Sociology is often new to many students, or not taken seriously, unless they are sociology major. For this course, it has a lot of information, concepts, and homework that require intensively studying, especially for the summer.

I think if I could chose to do it again, I would rather take it in a regular semester, as it is quite heavy for the compact summer semester. One has to be sure that he/she will have to spend a lot of time per week to get through this class ( I surely did).

However, the information that you will get from the class is very useful, and it kind of changes the way you look at things, and you don’t just take it for granted anymore. It takes us back a minute to think about the appearance and the meaning behind it of cultural objects that we encounter everyday. So to do well in the class, you will have to find ways to read effectively, try to pick out major points and concept that will be developed. Remember to take proper notes, so you can go back to study it easily. Don’t wait until last minute to do the assignment and the tests, you will find yourselves in trouble. Don’t be afraid to ask the instructor’s questions or explain any problem that might arise. And last but not least, try your best to learn as much as possible, even though your grade might not be what you expected, but the knowledge you gained is valuable.  

For the quantitative analysis assignment, I chose the show Modern Family, season 7, episode 21, titled Crazy Train in which the family travels by train to Dede's wedding. Phil and Cam help a mystery writer with his book, Jay's comment puts the wedding in jeopardy, Claire helps Mitch write the toast, and Luke and Alex meet possible romantic interests.

The main casts are Ed O'Neill (Jay Pritchett), Sofía Vergara (Gloria Delgado-Pritchett) , Julie Bowen (Claire Dunphy), with 2 whites and 1 Hispanic. They are all straight and not disabled.

The episode is directed by James Alan Hensz. All in all, from both cast members and crew members, there’s none disability, none transgender. In race, there is 33% of Hispanic, 67% white among cast and 13% Asian, 87% white. In gender, although in crew, there is only 13% female, 87% male, but in cast, female dominates (67%). In sexuality, there’s none gay/lesbians in cast and there is 13% are gay/lesbians among crew.

So, it once again proves that ethnic minorities, women, and gay/lesbians are underrepresented on TV. Both crew and cast are dominantly white. This is one of the typical shows that although lasting through many seasons, and quite popular, still lack of diversity.  

For the Qualitative analysis assignment, I compared the music video of the song “Summer” by Calvin Harris and the music video of the song "Wiggle" by Jason Derulo.

Both of the videos are pretty similar in its content, and are good examples of how poorly women are represented in media. Both express the ides of women are purely as sex objects. They are both considered sexist, wrongful portrayal of women. They concentrate mainly on their body parts without giving them any credits for their intellectual or other values.

The lyric of the song “Summer” itself is nothing special, it is about a guy who finds the perfect girl for him one summer and wants her to know he would give her everything. But then after a long summer together, she deceives him as he explains when he says "you act so innocent now but you lied so soon." Meaning she wasn't honest with him and ruined the relationship. It was a summer romance. However, the video of the song is full of explicit imageries, cutting between images of women’s body parts and scenes of them gyrating. It was thought to systematically objectifying women and reduces them to their "desirable" parts. It portrays women simply just as sexual objects, especially in one of the scenes, there are just whole bunch of them hanging around the swimming pool, showing off their feminist sexuality. The video not only doesn’t relate much to the lyrics, but also considered sexist, women objectifying.

In the video Wiggle, the imageries and also the lyrics depicting women purely as sex objects to the point of being offensive. In particular, the beginning of the video showing he was sleeping with 6 women, so it depicts women as being cheap, as long as we have money, we can have a lot of them. And it was all about women’s buttocks, he loves them and is not afraid to show it and say it. Or the lyric: “If I take pictures while you do your dance. I can make you famous on Instagram” This is a piss-poor, easy reference to social media simply because it is popular. This is simply downgrading women. The worst part of the lyrics came from Snoop Dog,

“Shake what your mama gave you Misbehave you I just wanna strip you, dip you, flip you, bubble bathe you What they do Taste my rain drop, ok boo Now what you're willing, what you wanting, what you may do Completely seperated, til my deeply penetrated Then I take I out, and wipe it off Eat it, ate it, love it, hate it”

And he saves the best part for last: “Damn baby you got a bright future behind you”

So the entire song contained just 10 lines of actual lyrics from Jason Derulo, interspersed with random words and repeated sexual references.

They are both well-known, easily accessible on mass media. After the assignment, I feel like I become more judgmental about the music videos now. One might find it entertaining, but looking deep into it, there are still many social issues in it. Specifically, the message that sent in these videos are sometimes clearly objectifying and degrading women.  

http://www.boredpanda.com/powerful-social-advertisements/

This is the link to the example of 40 most powerful commercials. They are beautiful, thoughtful and humanly portrayed. There are many ways to create powerful commercials that send strong messages to the audience. Make them wisely, and the audiences will feel positively encouraged by them. After all, the audiences have the dollars and the sense.

https://youtu.be/FT2Z_3di5QM

KFC commercial.

Just because the fried-chicken-loving stereotype is well established in cultural references doesn’t mean that you can monetize it.

Racism should not continue to be the issue that divides our community. We have different color skin tones, but our hearts and blood are the same shape and color. Ethnic minorities are still underrepresented in many fields; therefore we should unite to fight against racism.

A lot of time nowadays, Racism and sexism are problems that go unnoticed in advertising. With so many products and with tough market competition, the creators have to brainstorm and think of various ways to create an eye catching commercial to sell a product. And sometimes, advertisers try to appeal to a certain type of people by using certain styles that go horribly wrong. Although racism is not intended, the finished product might be taken wrong. The language or accent that the actors or actresses were speaking sometimes can be exaggerated to make fun of certain groups of people. Physical attributes can also seem racist in certain aspects. Many of these noticeable racist advertisements happen during major events such as the super bowls, Olympics and even political races. Often, the ones are that are benefit from it are the advertisers, and the racism and sexism, especially in commercials should be addressed. Diversity also must be paid attention to, for their own benefits. The proportional representation of women and ethnic minorities in commercials will attract more variety of audiences and therefore consumers for that particular product. Advertisers need to take responsibility for their own actions and to end this type of exploitation.

We are living in the world surrounded by mass media, affected deeply by widespread pop culture whether we are aware of it or not. Television, magazines, and billboards nowadays not only show products, but rather show more like gimmicks in order to sell their products. In general, these gimmicks a lot of times seem to enforce racial stereotypes and to view women and ethnic minorities in a negative way. Not only that, the representation of black, Asian and other ethnic minorities are extremely low, only “5% of the almost 35,000 TV ads screened in the UK last year” according to a report by Clearcast.

The report found that TV advertising is "drastically under-representing" the ethnic minority groups. Black, Asian and those of other ethnic minorities account for about 13% of the UK population. Statistically, “total of 34,499 commercials given the green light last year just 1,845, or 5.3%, used actors from a non-white background. Only 1,130 ads used actors from an ethnic minority background in the main role, such as in the Premier Inn commercials featuring comedian Lenny Henry.” (Huffington Post)

Agencies that provide actors and actresses although trying to diversify their pool of talents, the numbers of minorities are still off balance comparing to the white ones.  “Among film actors, those three agencies represented 72% of the actors. Those actors were only about 7% minorities; the remaining 28% of actors were 19% minority.”

Additionally, when it comes to advertising, among ethnic minorities, perhaps the most stereotyped people are Indian-Americans. Although there have been many products named for Indians, like Jeep Cherokees, Winnebago RVs. Many of which don’t connect or relate to Indian in nature but they are often make the jokes about them to get them noticed.

If one persists that racial discrimination still exists in the USA today, then the media in perpetuating racial stereotypes and preserving the dominant white culture surely plays a big role in it.

The data on television news programs suggest racism still may be indirectly encouraged by normal crime and political coverage that depict blacks, in crime, as more physically threatening and, in politics, as more demanding than comparable white activists or leaders. Ironically, widespread employment of black television journalists suggests to viewers that racial discrimination is no longer a significant social problem.

In commercials, although there is no an agreed-upon way to define racism and its use in advertisement, one often easily recognizes if an ad is racist, stereotypic, and this often causes debates when discussing whether it is ethical to use stereotypes in advertisement.

It is claimed that advertisers often utilize already existing deep-seated ideologies in society and base their commercials on them. Racial stereotypes have been used in advertisement frequently as long as they have been around, and different ads over time have been thought by some to be more racist than others. We see many different outcomes, racial stereotyping can be positive for the advertiser as well as the viewer in instances where specific demographics are being targeted. It can also however, be perceived negatively in instances where the stereotyping begins causing offence when referring to different races, cultures, nationalities or ethnic groups. It could be offensive to some members of a group when their media representations are disproportionately distributed across a narrow type of appearance. In the modern time, racism in commercials generally are sometimes not so obvious but, there are still many commercials that encourage modern white racism—hostility, rejection and denial toward black and other ethnic minorities aspirations.

Hi

My name is Trang Fortier (Tracy). I originally come from Vietnam. Before coming to the US, I have learnt English, watched American movies, and listened to the American singers. At that time, most of what I know about America is through those, what appeared on TV. They were all stylist, spotless, luxurious, flawless. The American seem to have an “easy” life style, where everyone has nice houses, easy jobs…Maybe that’s the pop culture that want to show the world, and want other to believe in. In short, my imagination about America, probably like a lot of other people around the world is very similar due to what we have seen or listened from the media.  Upon coming here, I found a sort of a “culture shock”, where everything doesn’t appear exactly like what we had imagined back home. Yet, the life here does offer a closer approach to pop culture, the things that are widely consumed globally. I have got easier access to a new version of an Iphone for example, or can easily go to a music show of a favorite singer…That somehow satisfies my own needs, per say, and its enough for my friends to envy me.

Yet, when staying here, I still haven’t emerged as a total consumer of the American pop culture like what most of the people who grow up here do. I don’t watch a lot of TV, especially the sitcoms, probably because of the language barrier, of the culture norm and tradition that the outsiders like me “don’t get it”. I think there are a lot of immigrants like me who think the same thing, as they sometimes find it hard to fully integrate into the American society.  Talking about culture difference, I see that there are a lot of reality TV shows such as the Desperate Housewives, or the Kim Kardashian show… that probably won’t sell in other culture, and they might considered to be waste of time.  

My pop culture autobiography definitely has changed as it is enlarged and sort of eye opening for me, form what I imagined before, and I actually understand more about it than before. In terms of popular culture, through the course, I also understand more about the culture that a lot of people sort of taking it and living in it for granted. I can see the not so “painfully obvious” of sociology concept and surveys, and how it works in understanding the society that we live in. I can see how under or misrepresented of women, of the ethnic minorities, of gays, lesbians and trans, and the disabled people on TV, and how I, as a pop culture consumer, can help to correct them. I can see how racism still exists, not only in real life but also on mass media under different forms and perspectives. I can see how only few giant corporations control and sort of “bend” what the American think the way they like us to think.

In short, after the course, my knowledge has enlarged and the perspective on the pop culture also has changed. I don’t take it for granted like I did before, but maybe more judgmental towards a show or a music video.