MEDIA, CULTURE & DIVERSITY
WRITTEN EXAM = 75%
GROUP ASSIGNMENT = 25% → presentation
LECTURE 1 - INTRODUCTION: WHAT’S AT STAKE
➔ EXAMPLE TO LEARN THIS CLASS: BOEF
S5: Flor Pua: fully Belgian, but parents not from Belgian descent. → enormous racist & transphobic
comments linked to her non-whiteness. → was picked up by social media & afterwards media,
becoming an international dispute.
Prof points to a certain improvement because Kedist Deltour was elected next year, who isn’t white
either and got less media upheaval. (Yet, I think it’s because she was adopted).
S6: see website spot: objectification & commodification. YET other feminists: why do we consider this
women as lacking agency & we make comments about them as if they’re submissive. Maybe these
women use it as an instrumental way to climb the social class ladder. → several feminist critiques:
1) radical feminist perspective: objectification. The female body = exploited / Marxist/socialist
feminist perspective: commodification. Neo-liberalism & capitalism affects gender identity.
2) liberal/post-feminist: don’t question capitalism, the system in itself. Might only question why
women use this as an instrument. Idea that women can figure out their own path. The right to decide
how they want to express their gender.
S7: AB campaign: in middle of COVID, video was launched about the Next Live, longing for everything
to open again. But certain ‘hidden’ messages: only POC & women in video, also therefore
communicating that from here the Next Life will also be much more diverse. In Brussels they use several
languages and they do that in this video for the 1st time as well, even though the AB is supposed to be
mainly Flemish. They talk about wanting to be close & together. Yet is it real or just window-dressing?
S8: BOEF: main trope in his song? → conflicting discourses: his low class & ethnicity is somehow
justifying the fact that he makes no time for a women and that it’s a sexist, narrow stereotype about
her.
S9: /
S10: he calls women who helped him k*’s. Very derogatory, slut-shaming word. Is it his star-image, a
commercialized alter ego? Or is it his true self?
S11: he’s both denounced, because hip-hop, slang… is not an excuse for language that’s still
discrimination. But also supported: words are used all the time between kids.
S12: parody: satire. Boycott: Karolien De Becker: using symbolic capital to boycott, but even more
radical in professional relationships.
S13: public debate: too often focusing on individuals and not looking at structural issues. YET: if looking
at bigger pictures: double standards: using his sexism to express racism. People comment on BOEF that
he’s sexist because of his roots. YET: someone like Lil Klein as problematic but as a white rapper he was
never challenged like that.
S14: we’ll try to de-normalize popular representations.
S15 – 30: /
S31: can watch to learn & be inspired.
, LECTURE 2 - CORE CONCEPTS, APPROACHES AND DEBATES
1/ IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY
➔ EXAMPLE TO LEARN THIS CLASS: 2 Live Crew, Sex & The City, This is America
1.1. ON SELF-IDENTITY AND SOCIAL IDENITY
S3: identity is ubiquitous: sense of life through identity categories (e.g. Belgian, Muslim, working class):
- Based on attributed/embodied/biological traits → on which we base certain characteristics
through culturalization.
E.g. born with certain sex characteristics (sex category male/female or race category
black/Asian) → culturalized into categories with sets of characteristics about these
genders/races (social identity). And what sense you make out of it yourself (self-identity) can
be non-binary or trans, or e.g. an Asian that doesn’t fit the stereotypes.
- Sociocultural factors also lead to identity categories.
E.g. having a national identity, religion, social class: being born in a blue-collar family Turkish
migrant in a household with little income → leads to being a Belgian working class Muslim.
SO identity = largely actually a set of embodied traits, something biological. Yet, we see that through
culturalization, these traits have been constructed into a set of characteristics associated with that.
Chris Barker sees identity as how we make sense of ourselves & therefore of others, he distinguishes:
→ self-identity: is when we feel affectionate with our identity. Verbal conceptions about ourselves &
emotional identification with self-descriptions. E.g. gay & non-binary.
→ social identity: what others think of us, the identity they put on us. Wearing Hijab → must be Muslim.
S4: Barker also uses Anthony Giddens definition of socialization: becoming a person self-aware of and
skilled in the culture in which it is born.
Culture = way we think about human activity within particular contexts. SO: to make sense of our
identity (self-identity), depends on what our culture – shared cultural knowledge - enables or expects
us to be (social identity).
→ to make sense of being non-binary, our culture needs to give the tools – cultural resources / cultural
repertoires (consisting of concepts & normative ideas; acceptance, expectations) for us to
claim/understand these subjective feelings and create a narrative about the self. Being non-binary is
not a trend, it’s just the first time that it’s given a name. So a cultural repertoire can help make sense
of yourself, as well as hamper people’s lives through social identity = male genitalia → should ‘act like
a man’.
S5: /
1.2. SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST PERSPECTIVE = FRAMEWORK OF COURSE !
S6: Identity is discussed in many theories & disciplines, but in this course, the paradigm (dominant since
70s) used will be the non-essentialist philosophy: within which we have the social constructionist
perspective: → cultural repertoires underpinning identity categories depending on cultural contexts =
an argument in favour of this. = focus on culture as language & other discursive practices.
,Their ontological position sees there is an objective reality but from their epistemological position they
think we make sense of that reality through social construction.
Theories within this is historicism, symbolic interactionism & materialist feminism → all say that
identities are socially constructed and vary culturally & historically.
essentialism: embodied identities (gay, woman…) = exist before birth; they are natural. → biological
determinism. E.g. homosexual identity = ahistorical. Or e.g. as a woman, you share certain feelings with
all women throughout history & globe. → men & women = inherently different beings belonging to
separate categories.
Will make differences between these embodied traits: majorities & minoritized entities. E.g. women
are quantitatively same as men but in practice treated like a minority.
Even within diversity, cultural repertoires will make sure there’s no diversity within diversity, all seen as
same ‘minority’.
1.3. SOCIOCULTURAL DIVERSITY, INEQUALITY AND IDENTITY POLITICS
S7: Aforementioned: how people make sense. Now: implications of identity categories on societies. →
identity can mean sameness BUT that also implies the existence of difference. → all these different
gender, sexual, racial, ethnic… identities = sociocultural diversity. Diversity implies being neutral BUT:
has become deeply political since identities have been discursively constructed as either ‘mainstream’
vs. ‘abnormal’. → discursive tropes → 1) binary, oppositional, hierarchical identities: e.g. patriarchal
(man superior women), heteronormative (hetero > queer) societies. 2) cultural repertoires that limit
the diversity within identity categories: can only be black or man in a certain way to be appropriate.
→ the repeated articulation of these tropes leads to structural inequalities in a societies institutions
& everyday life practices.
Pink jobs: jobs more often done by women and in that way hiding structural inequalities. By acting like
it’s a female job, it creates inequalities.
S8: → as a reaction: people who share identity – historically discriminated groups - might unite to make
visible, question, overthrow this oppression & claim agency & change the sociocultural status quo,
THUS: engage in identity politics; i.e. ‘the forging of new languages of identity combined with acting
to change social practices by coalition formations where at least some values are shared → BUT: 1)
does not annul the multiple identities people have within 1 coalition (cf. intersectionality: e.g. racism
within feminism = hampering their emancipation). 2) NON-essential: don’t have to experience it the
same way. E.g. 1000 women will experience womanhood differently but might form alliances around
particular interests; e.g. women’s rights. → example? →
S9: the #MeToo movement: was started in 2006 by a black woman – Tarana Burke – for survivors of
sexual & systemic abuse of power. → only in 2017 when Hollywood actress Alyssa Milano used it as a
#, to show the magnitude, the movement became of magnitude as well.
→ shows the symbolic capital of white actresses vs. the small to none media attention a black woman
got → differences between people who identify as women. Why? →
1.4 INTERSECTIONALITY
, S10: Kimberle Crenshaw felt that identity politics didn’t give the tools to deal with intersectionality. In
exploring racial & gender dimensions of violence, she found that identity politics has been important 1)
to see systemic oppression vs. an isolated an individual (= often the case with violence) and 2) to find
community & intellectual development. BUT: e.g. refugee women could not express their ‘feminism’
within the movement, i.e. identity politics ignores intragroup differences. → a violence against women
of colour can only be understood through the lens of intersectionality: violence can only be understood
by seeing all identity categories causing it; e.g. race & class. → identity politics fights either racism or
sexism but not the intersectionality between both minoritized identities → ignorance brings tension
among groups which counters efforts to politicize violence against women.
S11: Crenshaw’s article tackles 3 forms:
1) structural intersectionality: the embodying of these intersecting identities, results in qualitatively
different actual experiences as a consequence. Yet, policies don’t take that into account: legislation
start from white women’s experiences if tackling gender-based violence → = ignores structural
hindrances of non-white women; e.g. family honour, e.g. it’s much harder to go to court -impossible
(risk deportation) – for a refugee women after being raped, than a white woman.
2) political intersectionality: = is the making sure that intersectionality is the basis for political
decisions. = laws that acknowledge structural intersectionality. In this way: she challenges how identity
politics of the anti-racist movement was dismissing gender while the feminist movement only has white
women at the top. → hegemonic oppressive discourses. → both contributing to the marginalizing of
violence against women of colour → therefor need:
3) representational intersectionality: refers to the cultural construction of women of colour → look
at representations from an intersectional lens & ask questions about the sociocultural implications of
representations.
→ her example: 2 Live Crew: American lawsuit against this hip hop collective, arrested under a Florida
obscenity statute for their performance in sex club.
S12: Crenshaw was interested in the public debate & what was said about representations of black
women → 2 views:
S13: 1) feminist prism: exclusively using a feminist lens: they would focus on how misogynist this black
band is; objectifying black women & condoning sexual violence against them. Yet not that white bands
like the rolling stones, who said exactly the same & similar things, were never punished for it in that
way. When looking at the lawsuit, it was racist in 2 ways: 1) focused a lot on black masculinity in relation
to pop music: stressing stereotypical idea of black men as hyper-sexual & aggressive yet presenting it
as neutral. 2) practices & musical conventions that subvert mainstream pop were denied to have artistic
value; saying that hip hop is only intended to degrade etc.; such as those mentioned below:
S14: 2) the anti-racist prism: took on the defence of Live Crew: the music is actually mocking the
stereotypes and it’s their way of humour. = hyper stereotyping = was intended to mock with black
stereotypes. Why? → political: a counter-strategy to stereotype, by reclaiming stereotypes: expose the
ridiculousness of stereotypes of black masculinity → advance the black antiracist agenda by liberating
black men from these stereotypes. Or just cultural: just about humour: NOT intended to cause injury.
= Yet: = mimicking white comedians’ excuses being racist. → they’re punching down (mocking those
who are already discriminated and mocked with vs. punching up: being satirical about those who are
WRITTEN EXAM = 75%
GROUP ASSIGNMENT = 25% → presentation
LECTURE 1 - INTRODUCTION: WHAT’S AT STAKE
➔ EXAMPLE TO LEARN THIS CLASS: BOEF
S5: Flor Pua: fully Belgian, but parents not from Belgian descent. → enormous racist & transphobic
comments linked to her non-whiteness. → was picked up by social media & afterwards media,
becoming an international dispute.
Prof points to a certain improvement because Kedist Deltour was elected next year, who isn’t white
either and got less media upheaval. (Yet, I think it’s because she was adopted).
S6: see website spot: objectification & commodification. YET other feminists: why do we consider this
women as lacking agency & we make comments about them as if they’re submissive. Maybe these
women use it as an instrumental way to climb the social class ladder. → several feminist critiques:
1) radical feminist perspective: objectification. The female body = exploited / Marxist/socialist
feminist perspective: commodification. Neo-liberalism & capitalism affects gender identity.
2) liberal/post-feminist: don’t question capitalism, the system in itself. Might only question why
women use this as an instrument. Idea that women can figure out their own path. The right to decide
how they want to express their gender.
S7: AB campaign: in middle of COVID, video was launched about the Next Live, longing for everything
to open again. But certain ‘hidden’ messages: only POC & women in video, also therefore
communicating that from here the Next Life will also be much more diverse. In Brussels they use several
languages and they do that in this video for the 1st time as well, even though the AB is supposed to be
mainly Flemish. They talk about wanting to be close & together. Yet is it real or just window-dressing?
S8: BOEF: main trope in his song? → conflicting discourses: his low class & ethnicity is somehow
justifying the fact that he makes no time for a women and that it’s a sexist, narrow stereotype about
her.
S9: /
S10: he calls women who helped him k*’s. Very derogatory, slut-shaming word. Is it his star-image, a
commercialized alter ego? Or is it his true self?
S11: he’s both denounced, because hip-hop, slang… is not an excuse for language that’s still
discrimination. But also supported: words are used all the time between kids.
S12: parody: satire. Boycott: Karolien De Becker: using symbolic capital to boycott, but even more
radical in professional relationships.
S13: public debate: too often focusing on individuals and not looking at structural issues. YET: if looking
at bigger pictures: double standards: using his sexism to express racism. People comment on BOEF that
he’s sexist because of his roots. YET: someone like Lil Klein as problematic but as a white rapper he was
never challenged like that.
S14: we’ll try to de-normalize popular representations.
S15 – 30: /
S31: can watch to learn & be inspired.
, LECTURE 2 - CORE CONCEPTS, APPROACHES AND DEBATES
1/ IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY
➔ EXAMPLE TO LEARN THIS CLASS: 2 Live Crew, Sex & The City, This is America
1.1. ON SELF-IDENTITY AND SOCIAL IDENITY
S3: identity is ubiquitous: sense of life through identity categories (e.g. Belgian, Muslim, working class):
- Based on attributed/embodied/biological traits → on which we base certain characteristics
through culturalization.
E.g. born with certain sex characteristics (sex category male/female or race category
black/Asian) → culturalized into categories with sets of characteristics about these
genders/races (social identity). And what sense you make out of it yourself (self-identity) can
be non-binary or trans, or e.g. an Asian that doesn’t fit the stereotypes.
- Sociocultural factors also lead to identity categories.
E.g. having a national identity, religion, social class: being born in a blue-collar family Turkish
migrant in a household with little income → leads to being a Belgian working class Muslim.
SO identity = largely actually a set of embodied traits, something biological. Yet, we see that through
culturalization, these traits have been constructed into a set of characteristics associated with that.
Chris Barker sees identity as how we make sense of ourselves & therefore of others, he distinguishes:
→ self-identity: is when we feel affectionate with our identity. Verbal conceptions about ourselves &
emotional identification with self-descriptions. E.g. gay & non-binary.
→ social identity: what others think of us, the identity they put on us. Wearing Hijab → must be Muslim.
S4: Barker also uses Anthony Giddens definition of socialization: becoming a person self-aware of and
skilled in the culture in which it is born.
Culture = way we think about human activity within particular contexts. SO: to make sense of our
identity (self-identity), depends on what our culture – shared cultural knowledge - enables or expects
us to be (social identity).
→ to make sense of being non-binary, our culture needs to give the tools – cultural resources / cultural
repertoires (consisting of concepts & normative ideas; acceptance, expectations) for us to
claim/understand these subjective feelings and create a narrative about the self. Being non-binary is
not a trend, it’s just the first time that it’s given a name. So a cultural repertoire can help make sense
of yourself, as well as hamper people’s lives through social identity = male genitalia → should ‘act like
a man’.
S5: /
1.2. SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST PERSPECTIVE = FRAMEWORK OF COURSE !
S6: Identity is discussed in many theories & disciplines, but in this course, the paradigm (dominant since
70s) used will be the non-essentialist philosophy: within which we have the social constructionist
perspective: → cultural repertoires underpinning identity categories depending on cultural contexts =
an argument in favour of this. = focus on culture as language & other discursive practices.
,Their ontological position sees there is an objective reality but from their epistemological position they
think we make sense of that reality through social construction.
Theories within this is historicism, symbolic interactionism & materialist feminism → all say that
identities are socially constructed and vary culturally & historically.
essentialism: embodied identities (gay, woman…) = exist before birth; they are natural. → biological
determinism. E.g. homosexual identity = ahistorical. Or e.g. as a woman, you share certain feelings with
all women throughout history & globe. → men & women = inherently different beings belonging to
separate categories.
Will make differences between these embodied traits: majorities & minoritized entities. E.g. women
are quantitatively same as men but in practice treated like a minority.
Even within diversity, cultural repertoires will make sure there’s no diversity within diversity, all seen as
same ‘minority’.
1.3. SOCIOCULTURAL DIVERSITY, INEQUALITY AND IDENTITY POLITICS
S7: Aforementioned: how people make sense. Now: implications of identity categories on societies. →
identity can mean sameness BUT that also implies the existence of difference. → all these different
gender, sexual, racial, ethnic… identities = sociocultural diversity. Diversity implies being neutral BUT:
has become deeply political since identities have been discursively constructed as either ‘mainstream’
vs. ‘abnormal’. → discursive tropes → 1) binary, oppositional, hierarchical identities: e.g. patriarchal
(man superior women), heteronormative (hetero > queer) societies. 2) cultural repertoires that limit
the diversity within identity categories: can only be black or man in a certain way to be appropriate.
→ the repeated articulation of these tropes leads to structural inequalities in a societies institutions
& everyday life practices.
Pink jobs: jobs more often done by women and in that way hiding structural inequalities. By acting like
it’s a female job, it creates inequalities.
S8: → as a reaction: people who share identity – historically discriminated groups - might unite to make
visible, question, overthrow this oppression & claim agency & change the sociocultural status quo,
THUS: engage in identity politics; i.e. ‘the forging of new languages of identity combined with acting
to change social practices by coalition formations where at least some values are shared → BUT: 1)
does not annul the multiple identities people have within 1 coalition (cf. intersectionality: e.g. racism
within feminism = hampering their emancipation). 2) NON-essential: don’t have to experience it the
same way. E.g. 1000 women will experience womanhood differently but might form alliances around
particular interests; e.g. women’s rights. → example? →
S9: the #MeToo movement: was started in 2006 by a black woman – Tarana Burke – for survivors of
sexual & systemic abuse of power. → only in 2017 when Hollywood actress Alyssa Milano used it as a
#, to show the magnitude, the movement became of magnitude as well.
→ shows the symbolic capital of white actresses vs. the small to none media attention a black woman
got → differences between people who identify as women. Why? →
1.4 INTERSECTIONALITY
, S10: Kimberle Crenshaw felt that identity politics didn’t give the tools to deal with intersectionality. In
exploring racial & gender dimensions of violence, she found that identity politics has been important 1)
to see systemic oppression vs. an isolated an individual (= often the case with violence) and 2) to find
community & intellectual development. BUT: e.g. refugee women could not express their ‘feminism’
within the movement, i.e. identity politics ignores intragroup differences. → a violence against women
of colour can only be understood through the lens of intersectionality: violence can only be understood
by seeing all identity categories causing it; e.g. race & class. → identity politics fights either racism or
sexism but not the intersectionality between both minoritized identities → ignorance brings tension
among groups which counters efforts to politicize violence against women.
S11: Crenshaw’s article tackles 3 forms:
1) structural intersectionality: the embodying of these intersecting identities, results in qualitatively
different actual experiences as a consequence. Yet, policies don’t take that into account: legislation
start from white women’s experiences if tackling gender-based violence → = ignores structural
hindrances of non-white women; e.g. family honour, e.g. it’s much harder to go to court -impossible
(risk deportation) – for a refugee women after being raped, than a white woman.
2) political intersectionality: = is the making sure that intersectionality is the basis for political
decisions. = laws that acknowledge structural intersectionality. In this way: she challenges how identity
politics of the anti-racist movement was dismissing gender while the feminist movement only has white
women at the top. → hegemonic oppressive discourses. → both contributing to the marginalizing of
violence against women of colour → therefor need:
3) representational intersectionality: refers to the cultural construction of women of colour → look
at representations from an intersectional lens & ask questions about the sociocultural implications of
representations.
→ her example: 2 Live Crew: American lawsuit against this hip hop collective, arrested under a Florida
obscenity statute for their performance in sex club.
S12: Crenshaw was interested in the public debate & what was said about representations of black
women → 2 views:
S13: 1) feminist prism: exclusively using a feminist lens: they would focus on how misogynist this black
band is; objectifying black women & condoning sexual violence against them. Yet not that white bands
like the rolling stones, who said exactly the same & similar things, were never punished for it in that
way. When looking at the lawsuit, it was racist in 2 ways: 1) focused a lot on black masculinity in relation
to pop music: stressing stereotypical idea of black men as hyper-sexual & aggressive yet presenting it
as neutral. 2) practices & musical conventions that subvert mainstream pop were denied to have artistic
value; saying that hip hop is only intended to degrade etc.; such as those mentioned below:
S14: 2) the anti-racist prism: took on the defence of Live Crew: the music is actually mocking the
stereotypes and it’s their way of humour. = hyper stereotyping = was intended to mock with black
stereotypes. Why? → political: a counter-strategy to stereotype, by reclaiming stereotypes: expose the
ridiculousness of stereotypes of black masculinity → advance the black antiracist agenda by liberating
black men from these stereotypes. Or just cultural: just about humour: NOT intended to cause injury.
= Yet: = mimicking white comedians’ excuses being racist. → they’re punching down (mocking those
who are already discriminated and mocked with vs. punching up: being satirical about those who are
