Sut Jhally
Pub. Date
2014.
Description
In Advertising & the End of the World, Sut Jhally, Executive Director of MEF, exposes the inherent conflict between commercial culture - as aggressively sold by private, global media systems - and environmental stewardship. This powerful video goes beyond simply critiquing commercial images to challenge us to evaluate the costs of consumer society and how we participate in it.
Pub. Date
2016.
Description
Pornography has moved from the margins of society into the very mainstream of American culture. From Internet pornography to MTV, sexualized images of idealized women and men jump off the screen and into our lives, in the process shaping our gender identities, our body image, and our most intimate relationships. In this multimedia presentation based on her acclaimed book, leading anti-porn feminist and scholar Gail Dines argues that the dominant images...
Pub. Date
2014.
Description
Cultural historian Dave Zirin, whose influential blog and bestselling books have offered searing insights into the politics of American sports, examines the myriad ways sports culture has worked both to reproduce and challenge the wider culture's dominant ideas about race and racial difference. Interviewed by Communication scholar Sut Jhally, whose own work has sought to clarify the relationship between popular culture and racial attitudes, Zirin's...
Pub. Date
2014.
Description
Over the past three decades, obesity rates in the US have more than doubled for children and tripled for adolescents ́ and a startling 70% of adults are now obese or overweight. The result has been a widening epidemic of obesity-related health problems, including coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, and Type 2 diabetes. While discussions about this spiraling health crisis have tended to focus on the need for more exercise and individual...
Pub. Date
2015.
Description
For years, there has been widespread speculation, but very little consensus, about the relationship between violent video games and violence in the real world. Joystick Warriors provides the clearest account yet of the latest research on this issue. Drawing on the insights of media scholars, military analysts, combat veterans, and gamers themselves, the film trains its sights on the wildly popular genre of first-person shooter games, exploring how...
Pub. Date
2014.
Description
Economist and bestselling author Juliet Schor lays out a positive vision for rethinking our relationship to consumer goods in this accessible and timely analysis of the devastating ecological, social, and personal costs of mass consumerism. Ranging from cutting-edge developments in economic theory, social analysis, and ecological design to real-world examples of these ideas being put into practice around the world, Schor makes a compelling case that...
Pub. Date
2015.
Description
In this provocative presentation, Anne Munch, a career prosecutor and advocate for victims of gender violence, examines how cultural attitudes shape the outcomes of rape and sexual assault cases. Drawing on years of experience prosecuting sex crimes, Munch shows how rape cases often turn on the involvement of an "unnamed conspirator" -- the complex of myths and stories we tell ourselves as a culture about sex, gender, power, and responsibility. Using...
Pub. Date
2021.
Description
In this recently discovered, newly restored video of one of Stuart Hall’s most famous lectures, Hall speaks with dazzling precision about the responsibilities of intellectuals and educators in the face of undemocratic structures of power, injustice, racism, and inequality, and lays out in the clearest possible terms a theoretical framework for dissecting and resisting authoritarian thinking without lapsing into reductive ideological simplifications....
Pub. Date
2018.
Description
When the world-renowned cultural and political theorist Stuart Hall died in 2014, he left behind an unfinished 300,000-word memoir. In this interview with MEF Executive Director Sut Jhally, Bill Schwarz talks about the challenges of preparing the final published book, detailing his negotiations and conversations with the disembodied words of an author who cherished dialogue above all else.
Pub. Date
2014.
Description
The line between sexual consent and sexual coercion is not always as clear as it seems -- and according to Harry Brod, this is exactly why we should approach our sexual interactions with great care. Brod, a professor of philosophy and leader in the pro-feminist men's movement, offers a unique take on the problem of sexual assault, one that complicates the issue even as it clarifies the bottom-line principle that consent must always be explicitly granted,...
Pub. Date
2014.
Description
Social and developmental psychologist and author Lynn Phillips explores the line between consent and coercion in this thought-provoking look at popular culture and the ways real girls and women navigate their heterosexual relationships and hookups. Featuring dramatizations of interviews that Phillips conducted with hundreds of young women, the film examines how the wider culture's frequently contradictory messages about pleasure, danger, agency, and...
Pub. Date
2015.
Description
In this powerful new film based on his bestselling book, sociologist Michael Kimmel maps the troubling social world where boys become men -- a new stage of development he calls "Guyland." Arguing that the traditional adult signposts and cultural signals that once helped boys navigate their way to manhood are no longer clear, Kimmel provides an astonishing glimpse into a world where more and more young men are trying desperately to prove their masculinity...
Pub. Date
2014.
Description
Turning to issues of media policy, George Gerbner delivers a stinging indictment of the way the so called "information superhighway" is being constructed. By examining the logic of globalization he shows the ineffectual nature of our present responses - such as the V-Chip - to deal with the urgent crisis of the media. Showing the real uses to which the "information superhighway" will be put by its corporate masters, he urges the citizens of the world...
Pub. Date
2014.
Description
Recovering Bodies features college students on the subject of eating disorders. They share their stories and experiences about the wide range of pressures that can lead to disordered eating, while providing valuable personal insights into the variety of psychological and physical symptoms involved. Also features expert commentary from professionals, and provides invaluable and empowering information about successful recovery and healing strategies....
Pub. Date
2015.
Description
Consumer capitalism dominates our economy, our politics, and our culture, even though a growing body of research suggests it may be well past its sell-by date. In Consumerism and the Limits to Imagination, media scholar Justin Lewis makes a compelling case that consumer capitalism can no longer deliver on its promise of enhancing quality of life, and argues that changing direction will require changing our media system and our cultural environment....
Pub. Date
2014.
Description
Behind the Screens explores the trend toward "hypercommercialism" in Hollywood film: product placement, tie-ins, merchandising, and cross-promotions. The film mixes clips from popular Hollywood films with expert commentary to show how movies have become vehicles for the ulterior marketing and advertising motives of studios and their owners. Featuring Oscar-nominated screenwriter Jeremy Pikser; Mark Crispin Miller; Susan Douglas; Robert McChesney,...
Pub. Date
2014.
Description
In this illustrated lecture, Stuart Hall examines gender and racial stereotyping in the media. He focuses on the concept of "representation" to show how reality is never experienced directly, but is instead filtered through symbolic cultural categories. Ideal for classes on cultural studies, African American studies, media studies, communication, sociology, and anthropology, among others.
Pub. Date
2014.
Description
In this classic 1989 lecture, now available for the first time, world-renowned cultural theorist Stuart Hall traces the social, intellectual, and institutional environment from which cultural studies emerged. An invaluable introduction to the issues that inspired cultural studies as both an intellectual and political project.