Text Mapping (Members: Andrew Durand, Nate Olson, Ione Fullerton, Nick Hochfeld, Quinn Lincoln)
1. Blue collar shows shape our views of working class people
2. Because class is taboo we lack a way of understanding class
3. What is class?
a. Economic class
b. Political class
c. Cultural class
4. Class consciousness
a. Understanding oneself as economic, political, and social
b. People share a common experience as working people, as an oppressed class
c. Kelly’s criticism of the idea of shared experience. Experience of class intersects with race and gender.
5. Discussions of class automatically labeled 'class warfare'
a. Who does that work? For what purpose?
6. Production of 'American Dream'
a. As TV evolved advertisers began influencing the script and talent selection of television show
i.These forces reoriented the American Dream towards consumerism
b. Freedom of individual choice expressed through consumer choice
i. Class was erased to make room for a more robust depiction of consumerism
ii. Largely an ideological process
7. From the Margins to the Middle
a. In the 1950s race became a broader struggle within the television genre
i. Primetime representation of black families worked to assuage concerns that racial inequality still exists
ii. Over time the story arc shifted from overcoming inequality to never dealing with it in the first place
b. Media/TV renders black struggles invisible, forces them into a non representative American Dream mold
i. Work is done by media/TV to assure viewers that 'ghetto life' is happy, safe
ii. Assures viewers that redistribution of wealth and government/societal action is unnecessary
8. Women Have Class
a. Women and women of color traditionally hold working class to lower class jobs
i. This is largely ignored by television—instead failure is represented as the fault of the worker
2. TV depicts work as unnecessary for women
a. For women, especially women of color, work (double shift, unpaid work at home) is a method of survival
9. Tropes
a. Bad taste
i. Not deserving of the finer things in life
b. No class
i. Deviance classified by racial or cultural markers
ii. Criminalization of the black body
1.Black masculinity used as a place holder to talk about class
a. Beyond what is racial, class provides an inevitable or natural explanation
i. Black mothers can be blamed for raising deviant children
ii. Poor whites
1.Portrayed as outcasts or a subculture
a.Redneck images reclaimed by Foxworthy
b. The differences between the portrayal of poor whites and blacks
c. Reality TV
1. Jerry Springer
a. Race transcended to focus on “trashy” individuals.
i. They are living in these conditions due to their choices/social ineptitude
10. Conclusion
a.Things can change and activists are protesting for media with less stereotypes
Discussion Mapping (Members: Emma Dulaney, Sarah Edwards, Blake Ladenburg )
Subsets of Class:
What are the subsets of class and how have they changed?
Cultural vs. Economic Class:
How has the media changed society's understanding of class from one of economic position to one of lifestyle?
What factors determine facts? Are those constant?
American Dream Machine:
What defines the American dream? Is there fluidity?
What factors have changed the American dream?
Class Action:
How do we changed media to better represent true class conditions?
Clarification Questions (Members: Sam Jacobson, Andy Monserud, Jenny Gruenberg, Nathan Gruenberg )
How do our conceptions of class differ depending on the genre of the films which we are watching?
What, if anything, distinguishes a “working class” tv family from a “middle class” one?
Did specific sponsors push TV’s move away from working-class families, or was it simply the advertising industry in general?
Do white families even occasionally get the same “pulled-up-by-the-bootstraps” treatment that black families on TV often do? What about other people of color?
Why families? Apart from their existence as a consuming unit, what makes families so prevalent on TV, and not in other mediums?
What are the three primary class definitions/understandings discussed in the film?
What is class consciousness? How does it make people complicit with the status quo?
How has an individual’s true class position based primarily upon economic circumstances been transformed into a “choice” or “lifestyle”?
Discussion Questions (Members: Valentina Lopez-Cortes, Logan Miller, & Emma Graham )
Questions
1. Why is the seriousness that is financial struggle and being in the working class never portrayed in television shows? Why is it presented simply as a lifestyle that is humored and viewed as entertainment?
2. Would society buy into TV shows that represent the reality of the working class rather than romanticizing their conditions?
3. Would these television shows change our perceptions of the working class?
4. Taking Beevus & Butthead as an example- The audience of most of these stereotype-filled television is the working class itself. How is this fact significant?
1. Blue collar shows shape our views of working class people
2. Because class is taboo we lack a way of understanding class
3. What is class?
a. Economic class
b. Political class
c. Cultural class
4. Class consciousness
a. Understanding oneself as economic, political, and social
b. People share a common experience as working people, as an oppressed class
c. Kelly’s criticism of the idea of shared experience. Experience of class intersects with race and gender.
5. Discussions of class automatically labeled 'class warfare'
a. Who does that work? For what purpose?
6. Production of 'American Dream'
a. As TV evolved advertisers began influencing the script and talent selection of television show
i.These forces reoriented the American Dream towards consumerism
b. Freedom of individual choice expressed through consumer choice
i. Class was erased to make room for a more robust depiction of consumerism
ii. Largely an ideological process
7. From the Margins to the Middle
a. In the 1950s race became a broader struggle within the television genre
i. Primetime representation of black families worked to assuage concerns that racial inequality still exists
ii. Over time the story arc shifted from overcoming inequality to never dealing with it in the first place
b. Media/TV renders black struggles invisible, forces them into a non representative American Dream mold
i. Work is done by media/TV to assure viewers that 'ghetto life' is happy, safe
ii. Assures viewers that redistribution of wealth and government/societal action is unnecessary
8. Women Have Class
a. Women and women of color traditionally hold working class to lower class jobs
i. This is largely ignored by television—instead failure is represented as the fault of the worker
2. TV depicts work as unnecessary for women
a. For women, especially women of color, work (double shift, unpaid work at home) is a method of survival
9. Tropes
a. Bad taste
i. Not deserving of the finer things in life
b. No class
i. Deviance classified by racial or cultural markers
ii. Criminalization of the black body
1.Black masculinity used as a place holder to talk about class
a. Beyond what is racial, class provides an inevitable or natural explanation
i. Black mothers can be blamed for raising deviant children
ii. Poor whites
1.Portrayed as outcasts or a subculture
a.Redneck images reclaimed by Foxworthy
b. The differences between the portrayal of poor whites and blacks
c. Reality TV
1. Jerry Springer
a. Race transcended to focus on “trashy” individuals.
i. They are living in these conditions due to their choices/social ineptitude
10. Conclusion
a.Things can change and activists are protesting for media with less stereotypes
Discussion Mapping (Members: Emma Dulaney, Sarah Edwards, Blake Ladenburg )
Subsets of Class:
- What are the subsets of class and how have they changed?
Cultural vs. Economic Class:- How has the media changed society's understanding of class from one of economic position to one of lifestyle?
- What factors determine facts? Are those constant?
American Dream Machine:- What defines the American dream? Is there fluidity?
- What factors have changed the American dream?
Class Action:Clarification Questions (Members: Sam Jacobson, Andy Monserud, Jenny Gruenberg, Nathan Gruenberg )
How do our conceptions of class differ depending on the genre of the films which we are watching?
What, if anything, distinguishes a “working class” tv family from a “middle class” one?
Did specific sponsors push TV’s move away from working-class families, or was it simply the advertising industry in general?
Do white families even occasionally get the same “pulled-up-by-the-bootstraps” treatment that black families on TV often do? What about other people of color?
Why families? Apart from their existence as a consuming unit, what makes families so prevalent on TV, and not in other mediums?
What are the three primary class definitions/understandings discussed in the film?
What is class consciousness? How does it make people complicit with the status quo?
How has an individual’s true class position based primarily upon economic circumstances been transformed into a “choice” or “lifestyle”?
Discussion Questions (Members: Valentina Lopez-Cortes, Logan Miller, & Emma Graham )
Questions
1. Why is the seriousness that is financial struggle and being in the working class never portrayed in television shows? Why is it presented simply as a lifestyle that is humored and viewed as entertainment?
2. Would society buy into TV shows that represent the reality of the working class rather than romanticizing their conditions?
3. Would these television shows change our perceptions of the working class?
4. Taking Beevus & Butthead as an example- The audience of most of these stereotype-filled television is the working class itself. How is this fact significant?