I was interested in critic bell hooks gave to examples as what she termed “white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy”. Because this talk is quite dated and I haven’t seen the films she discuss it was hard to related to some of the movies she used. It would have been interesting to hear her thoughts on modern mass media (ie the Web) and whether or not it propagates the same messages in the same media as traditional media does.
While I do agree with her that mass media propagates and reinforces racism and sexism I believe the role it plays is that of a feedback loop. Whereas a certain class consumers of media dictate what they want (or think they want), media companies produce content to meet those needs, that content is then view by those and others and is propagated as the social norm. So the issue of oppressive media is the fault of both the consumers and the producers of content. If we as a society agree that we no longer want such ideas to be present in our society, then I believe the media will respond as such.
One personal example of how I feel into this media trap is from my childhood. As a child I always had trouble making friends, and spent a lot of my time alone at my house watching TV. At the time (and still today) the media portrayed being “dumb” as cool and being smart as “uncool”. I tried to play by model to make friends, and as a result did not do very well in school until I rejected it in the 4th grade. I wasn’t very successful in making friends either, because as it turned out I realized the most popular and cool kids in my class were also the “smart” ones.
One great thing that about the Internet (that I also fear that it is losing due to its increasing use as a gateway for “mass media”) is that it allows a lot broader spectrum of media to propagate, media that isn’t dominated by big players, but by smaller (mostly) independent content providers and individuals who can express their creativity to an audience.
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