and again, especially if a politician or celebrity is involved. Once Tiger’s story goes away there is sure to be another public figure whose behavior will enter the public fray for dissection.

There are many explanations for why people are interested—it’s salacious, it pervades the news at a time when ratings matter and news organizations’ budgets are being slashed, and in the Woods case it seems to be an opportunity for several people to get their fifteen minutes of fame. These are just a few of many explanations that have sparked a slew of conversations about why this is even news in the first place (including one I recently participated in on NPR). But how might the founder of sociology explain the attention celebrity infidelity receives if he were alive today?

clip_image002Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) is often regarded as the father of sociology, both for employing research methods to study sociological phenomena and for the theories he created about social life. While he lived before our hyper-mediated age, some of his ideas can add insight into why stories of infidelity seem to get the public’s attention.

Durkheim was very interested in how complex societies remain cohesive. He, and those that adopted his way of thinking, were very interested in how various aspects of society operate in concert in order to maintain the social order. Often called functionalism, this school of thought dominated sociological thinking for most of the twentieth century. One of functionalism’s central questions asks: What is the glue that holds increasingly diverse and sometimes divergent groups together?

Here’s where infidelity fits in. The collective disgust and outrage people express about high-profile cheaters serves to reaffirm a central societal value of fidelity. Functionalists emphasize the importance of shared values in creating bonds across society. News of infidelity is a chance for most of us to feel connected in agreeing that this behavior is wrong. While we might not agree on much else (witness the hotly debated health care reform legislation and other political melees), there aren’t too many people who are publicly pro-infidelity. Yes, it seems counterintuitive that something that could break up a marriage and family might provide social bonding. It may not do a family any good, but functionalists might argue that pillorying cheaters serves an important purpose for the rest of us.

Just as public hangings and stockades served to embarrass law breakers of the past and send a message to others of what would happen to them if they followed suit, media floggings serve a similar function today. Functionalists might argue that so much news focuses on undesirable behavior for the purpose of helping to maintain the social order; if we agree upon a set of norms and values we might feel a greater sense of who we as a group are and thus follow the rules. You might have noticed that when defining people as outsiders from our society we often focus on how their norms and values are different from ours.

clip_image004

It doesn’t take bad behavior to help unify an otherwise diverse society. According to Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz, authors of Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History, media events that galvanize the public’s attention serve the very important purpose of creating a shared culture and history in a complex society that can often feel fractured. Major media events can serve as common experiences to help us feel more connected.

Tiger Woods and other public figures involved in scandals enable the rest of us the chance to reaffirm a sense of shared values, but on the most basic level they provide a common topic we can all talk about, and therefore feel a greater connection to one another.

The functionalist perspective is not without its shortcomings. For one, we might argue that a complex society such as ours has a multitude of competing values, rather than a stable set of shared beliefs. It’s also important to note that people’s actual behavior falls short of the very values they may claim to hold. Proponents of conflict theory might argue that the focus on shared values and beliefs leaves out the issue of power: the power some have to define societal values and the power to evade punishment when said values are violated.

Sociological theories offer many perspectives that seek to explain social life. What other sociological concepts might help us understand the role that infidelity plays in public life?