Deck 11: Race in the Cultural Imagination

Question 1

This term refers to a variety of cultural creations, such as television, movies, video games, and comic books that are created for the masses, particularly for members of the middle and working classes.

A) popular culture
B) mass culture
C) deviant culture
D) imagined culture

Answer 1

A

Question 2

Culture is comprised of tangible cultural products created by groups of people, such as films, books, and music, referred to by sociologists as:

A) media culture
B) pop culture
C) nonmaterial culture
D) material culture

Answer 2

D

Question 3

An example of what sociologists call ___________ is the existence of a hip-hop group, made up of Samoans from Carson, California, who play largely for a Chicano audience.

A) globalization
B) cultural diffusion
C) pop culture fusion
D) musical discrimination

Answer 3

B

Question 4

Television can create a shared experience and a feeling that people are members of a collective, despite lacking in proximity to one another. This is called:

A) imagined communities
B) television culture
C) political programming
D) collective conditioning

Question 5

Which theorist argued that dominant groups were able to control subordinate groups through hegemony, which refers to the manufacture of consent.

A) Karl Marx
B) Antonio Gramsci
C) Patricia Hill Collins
D) Friedrich Engels

Question 6

Sociologists refer to this term when describing control of the mass media and the transmission of ideologies that work to the benefit of the dominant group.

A) dominant group domination
B) mass manipulation
C) mass brainwashing
D) cultural hegemony

Question 7

The most popular form of entertainment between the 1830s and 1910 were shows designed to appeal to white audiences and were made up of white performers who blackened their skin to portray black characters. These shows were known as:

A) minstrel shows
B) American white face shows
C) slavery culture shows
D) Jim Crow shows

Question 8

Extending both Gramsci's and Marx's theories is the Birmingham School, or the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, where media is understood from the perspective of

A) subordinate group resistance to dominant group ideologies
B) subordinate group acceptance of dominant group ideologies
C) dominant group resistance
D) none of the above

Question 9

Social scientists that study media and popular culture identify a phenomenon they refer to as this term, which is when one group has the power to keep others invisible in the media.

A) invisible power media
B) unstructured absence
C) structured absence
D) pop culture neglect

Question 10

It is important to study racial/ethnic images in American cinema because they are likely to emphasize white males as defenders of women and children against predatory Native Americans, Asians, blacks, or Mexicans. This can help sociologists analyze:

A) the political unconscious
B) cultural hegemony
C) racial ideologies
D) all of the above

Question 11

Sociologist Patricia Hill Collins refers to stereotypical images of black women as this term, meaning the images are a major instrument of power as they work to make racism, sexism, and poverty appear normal and natural.

A) hegemony
B) controlling images
C) deviant
D) double consciousness

Question 12

D.W. Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation (1915) broke from the southern literary tradition of treating blacks as passive, and instead emphasized blacks as:

A) violent and sexually aggressive, primarily toward white women
B) hard working with motivation to succeed
C) politically disempowered
D) lazy and unmotivated

Question 13

Hughey identified this in film, which refers to films that are characterized by the presence of more non-whites, interracial cooperation, and the superficial empowerment of historically marginalized people, yet actually misrepresents the extent of racial progress in society.

A) delusional racism
B) misrepresentation racism
C) cinethetic racism
D) cinematic diffusion

Question 14

Latinos are the largest and one of the fastest growing racial/ethnic groups in the United States, yet the National Association of Hispanic Journalists found that Latinos were:

A) virtually absent from national news coverage
B) when portrayed on the news, they are only portrayed as criminals
C) when portrayed on the news, they are only portrayed as illegal immigrants
D) all of the above

Question 15

Negative portrayals and stereotypes of Arabs, also known as anti-Arab racism, can be found throughout print and visual media. Sociologist Jack Shaheen (2007) calls this the ____________ because the stereotyping of Arabs continues despite the fact that Hollywood has been working to eliminate negative stereotypical portrayals of blacks and Jews.

A) anti-Arab cinema
B) Hollywood paradox
C) Arabic hatred
D) new anti-Semitism

Question 16

Eight out of ten black male video game characters are athletes, reinforcing the idea that race is genetic rather than a social construction. This fuels the dominant ideology and stereotype that:

A) blacks and whites are equally represented in video games
B) black athletic success is due to hard work and intelligence
C) blacks are innately athletic and aggressive
D) white athletic success is genetic

Question 17

Video games reinforce and expose the racial order of society in all of the following ways except:

A) white supremacist messages, such as in Ethnic Cleansing
B) negative images of black mothers, such as in DJ Boy
C) Asian characters are almost always portrayed as ninjas or martial artists
D) video game heroes are almost always women of color

Question 18

Subordinate group resistance is a way for people to express discontent in society. An example of this is:

A) African American music
B) minstrel shows
C) culture wars
D) none of the above

Question 19

While blues music initially reflected the black rural experience in Jim Crow America, jazz reflected the black urban experience. Both forms of music were originally labeled as __________ at the turn of the twentieth century.

A) conformist
B) deviant
C) white
D) cultural diffusion

Question 20

Cultural diffusion can sometimes become _________, where non-white groups are denied the profits from their cultural creations.

A) cultural economic control
B) racist appropriation
C) controlling images
D) reverse racism

Question 21

The Freedom Singers were a central part of which U.S. social movement:

A) Suffrage Movement
B) American Indian Movement
C) Black Power Movement
D) Civil Rights Movement

Question 22

The film Smoke Signals (1998) was the first feature film to be written and directed by and cast with American Indians. It challenged dominant ideology in the following way:

A) Used humor to emphasize Indian stereotypes, poverty, and identity issues
B) gave an accurate historical account of Native American culture
C) brown actors wore white face
D) all of the above

Question 23

W.E.B. DuBois (1903) argued that African Americans feel a sense of ____________, because they must always look at themselves through the eyes of the dominant group.

A) cultural compassion
B) bifurcation
C) identity split
D) double consciousness

Question 24

The intense debate surrounding the Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the way in which public history exhibits view the past and represent racial/ethnic groups, is all a part of the larger:

A) culture wars
B) collective memory
C) history resistance movement
D) denial American movement

Question 25

Our nation shares a ______________, which is a belief about the past that our citizens hold in common and publicly recognize as legitimate representations of their history.

A) culture peace movement
B) collective diversity
C) collective memory
D) double consciousness

Question 26

One of the reasons there is such debate surrounding how history is represented at public history sites is that these take on a sacred quality and become a part of the national culture. According to Robert Bellah, public history sites function similarly to a:

A) civil religion
B) cultural diffusion
C) cultural idol worship
D) national spirituality

Question 27

The national monument Mount Rushmore is offensive to many Native Americans because:

A) the Black Hills where it is located are sacred lands to the Lakota people, the original inhabitants of the region
B) it celebrates European Americans who killed many Native Americans
C) it was built on land that the government took from them
D) all of the above

Question 28

This term refers to the ways members of one racial/ethnic group adopt a cultural product associated with another. For instance, white audiences went crazy over Elvis, even as he admitted he took his style from black blues artists in Memphis. This is problematic when it denies the original group the ability to profit from its creations.

A) Ethnic appropriation
B) Antiracist appropriation
C) Color appropriation
D) Racist appropriation

Question 29

In the past, white actors were used to play characters of color in film and on television, this was referred to as

A) Blackface
B) Brownface
C) Whitewashing
D) All of the above terms have been used to describe this phenomenon

Question 30

Which of the following are current battles over public history and race?

A) The state of South Carolina removing the Confederate flag from state grounds
B) An anthropology exhibit at the Chicago Field Museum known as the Races of Mankind
C) Attempts to remove 4 Confederate monuments in New Orleans
D) All of the above are examples of current battles over public history and race

Question 31

In the "Millennial Attitudes on Race in the US" survey, millennials of color were less likely to support the removal of Confederate monuments compares to white respondents.

Question 32

Counterhegemonic messages emphasize subordinate group agency through acts of resistance to dominant cultural messages and use culture as a site of resistance.

Question 33

When racial/ethnic minorities are portrayed in media, they are almost always under white control, a practice known as minstrelsy.

Question 34

Brownface is when stories about Hispanics are told by white directors and writers and often played by white actors with brown face paint on.

Question 35

Portrayals of Native people on YouTube often perpetuate the same stereotypes as traditional media.

Question 36

After years of activist work and culture debates, a formal memorial was built at Wounded Knee to accurately interpret the massacre that took place there in American history.

Question 37

Racialized images in popular culture do not influence how we see ourselves and others if we have internal will power.

Question 38

Historical record shows that the federal government described the Manzanar "War Relocation Center" for Japanese Americans as a concentration camp.

Question 39

Ethnic characterizations is a term to describe when white characters in TV and film reflect assimilationist stereotypes of media producers.

Question 40

Another form of anti-Arab racism in media images is that of "othering," where Arabs are represented as the other throughout media.

Question 41

Actors of color rarely get industry acclaim for their work in the form of Oscar nominations and awards, which is what inspired the #OscarsSoWhite movement in 2015 and 2016.

Question 42

Describe the primary sociological perspectives on race and popular culture: functionalism, conflict theory, and hegemony. What is Contemporary Cultural Studies and how does it differ and expand on these theories?

Question 43

Racial imagery in film and television have both contributed to the invisibility of racial/ethnic minorities and helped perpetuate racial/ethnic stereotypes. Provide two examples of each.

Question 44

Describe in detail the stereotypical portrayals of African Americans in Hollywood film history, including the "magical negro." Describe the impact of The Birth of a Nation (1915) film and how it contributed to racism in America.

Question 45

Describe three negative portrayals of Arabs in print and visual media. How does this portrayal compare to Asian images in media?

Question 46

There is some evidence that new media, such as user-generated content and video games, both proliferate stereotypic images of racial/ethnic minorities and hold potential for empowered racial/ethnic minority group representation. Provide evidence of both for user-generated content websites and video games.

Question 47

Describe how music has been a form of resistance for subordinate groups in U.S. culture, in particular describe the role of blues, jazz, and rap music.

Question 48

What role did music play in the Civil Rights Movement? Describe its impact from a functionalist perspective.

Question 49

Describe the relationship between race and public history. Provide several examples of how racial/ethnic discrimination is represented in public history sites in the U.S. How is the Alamo often represented in public history?

Question 50

Describe the representation of Native American imagery in film and television. Describe examples of how public history, and thereby collective memory, has tried to ignore the Native American experience. How have Native Americans resisted?