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To obtain a
copy contact:
The Media Education Foundation
26 Center Street
Northampton, MA 01060
Phone: (800) 897-0089 or (413) 584-8500
Web site:www.mediaed.org
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"Being
enlightened witnesses means becoming critically vigilant about the
world we live in."
In this persuasive
and passionate documentary critique, English professor bell hooks
(who writes her name in lower case letters) reveals the racist and
anti-feminist messages woven into widely varying samples of popular
culture. Her commentary is punctuated with excerpts from music videos,
feature films, and television news coverage. The OJ Simpson trial,
Spike Lee, and "Hoop Dreams" all come up for analysis.
The film is divided into two parts. In part one, hooks lays out
the theoretical foundations of her work, arguing that film imagery
and media representations are deliberately crafted to convey messages
that support and reinforce the authority of powerful white males
at the expense of women and people of color. In part two, she demonstrates
how to recognize and counterbalance the "white supremacist,
capitalist patriarchal values" reflected in popular media and
public debate. hooks asserts that students need to learn how to
identify the divisive messages about race, gender, class and privilege
embedded in popular media in order to become active agents of change
within the culture.
Recommended
for college-level sociology and communications classes and community
groups working to change media misrepresentations of gender and
ethnic differences.
66 minutes.
©1997. The Media Education Foundation
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