Ideological Criticism

MARGINALIZATION

CULTURAL HEGEMONY

MARGINALIZATION

HOW DO THEY LEGITIMIZE IT?

The rhetoric portrays medical development as beneficial to women.

MASCULINE HEGEMONY

KEEP IN MIND

LEGITIMATION

“Legitimation is to look at how symbols cause the audience to believe that the dominant political order is legitimate or concerns itself with the common good of the people and their world.”

“The process whereby a political order’s worthiness is recognized as just and right” –Jurgen Habermas

LOOKING AT REPRESENTATIONS CRITICALLY

MEDICAL DEVELOPMENTS:

NEW TREATMENTS FOR BREAST CANCER

DOMINANT POLITICAL ORDER

LEGITIMATE = PUBLIC'S BEST INTEREST?

Government

Academic institutions

Work organizations

Religion

Family

Validates the treatment

White, middle/upper class women

Ignores the alternative causes

Dietary, environmental, etc.

It ignores things that threaten the current capitalistic system.

Habermas encourages us to be critical of capitalism

How does capitalism legitimize?

How are discoveries, advancements, and products presented?

What are the benefits?

HEGEMONY

NATURALIZATION

The portrayal of beliefs, customs, practices and so on as coming from nature, "the natural way"

• Our dominant belief system is legitimized through what we believe to be "natural"

What does that really mean?

What implications does "nature" have?

NATURALIZATION

How did we get here?

• Stems from social Darwinism
• Examples:

• Nature as god, all powerful, cannot be argued with, controlled or changed
• "The Natural Order of things"

NATURALIZATION IN ACTION

Economic base sustained by ideology

Ideology that we are working to get to the top of economic ladder…

IDEOLOGICAL CRITICISM

What does this video imply to be "natural"?

Nicolette Jimenez, Danita Gill, Tanya Chan, Audrey Phillips, Danielle Jacobson, JiYoung Ahn

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

Ideology Behind Beauty and the Beast

Marxist Theory

• A poor example of class structure

• Hegemony- dominant ideology of joining a higher class, finding more than "this provincial life"

• Marginalization- The townspeople are overlooked and oppressed

• Legitimation- General public interest for Belle to break the spell

• Naturalization- Belle is immediately portrayed as the protagonist, natural for her to marry the Beast

Roots in modes of production...

"man's ideas, views and conceptions, in one word, man's consciousness, changes with every change in the conditions of his material existence, in his social relations and in his social life”

ALADDIN "STREET RAT"

• Disney naturalizes then legitimizes class difference
• Sustains system to keep the poor poor and the rich rich

SHREK

Ideology- refers to the culturally shared beliefs about how the world is (created, structured, ordered, etc.) and how it ought to be.

Marxism - held that all of human experience, from religion to politics to morality to art to entertainment, was ultimately determined by a culture's economic base, rooted in its "mode of production."

EXAMPLE OF CLASS IDEOLOGY

According to Marx, the economic base and those who benefit from it are sustained by an ideology that he believed to be a set of illusory ideals that justify that base, even though many are exploited by it.

Social injustice experienced by the fairy-tale citizens.

The Fairy-tale figures are sold based on their worth.

CRITIQUE OF CLASS IDEOLOGY

Lord Farquaad is clearly depicted as a greedy, upper-class oppressor, interested only in his political gain.

CRITIQUE OF RACE

No reference to race and portrays (usually)

One of Shrek's major characters is voiced as and by an African American. (Donkey)

IDEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Shrek functions to delegitimize unjust social, class, and race relations

However, the film is limited in the extent to which it is willing to radically change the existing system.

THE END