Once we recognize the problems in popular culture--sexism, homophobia, racism, etc--what do we do about it?

1. What Do We Do?
Responding to Inequalities
in Popular Culture

2. The Double Matrix of Popular Culture
• Clip from The Matrix, ch. 8
• The Matrix is everywhere, it's all
around us, here even in this room. You
can see it out your window, or on your
television. You feel it when you go to
work, or go to church or pay your
taxes. It is the world that has been
pulled over your eyes to blind you from
the truth.

3. A Metaphor for Popular Culture?
• We could argue that popular culture is all
around us. It is ubiquitous. There is no
moment when you escape from it. You are
confronted with it through televisions, the
pages of books and magazines, film screens,
and the face of your computer. Yet even
when you walk away from these technologies,
it confronts you through conversations with
friends, through advertisements in halls and
on highways, and it is even embodied by
those around you.

4. The Desert of the Real
• Clip from The Matrix, ch. 12
• Think of “the world that you know” as
the world according to popular culture
—beautiful, happy, perfect.
• Think of “the desert of the real” as the
reality of social inequalities—poverty,
discrimination, loss and grief.

5. Popular Culture as a Variable
• This semester, we’ve examined various
relationships between popular culture
and other social variables.
• Many of the studies we have examined
indicate a strong correlation between
inequalities in popular culture and
inequalities in other social locations.
• For instance…

6. Popular Culture as a Variable
• Inequalities in the quality of representations of gay,
lesbian, and bisexual people, as compared to
straight people, correlate with similar political
inequalities (Linneman; Off the Straight and
Narrow)
• Inequalities in the messages directed towards class
groups correlate with economic inequalities (Gans)
• Gendered and racialized inequalities of access to
cultural production (the big corporations responsible
for popular culture), correlate with inequalities of
messages about Black women as compared
particularly to Black men (Emerson)

7. Popular Culture as a Variable
• Age inequalities in the targeting of marketing
correlate with the exploitation of the young
(Rushkoff; Schor; Adatto)
• Inequalities of access to cultural production
correlate with potentially offensive cultural
content and with a decline in democracy
(McChesney; Heins).
• Inequalities in social responses to
challenging cultural content correspond with
racial inequalities (Binder; hooks) and
political divides (Hunter)

8. Popular Culture as a Variable
• Racial inequalities in American life
correlate with inequalities of
representation on television (Hunt),
and in children’s books (Pescosolido, et
al)
• Narrow notions of gender presented in
the media correspond with narrow
roles faced by women (Kilbourne) and
men (Bordo)

9. How do Make Sense of all these
Correlations?
• Do the correlations indicate that
popular culture causes inequality?
• Do the correlations indicate that
inequality causes unequal
representations or unequal access?
• Are these two variables explained by
some third factor?
• The apathy of citizens and the greed of
consumers
• The failures of parents or schools

10. Causation
• To figure out the relationship between
our variables, we need to explore the
issue of causation.
• Establishing causation demands that
we meet three criteria
1. Correlation
2. Time Order
3. Non-spuriousness

11. 1. Correlation
• Check
• The evidence for correlation of these
variables is quite strong, as evidenced by
the lists made on the previous slides
• Nevertheless, some of you are not yet
convinced of correlation for some issues
• You are entitled to your position of not being
convinced
• But it invites the question, what evidence
would convince you? What standards would
need to be met?

12. 2. Time Order
• This is the “chicken or the egg” question. Which
one came first?
• It is going to be much easier to argue that
inequalities in society cause inequalities in popular
culture, rather than the reverse, when the popular
culture we examine is historically new.
• We can argue that television is new
• We cannot argue that music or literature are new
• As a consequence, we might argue that racial
inequalities came before the advent of television
and therefore they cannot be the outcome of
unequal representations on TV
• However, if the character of racial disparities is different
today than it was in the past, then we may yet prove that
TV is the culprit.

13. 2. Time Order continued
• The principle of time order demands the following…
• That observation of music videos comes before sexual
violence (Jhally)
• That engagement with film, television, and toys comes
before formation of gender identity (Bordo) or that
engagement with magazines transforms gender identity
(Kilbourne)
• That television watching comes before our formation of
ideas about sexuality (Linneman; Off the Straight and
Narrow)
• That cultural choice happens before class identification (a
reversal of Gans’s equation)
• We have to examine the question of time order on a
case-by-case basis.
• We cannot say that popular culture always comes first, but
we also cannot say that it never comes first.

14. 3. Non-spuriousness
• If the relationship between two variables is
non-spurious, that means that it cannot be
explained with reference to some third
variable.
• For example, my presence in this classroom
corresponds with your presence in this classroom.
• But I didn’t show up just because I knew you would be
here
• You didn’t show up because you knew I would be here
• Rather, we all showed up because of a third variable—
the University, which demands my presence as part of
my contract and your presence as part of your continued
admission
• The correlation of my presence and your presence is
spuriously explained then by reference to the third
variable—the institutional demands of the university

15. 3. Non-spuriousness continued
• Meeting the criteria of non-spuriousness is
challenging
• It requires that we think through and examine every
possible issue that could explain all those
correlations that I listed earlier
• In our discussions, you’ve already identified several
factors that might explain those correlations
• Citizen apathy
• Consumer demand
• Human nature
• A decline of the family
• A failure of schooling
• Again, we have to take it on a case-by-case basis

16. Causation in the Theories
• Theories of social inequality say very
little regarding popular culture
• It is mentioned at various points as a
contributing factor, which does give it
some limited causal capacities [popular
culture (Y) is one of several causes of
social inequalities (X)]
Y  X  ?

17. Causation in the Theories
• Our theories about culture took stronger
stances
• Victoria Alexander’s discussion of “Reflection
Approaches” posits that the content of
culture is a reflection of society, though
often a partial or distorted reflection.
• In the reflection approach, popular culture is the
dependent variable (Y) and its fluctuations are
driven by changes in the social order (X).
X  Y

18. Causation in the Theories
• Schudson’s “How Culture Works” offers two
ways of thinking about the correlation
between popular culture and social
inequalities
• The “dominant ideology” approach suggests
that popular culture (Y) offers consistent
messages that shape or drive human
behavior, including those behaviors that
cause social inequalities (X)
Y  X
• Clip from The Matrix Reloaded (Ch. 10)
• But also…

19. Causation in the Theories
• The “toolkit” approach suggests that popular culture
is inconsistent and offers a variety of powerful
options that we can choose from as we construct
our behavior, including those behaviors that cause
social inequalities
• In this approach, popular culture is not one variable, but
several (A, B, C) that represent different cultural messages,
which can be contrasted with messages from other sources
(D,E,F) such as politics, religion, or the economy, that all
shape human behavior depending upon the choices of
individuals, including those choices that cause social
inequalities (X)
X
F
E
D
C
B
A
Pop
Culture
Factors
Other
Factors

20. Causation
• How we respond to the issues of
inequality in popular culture depends in
part on our stance on the question of
causation
• However, I know better than to decide
for you (you’d just do the opposite)
• Instead, let me suggest a few options

21. What do we do?
1. Insert ourselves into the Matrix of popular
culture.
• Become producers of culture. Write poetry,
design ads, make movies, record songs. But do
it differently. Do it in way that does not
produce new inequalities. Do it in a way that
fights inequality.
• BUT, there is a danger that you will become
overtaken by this system of inequalities.
Perhaps, even your acts of resistance will be
incorporated into the system of inequalities.
(clip from The Matrix Reloaded, ch. 12).

22. What do we do?
2. Withdraw from the Matrix, and pull others
out as well.
• Stop watching TV. Turn off your radios. Cut-off
your internet service. Cancel your Netflix
subscription. Then the matrix of inequalities in
popular culture cannot harm you.
• BUT, it’s a difficult life. Hard to keep up with
your friends, hard even to hold a job with such
a life. Could be described as asocial, and
humans are inherently social beings.

23. What do we do?
3. Take the blue pill. Go back into the matrix
and live in ignorant bliss.
• You cannot be held responsible for fighting
inequalities that you know nothing about.
When this course is over, your transcript will
only say Popular Culture. It won’t say anything
about studying inequalities in popular culture.
You can just go back to the way things were
before.
• Of course, the matrix of inequalities in popular
culture will persist. And they may even affect
you.

24. What do we do?
4. Join the matrix.
• Surely inequalities in popular culture
serve some social purpose. And they’re
probably overstated anyway. This is all
an interesting classroom discussion topic,
but its not real. And besides, sociology
students are great at market research!

25. What do we do?
5. Become a resistance fighter.
• This will force you to balance your time within
and without the matrix of popular culture. You
will have to take on an outsider’s perspective,
as if you had unplugged from the matrix. But
you will also have to plug back in, because you
cannot fight an enemy that you do not see. You
can critique the Dreamworld of music videos,
but to understand it, you have to enter.
• The problem. There is no guarantee of success.
Fighting the prevailing trends in popular culture
could be dangerous (clip from The Matrix
Revolutions, ch. 7, 2nd
half).

26. How to Fight the Inequalities in Popular
Culture
1. Focus on social change: when you watch tv, when
you buy music, when you pick out books for your
kids.
2. Work across lines of race and class, across lines of
gender and sexuality, across lines of disability
status. Work across all lines. Watch foreign films,
listen to music from cultures different from your
own, read magazines aimed at a different gender
group. Refuse to fit your market genre.
3. Include indigenous organizers and leaders. That
means artists! Include makers of music, film,
photography and literature in your vision for the
world.

27. How to Fight the Inequalities in Popular
Culture
4. Encourage diversity with ongoing outreach and
training. Make it a principle in the ways you raise
your kids. Demand it in your curriculum here at
school. Become a volunteer with an educational
program and make it your goal to address
diversity, inequality, and popular culture.
5. Focus on the connections between local and
national issues, between your community here and
the culture that is distributed nationally. Between
media consolidation and your friends’ struggles to
become successful musicians. Between the values
on TV and the values of the kids you know.

28. How to Fight the Inequalities in Popular
Culture
6. Develop and maintain personal empowerment
while working for organizational power. As you
resist inequalities in popular culture, you must also
identify the culture that works for you—the TV
shows, songs, movies, books, and websites that fit
your values. Celebrate them. Draw happiness,
consolation and inspiration from them.
7. Be flexible and ready to create new models to
adapt to new needs. Popular culture changes
rapidly. New inequalities appear at every turn.
And sometimes popular culture surprises you and
offers you something new and wonderful. Be
ready to adjust.

29. Are you the one?
• Clip from The Matrix, ch. 22
• “You got the gift, but it looks like
you’re waiting for something.”
• And yet, perhaps soon, you’re going to
have to make a choice about popular
culture. On the one hand, you’ll have
culture that encourages inequality. On
the other hand, you’ll have an
alternative. What you choose, will be
up to you.

30. 25-Year Vision Exercise
1. Add 25 years to your age and write it down. Think
of the children closest to you (daughters, sons,
nieces, nephews, friends, pupils, mentorees) and
add 25 years to their ages. Write their names and
ages down.
2. Think about a Saturday 25 years from now. You
wake up and watch a little TV. You spend some
time on the internet. You go see a movie with the
now-grown children you listed in step 1. You
listen to some music. Before going to bed, you
read a book. All of this culture fits the values that
you’ve worked so hard to see realized. Sit for a
few minutes and imagine what that world looks
like and how it feels. Draw a picture or write a
description of what you see.

31. 25-Year Vision Exercise
3. Turn to 1 or 2 people sitting near
you. Describe for them what you saw
and ask them about what they saw.
How were your visions different?
How were they similar?
4. Make a list of the things that were
different in 25 years from today.

32. 25-Year Vision Exercise
5. Brainstorm as a class: What must
happen to make our visions of the
future become a reality? In what
order?
6. What kinds of alliances would have to
occur to make these visions a reality?
7. What do you need as an individual in
order to actively pursue this vision in
the next 25 years?

33. Questions for Further Discussion
• What choice will you make? How will
you respond to the inequalities we’ve
discussed this semester?
• Are you hopeful about popular culture?
Why?
• What can you do right now? How
will/do you advise your kids on these
issues?
• Is this your/our responsibility?