I recently watched “Horrible Bosses” and was shocked by the amount of racial othering (and just plain blatant racism) in the movie. If you haven’t seen it, the movie is about three white men who hate their bosses and decide to kill them. Initially they want someone to do it for them, so they go out searching for a hit man. After an unsuccessful attempt...

  For my film production class, I am involved in a documentary that focuses on gender role reinforcements of professional body builders, especially for females. With the addition of new categories, female body builders are being forced to increase their sex appeal through high heels, expensive suits, and make up during competition.  Competitors who...

While driving through Hollywood on my way to work, I was prompted to take this photo (while stopped in bumper to bumper traffic of course) because it triggered my memory of several important theorists that we have studied in this course. Goffman, Marx and Marcuse all came to mind as I watched these proletariats hanging off the side of a skyscraper on...

In this scene of the 1997 film Liar Liar, Jim Carrey’s character is forced to go before the executive board of the law firm he works for and give his honest opinion of his superior. The whole premise of the movie is that due to his son’s birthday wish, Carrey cannot tell a lie. This includes the seemingly innocent white lies that people tell on a daily...

As weird as this may sound, but today while in office hours with another professor, I finally noticed the relationship between Brawny paper towels, their logo and the literal definition of the word “Brawny”. According to Dictionary.com, Brawny is defined as muscular; strong. Similarly, the paper towel is also advertised as being one of the strongest...

Donald Sterling doesn't know which month is black history month In this image, which was first brought to my attention by Ball Don’t Lie blogger Kelly Dwyer, Donald Sterling, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, advertises that his organization will celebrate Black History Month by admitting 1,000 “underprivileged” children for free to a game against...