The Social Construction of Race, Part Deux

This is the bulk of readings for the 'discourses of race' section of the course as we wade through it this week. Pay particular attention to Zook's article on the Fox Network as it invests that political economic perspective that is so well dramatized in Bamboozled as well as the Means-Coleman article on 'black sitcoms' which is a good example of textual analysis. The Herman Gray article is also important. The other articles you can use for your papers, if relevant and/or to expand on our class discussion.

Kristal Brent Zook, "The Fox Network and the Revolution in Black Television"
Robin R. Means-Coleman, "Black Sitcom Portrayals"
Herman Gray, "The Politics of Representation in Network Television" from Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for Blackness (University of Minnesota Press, 1995/2004)

Donald Bogle, "Workplace Dramas, Ensemble Casts 1990s Style"
Chyng Fen Sun, "Ling Woo in Historical Context: The New Face of Asian American Stereotypes on Television"

This video is the  'incomplete sentence' vaudeville routine by Mantan Moreland & Ben Carter from the Charlie Chan movie The Scarlet Clue (Phil Rosen, 1945)

Below is Sarah Jones' 'Your Revolution' (with DJ Vadim) from Def Poetry Jam's Season 1 (2002)

The Social Construction of Race I

As we watch Spike Lee's Bamboozled* and discuss the film, Ash Corea's "Racism and the American Way of Media" is a good summary of the issues raised by Lee and those that you will be reading about in greater detail with the next group of articles. As a bonus, a classic article by Stuart Hall.

*Through Bamboozled please reflect on the mechanisms that Lee describes (through a satirical register) as well as how he narrativizes the power dynamics at work inside the (fictional) CNS network. How does he convey the conversion of aspects of African-American culture into a commodity within the context of a white-owned and controlled corporation? Also, as Delacroix is 'permitted' to move up in the corporate entertainment ladder by becoming show runner and head writer of a 'variety' show, what are the conditions that he needs to submit to? How does the white construction of black culture play into what he is being asked to conform to? In the end, what is the price that Delacroix has to pay according to Lee?
Finally, what does Spike Lee say about the way in which Mantan: The New Millenium Minstrel Show's genealogy in minstrel shows and blackface performance (along with the accumulation of historical artefacts) has become an empty gesture, a comedic ploy that removes the complexities of history and society and keeps racial hierarchies intact? What forms of contemporary popular culture do you think Spike Lee would consider to be operating through the same mechanisms today?
That's a whole lot of questions. Enjoy.

Ash Corea, "Racism and the American Way of Media" from Questioning the Media
Stuart Hall, "What is This 'Black' in Black Popular Culture" from Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies



Clip from the 1949 film Hollywood Varieties where actors Glenn Vernon and Edward Ryan apply blackface make-up while on stage and reminisce about 'the good ol' days' --as they say-- of minstrelsy.

That James Dean vs That Daydream Nation Look: Taylor Swift covered by Ryan Adams - Genre, Gender and Style

Please find a series of articles on the whole Taylor Swift/Ryan Adams affair below. The articles are primarily a press review of the discourses surrounding the Ryan Adams/Taylor Swift operation. I've also included a few articles from the past past, mainly Taylor Swift profiles from mainstream magazines like The New Yorker and New York Magazine. You can skim through these to get a sense of the operation and of the critical response to it. As you read relate it to our discussion on cultural value and cultural hierarchies and consider the unspoken gender aspect in these critical evaluations. Make sure you all read the Tavi Gevinson article linked to at the bottom of the post in .pdf format. Also included is a recent article from The Atlantic about authorship in pop music and the strategies used by record companies to downplay the 'outsourcing' of pop hit manufacturing. Read that if you are interested in these specific aspects of popular culture. Use this case study, and this material along with it, to get a sense of the kind of sources and knowledge you should be prepared to draw on in order to produce critical analyses of popular culture. Remember that these articles are not primary sources but they in fact are part of the intertextual and paratextual aspects of the text you are analyzing (in this case Taylor Swift and/or Ryan Adams, the record 1989 and the questions raised in relation to gender representation and the mode of address. Enjoy.

Ryan Adams’s 1989 and the Vindication of Taylor Swift

Ryan Adams’s 1989 and the mansplaining of Taylor Swift

No Blank Space, Baby: Taylor Swift Is The Soul Of Ryan Adams

Ryan Adams isn’t revealing something ‘good’ about Taylor Swift’s ‘1989.’ The album was already great.

Beats 1 Ryan Adams interview about '1989' with Taylor Swift call in 'surprise'

Platinum Underdog: Why Taylor Swift Is the Biggest Pop Star in the World

You Belong with Me

How Taylor Swift made teen angst into a business empire.

Taylor Swift Is Confusing

Haters Gonna Hate: Listening to Ryan Adams’s “1989”

The Reinvention of Taylor Swift

Flavorwire Interview: Talking Taylor Swift With Tavi Gevinson

The complete version of this article by then 16-year old Tavi Gevinson published in The Believer in 2013 is below in PDF. Tavi Gevinson started the Style Rookie blog when she was 12. Rookie Mag below is a treasure of 'readings' of Tween/Teen culture from a non mainstream perspective --with all of its exhilaration and limitations.

Tavi Gevinson, JUST KIDDING: NOTES ON TAYLOR SWIFT

Rookie Mag

Why must we hate the things teen girls love?

Hit Charade: Meet the bald Norwegians and other unknowns who actually create the songs that top the charts.

Genre and Gendered Media Spaces + Text and Context: Reception

The article by Gledhill & Vicky Ball is from the Stuart Hall edited Representation (2nd Ed., Sage, 1997/2013). It's a long chapter but filled with information and notions. You are responsible for pgs. 335-361 -the rest is recommended, up to you, based on your own interests and projects. You don't need to actually do the 'activities' listed in the various sections but they are at the very least good mental exercises and opportunities to think through some of the issues.

Christine Gledhill & Vicky Ball, "Genre and Gender: The Case of Soap Opera"

For an example of a political economic reflection on the media:
David Croteau & William Hoynes, "The New Media Giants: Changing Industry Structure"

EXTRA READINGS:

Stuart Hall, "Encoding-Decoding"
Sut Jhally, "Image-Based Culture: Advertising and Popular Culture"

Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema: Psychoanalysis, Feminism and Film

Stills from Otto Preminger's Laura, 1944

"Woman as image, man as bearer of the look."

Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"

‘Men dream of women. Women dream of themselves being dreamt of. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. Men look at women, women watch themselves being looked at. -John Berger, Ways of Seeing

Jill Soloway, the creator of the TV series Transparent and  I Love Dick (based on the Chris Kraus novel of the same title about having a crush on cultural critic and author Dick Hebdige which some of you might have read in previous classes). This is a talk she gave on 'The Female Gaze' at the Toronto Film Festival. We will be discussing this in relation to Céline Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire next week.

Textuality: Semiotics

To complement our discussion, the screening of Codes of Gender and the other readings, here are three different takes on 'semiotics' and semiotic analysis and their use for cultural studies and the analysis of media representations. These are not required readings if you have encountered 'media semiotics' before. I would however suggest, to those of you who are encountering 'semiotics' for the first time or need a refresher, to treat these readings as required readings: your work in class, your ability to grapple with the other required readings and your final project would certainly benefit from a familiarity with the concepts presented here.

Mieke Bal, Semiotics for Beginners
Scott McCloud, from Understading Comics: Chapter 2, Semiotics
Jonathan Bignell, Media Semiotics: Introduction + The Cinema

Construction and Performance I: Privilege and Representation

Cultural Studies & Representation: Ideology and Hegemony

Douglas Kellner, "Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism and Media Culture"
James Lull, "Hegemony"

Power, Privilege and Discrimination

Peggy McIntosh, "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" - new link

all readings (except the online Peggy McIntosh) are from Dines and Humez (eds), Gender, Race and Class in Media: A Text-Reader; 2nd Edition(Sage, 2003)

As an introduction to the methodology that we will be following in the course please read the Kellner and the Lull.

The Peggy McIntosh 'invisible knapsack' article is an additional quick read, for your own reflections. As McIntosh thinks through the concept of 'white privilege' in society, forcing us to consider the question of privilege and the way it links to questions of power in society as well as the existence of hierarchies, please think of other forms of privilege that exist on the basis of social differences. ie. male privilege, hetero privilege, cis privilege. Can you make a list, even just a mental one, that works in similar ways to McIntosh's? In other words, that starts from the 'I can...' premise as you put yourself in the position of the privileged subject? Can you also think of what privilege means, how it is in contradiction to the values of open and democratic societies as well what forces ensure that the social relations and the meanings to social identities are reproduced so that privilege itself is maintained and perpetuated?

Welcome to SUMMER I 2020/Race and Gender in Media - The Online Edition