It is no secret that Saudi Arabia does not have the best track record when it comes to human rights, the whole world knows it. Like many of their gulf neighbors, Saudi Arabia is attempting to use sport as a way to change the international and internal image of itself. They are using the billions of “blood money” dollars to lure some of the world's best golfers away from the already established and prestigious PGA Tour to their own LIV Golf series as a form of “sportwashing” and to help change the narrative of their nation. This attempt, as outlined in this New York Times article, is the most bold of any of the gulf nations as a way to sport wash people from viewing Saudi Arabia as a human rights disaster to a more “conservative muslim nation” that backs and particpiates in world sport. What makes this attempt so bold is that instead of backing a sport or like its neighbor Qatar, hosting a FIFA World Cup, they are attempting to completely take over a sport, one that has its own controversial history with inclusion and diversity.
The attempt to overrun the historical white elitist sport of golf (which the PGA Tour has had its own struggles rebranding itself as a more diverse sport) and upsetting the nearly one hundred year PGA Tour system of professional golf is by far the boldest attempt yet by a middle eastern nation attempting to change their image. The emergence of the LIV Golf Series and the departure of top PGA players to join them for reported absurd amounts of money, have all raised the questions and concerns of the LIV Golf motives and then also the history of the PGA Tour and how it has historically treated its players and its lack of equal opportunities to those of color.
Despite the LIV Golf Series gaining traction and more players resigning from the PGA Tour to join LIV, it really hasn’t changed professional golf yet as still the majority of the world's top players continue to play for the PGA Tour. And with every player that joins LIV they get grilled by the media about Saudi Arabia’s history of human rights violations and whether or not they condone it because of the money they are willing to accept from them to support this PR movement by the Saudi Arabian government. So, at least right now Saudi Arabia is not being left off the hook for backing LIV golf as currently people see through it. But as more and more players jump ship over to LIV and they play more and more events, especially when the start to play events in the US starting in July, it will be interesting to see just how effective this “sportwashing” can be and if it truly does change the narrative of Saudi Arabia.
Domination of one social class or a group in society
describes hegemony. As of lately, hegemony has become a strong part of mass
media, in the news particularly. For my example of, I chose to write about
hegemony and how it is involved with the news. Each news station is viewed as
something that is independent or differing from other news stations. What many
of the viewers do not realize is that many states require news channels to
cover certain parts of the news, and leave other parts out for the sake of the
state ultimately controlling what the public knows and does not know, or trying
their best to at least. Many stations are required certain topics, and are held
accountable if they do not report on the proper things, as the state has the
idea that by controlling what the viewers see, naturally they can control what
they viewers think about said topics depending on the presentation of those
topics. Often times, you may notice something that is portrayed in the news as
a positive thing although in your mind you know it isn’t a positive thing, like
framing the raising of tax percentage by providing pros to the topic and
leaving out the cons, for this topic specifically the con would be ultimately
needing to pay more in taxes, which is more money coming out of the tax payers
pocket at the end of the day to go towards doing something that may not necessarily
benefit all tax payers. By using the framing technique, media often controls
the crowd by making an idea or thought seem ideal to the viewer when in
actuality it is affecting them more than helping them.
Cultural hegemony refers to the power that a specific person or thing holds in social institutions. By having this strong representation in culture, hegemony tends to rule the culture, by first holding a strong spot in culture and then spreading it throughout the culture. An example of cultural hegemony I would like to use is the strong representation that fast food/ franchises hold in the world. Similar to the video “Cultural Hegemony” it is defined as something that has a dominant society, with something made up of that society such as people and places, with something added that may be considered radical/ dangerous. In my example, fast food franchises would be the radical or dangerous aspect of cultural hegemony being added to the dominant society, weakening it. The changes that fast food can have an effect on would be making people reliant on quick service fast food options, often not being the healthiest of options to consume but rather the more convenient option. Rather than spending time shopping for ingredients and preparing dishes to eat, the convenience of stopping somewhere where you can have food prepared for you in a quick way and delivered to your finger tips makes it easier for the consumer, often times adding to the laziness of the average American. Similar to the effect that having a smartphone (computer) attached to your hand at all times while you’re awake, it makes the consumer reliant on something which would cause mass confusion if it were to be pulled from the consumers.
With the 20+ cycles of America’s Next Top Model promoting different and culturally inappropriate bodies through the scope of super modeling, the idea of cultural hegemony is prevalent within the culture of modeling. Today’s models are almost always white, thin, and generally under 30. The public’s call to change these statistics is barely acknowledged, with hopes for a better future In Fall 2016, less than 25% of all models attending Fashion Week were people of color. There were designers that didn’t even feature any models of color at all. Body diversity was even rarer at Fashion Week. Out of all of the shows in New York, Paris, Milan, and London, there were only six plus models in Fall 2016. Moreover, of the six plus sized models, not one was over a size 12. As far as age, only eleven models were maturely aged, meaning they were over 40 years old.
To battle these kinds of facts, Tyra Banks and America’s Next Top Model have had cycles where they opened casting to plus sized models and waived the age restriction (which was 27 years old) to be more diverse and open. The show has produced 9 non-white winners out of 22 cycles. None of which that are plus sized or over 40. But there was a white, plus sized winner and a single contestant that was 42, who placed 6th overall.
Taking all of that into consideration. The show’s success and diversity have had some type of impact on the fashion model industry. But only minimally. Many of the designers at Fashion Week that chose to be inclusive, did it minimally, which doesn’t necessarily do anything about the bigger picture of people of color, plus sized, and older being underrepresented in the fashion world. Since opening the castings in cycle 3, there have only been 6 plus size models on the show. So with insignificant attempts on a show that is supposed to promote diversity in the modeling world, the fashion world has responded with a slight nod, not really changing anything.
Although Im not quite sure the debate over gun control and gun laws can be defined as popular culture, in the past years it has clearly made it's way in to the spotlight and most recently after the school shooting in Florida it has become a huge topic of debate. Now it's difficult for me to distinguish dominant and subculture with this one. To me the dominant culture is people who are against gun control laws (although the media will never make it seem that way). The recent March for Our Lives movement comes very much in conflict with basic American ideas and even the ideas set forth in the constitution allowing Americans to own guns. The NRA has become a focal point of the pro gun movement and everyone is quick to place blame on them for mass shootings claiming that they are responsible. However in my opinion it is difficult to place this blame on a single group or organization that doesn't even sell firearms. This current March for our Lives movement has come in to severe conflict with people who support the second amendment, the NRA, and people who advocate gun rights in general. However although they are getting their voice heard, I do not believe they will be able to make the significant change they hope for. Calling for gun control in American where part of our culture is having the rights to own weapons is a very difficult hill to climb. The are essential calling for our rights a citizens to have guns to be taken away due to these school shootings. While I think something needs to be done in regards to the mass shootings and killings that are taking place I do not believe this is the correct way to do it. Creating significant change and more gun control is effectively taking away some of our rights as Americans which is why i believe this significant change they are pushing for will not occur.
For this week's topic of Hegemony, I thought of diet and health trends that have become mainstream even if they are wholly irrelevant or potentially dangerous. I usually like to write my topics and blogs based on something I have a little bit of experience with, and I very easily remembered my struggle with the gluten-free diet. Allow me to regail you:
I chose to adopt a gluten-free lifestyle for nearly a decade through my teen years due to unidentified digestive issues. I had excruciating stomach pain coming on most strongly when I was about 13; I would lay sick in bed for a few days and when I began to feel better one of the things I would try to begin eating again was some toast or plain pasta. After a few cycles, my mother began to notice that I would quickly get sick again just after I had regained my appetite.
It was a terrible few months of this cycle, and my mother did a lot of research, finally finding a specific diet called the GFCF Diet that mostly pertained to children with Autism (my mother specializes in Autism spectrum education). This diet cut out all carbs, starch, grains, pretty much everything except for fruit, vegetables and water - no kidding! As my health improved after a few weeks of eating only raw simple sugar molecules, I slowly added back one foodgroup per week, waiting until I ate something that would make me ill and mark itself as my culinary enemy. Sure enough, it was bread, and having been going through hell for so long I was quickly persuaded into eliminating all grains from my diet (save for rice and potato). It was assumed that I had Celiac disease, which is an auto-immune disorder where your body believes gluten to be a foreign non-food substance and attacks its own digestive system.
At that time, gluten-free food was virtually unheard of. Go to a grocery store or restaraunt? They had never seen such a thing. Most people 15 years ago didn't even have a concept of what gluten was in the first place. My mother and I experimented with many terrible muffin and pancake recipes that called for ground almond meal, butter, and applesauce... yuck. Eventually we found a specialty store that had frozen gluten-free bread which was made from rice flour, it always came frozen and was very dry and crumbly (and expensive!).
Gluten-free has become a much bigger and more well-known trend, and truly a trend it is. Even after I finally felt that there was awareness about Celiac disease and began finding gluten-free products, I also soon realized that many people were eating gluten-free because they believed it was healthier for them - not because they would get violently ill if they ate it. I was rather miffed, that my struggle and pain had suddenly turned into the next Atkins diet. It made me want to be normal again, more than missing bread had done. There was evidence beginning to emerge that Celiac disease was even more rare to have than just being sensitive to gluten or feeling sick from a certain food. Celiac disease is a genetic auto-immune disorder, there was no way half the country had it! I began to doubt everything I had been through, and also began to cheat on my diet to test the boundaries.
I finally had a blood test done in 2012 to determine once and for all if I had the genetic marker for Celiac and it was negative. I had a perfect tolerance to gluten in foods and from a medical standpoint should not have ever had any issue eating bread. I happily went out and bought pizza and donuts and had a field day eating it and not getting sick at all! Though of course I still had many questions and my grievances with the diet hipsters were still burning strong. They would soon find out the truth:
Today there is very strong evidence against the gluten-free diet, because it is plainly and simply not necessary for the average person to worry about. It does not help one lose weight or reduce cholesterol or anything similar. Whether it was because of similar struggles like my own, or only because someone popularized it as the new "low-carb diet" there is now an abundance of gluten-free products available on store shelves, and in restaurants of all kinds. You can order a burger at Red Robin with a gluten-free bun, and there are boxes of gluten-free pasta and cake mixes in stores - things I only could dream about when I was 13! Most people buy these things without knowing any of the history of the movement at all, and without realizing that unless they have a medical sensitivity or Celiac disease, they could be saving a lot of time and money by sticking with normal foods that cost less and taste better - let's be honest, Gluten-free things will never ever taste the same as gluten-laden foods. I'm happy to be healthy again, and to eat as much cake as I want!
In this case, it was more the upper class part of society that deemed the Gluten-free diet trendy and made it inclusive, and it certainly takes a fair amount of money to be able to buy ready-made GF products off the shelf rather than making everything from scratch yourself, but it was essentially a minority that had the disease and needed the initial products. Only after someone created a fad out of the specialty food did it become mainstream, and now nobody really gives it a second thought that we have so many options for gluten-free alternatives (and other allergy-sensitive products) when 10 years ago nobody was talking about it. This conflicts with mainstream society because although fad diets have been around for centuries, its rare that a diet created out of medical necessity for a little-known auto-immune disorder becomes so wide-spread and the original meaning forgotten. Now the trouble only lies in properly educating those who see it as a fad diet instead of a medical necessity before it could potentially be a reverse health hazard for those choosing to not consume gluten when they really should be.
I was reading an article in last week’s New Yorker and it
reminded me of the topic of hegemony and the back and forth negotiations
between the general public and elites. The article was on the Hays Code, a
guideline which dictated how much sex could be shown and discussed in movie during the 1930’s. Prior to the Hayes Rule movies were generally
more open about the topic of sex and contained “sardonic bluntness” and “suggestive
dialog”. Some people were concerned about this and instituted a set of rules
which Hollywood followed for many years. Sex was such a taboo topic that
married couple were new shown sharing a bed rather they slept in separate twin
beds. Movies would replace sex with jokes and the genre of the romantic comedy.Later, in the 1952, movies became protected
by the 1st Amendment and as the rules loosened, sex in movies became
more accepted (and probably expected) by the public. Movies would again treat
sex as less of a taboo topic. As time went on the depiction of sex in movies
and in popular culture in general has become pretty much mainstream. There have
been time, though, over the years that the self appointed moral police has
tried to scale back the amount of sex allowed in certain media. In the 80s
Tipper Gore pushed for and got records to place warning labels on “explicit”
record and the 90s Senator Jesse Helms tried to block funding to any art which
he deemed immoral. This back and forth concerning the issue of sex in popular
culture has been continually progress in the direction of less censorship.
Crime Must Pay the Penalty! Issue #41 (November 1954)
In Crime Must Pay The Penalty Issue #41 the criminals are always caught and punished for their crimes. In the first story a safe-cracker is released from jail and declares that he is going to go straight. But his buddies have another plan, they force him to betray his new employer, a legitimate safe cracking company, and rob the customers. But the now good safe cracker manages to foil his old criminal gang's plans and in the end is rewarded for his bravery and trustworthiness. In the second story a criminal gets surgery to change his appearance and avoid deportation. He has his cousin, who is his spitting image, deported in his stead but when his cousin brags about being a past crime boss he has him killed. Of course the crime boss's plans are foiled and he is caught by the cops, as are all the other criminals in every story, because like the title says, Crime Must Pay the Penalty!
This is a good example of Hegemony, in which the idea that "Crime Must Pay" is represented in each of the stories. This theme reoccurs through every plot line reiterating the concept that being a criminal may seem like an easy way to gain fortune, but that in the end you are either going to end up dead or caught. Most of the criminals, even though they wear suits and drive fancy cars, seem to be from a poor background, they talk with slang and act all macho and some times are immigrants, like the criminal from the second story who was going to be deported. Never are the bad guys corporate criminals who schemed their way up the ladder, instead they are blue collar, hard and dirty felons who rob banks and wave around guns. This gives off the idea that the people who break the law are often of the lower classes, that crime and jail are meant for those poor offenders who are lazy and moral scum, rather than white collar up standing citizens.
A clear identification of the comic book that you read that includes the title, issue number, and direct link.
Describe the content (1 paragraph).
A brief discussion of a theoretical lens that you want to use (1 paragraph).
Applying the theoretical lens to the comic to explain what newer meaning is derived by using the lens on the comic (1 paragraph).
Relevant Labels/Tags: comics, [the name of your comic], [the name of the theory you are using] EXAMPLE
For this module, I will be tackling Crime Must Pay The Penalty Issue #10 from October, 1949. The comic contains 4 comic stories (Revenge of the Cop Haters, The Genius and the Perfect Crime, Sinister Cab Combine, Pledged to Homocide), and one text story (Lineup Masquerade). Revenge of the Cop Haters and Pledged to Homicide both entail prisoners who get out of prison and continue to commit crimes in attempt to get the aforementioned revenge or just to cause chaos. The Genius and the Perfect Crime and Sinister Cab Combine, both deal with people who are aspiring improve their social standing (one to become part of elite culture and the other to court a woman) and commit criminal acts to achieve them. Given the history of comics and the interest in crime comics (and eventually, horror comics) that we talk about in this module, I think discussing hegemony is probably a good topic to consider. In hegemony, we see that there is a disruption of culture or an intrusion and that society tries to use compromises of sorts to limit actual substantive change. Many of the comics read are often by youth, who feel disempower and crave a life not confined by rules and order. Crime stories provide this opportunity to explore the uninhibited life. Readers get to enjoy vicariously, the adventures and violence by the criminals represented in these tales. However, the compromise comes with the fact that the stories often ended in their demise. Thus, the cultural hegemonic powers provided the exploration of power in the face of authority but only tangentially and always with a message that this path ends in destruction of the individual instead of the overarching authority.
For this weeks blog I am going to discuss the #LoveWins debate that was
so highly publicized and controversial during the summer of 2015 and its involvement with cultural hegemony. I’m sure everyone has heard about this controversial
debate, but if you haven’t the #LoveWins campaign came about during and after the
U.S. Supreme Courts ruling involving same-sex marriages to grow awareness of
the newly accepted feat homosexuals gained. During June 2015, The Supreme Court
ruled that same-sex marriages were to be recognized nationwide in a 5-4
decision. The #LoveWins campaign came into conflict with the mainstream culture
because many people oppose same-sex marriages and did not support the idea at all. Homosexuals and also family members, friends, acquaintances took a stand and created a media frenzy showing the support Homosexuals deserve and get. I believe the #LoveWins campaign has created significant change because of the
attention we have seen it has brought nationwide. Around that time you could
find peoples profile pictures on the popular social media site Facebook changed to a
rainbow filter. If you happened to have a twitter account during summer 2015, every
time you would refresh your twitter page you would see the hashtag #LoveWins.
#LoveWins became the most viral Hashtag of the same-sex Marriage ruling. The
Hashtag reached 6.2 million tweets within six hours after the decision. This is cultural hegemony at work. The
conflicted group, homosexuals, gains awareness through social media outlets
with #LoveWins to increase resistance of same-sex marriage, although some
people will still be against it.
This week's video tackled the concept of hegemony and it's totally ok if you're still having a bit of trouble with it. Here is another video that summarizes the idea really well with a visual metaphor: Cultural Hegemony (2:24 minutes) along with this one: Hegemony: WTF? An Introduction to Gramsci and Cultural Hegemony (6:26 minutes).
With this in mind and the examples that I identified in this week's video on hegemony, your goal is to identify a hegemonic struggle, past or present between the mainstream culture (e.g. the white and pure milk within the video above) and a subculture or counterculture that has found some way to infiltrate but not necessarily changed. For this, it is probably useful to link to an article or blog post (note: this should be news-focused, not information focused), that discusses the issue. I don't recommend searching merely for your topic AND hegemony--trust me, that won't really work. Instead, look for articles that talk about how a marginal group is trying to impact the dominant culture.
Within your post, you should include the following:
Identify the subculture or counter-culture that you're going to discuss. (1 paragraph)
Identify how and why it comes into conflict with the mainstream culture. (1 paragraph)
How this conflict has created some but not necessarily significant change and how we can understand the hegemonic forces at play within this scenario. (1 paragraph)
Be sure to be specific with your example and to use the language and ideas from the video.
Relevant Labels/Tags: Hegemony, dominant group, subordinate group, [specific arena/topic that you are exploring] EXAMPLE I'm going to talk about the #OscarsSoWhite debate that heated up in the announcements of the Oscar nominations for 2016 within this idea of cultural hegemony. For those unfamiliar with what it was about, here is a basic primer. Now, since their inception, the Oscars have been almost overwhelmingly white. On this site, you can see the breakdown of nominations and actual wins, which shows winning is a pretty rare concurrence. Like many areas of popular culture, a white dominant culture has largely controlled the decisions (what movies get made), and prestige (who gets recognition). This year, after the second year in a row of no African American nominations in the major acting areas, despite there being strong contestants, struck a nerve among the African-American community and other allies. The tension gained enough attention to warrant news reports in major publications and news stations of people boycotting the Oscars. It became clear that the interest in and purity of the Oscars as the leader in the film cultural tastes was being challenged. So they did react in two particular ways. The first is that they made commitments to change their selection process, making there was much better representation of diverse identities among the Academy voters (currently, it is 94% white & 77% male). The second is that they allowed Chris Rock to perform some rather controversial remarks as part of his role as host to the Academy Awards.
Now, many would look at both of these and believe that this was legitimate progress and celebrate it. After all, the judges are more likely to be more diverse in the future and Chris Rock did at times throw some hard punches at the Academy Awards with regards to the history of racism and even false-categories of films. Both seem to challenge the status quo, but do they? In the case of making the pool more diverse, this is often the reaction that dominant institutions take when charged with not being inclusive of minorities. And while this inclusion is good, it's a hegemonic practice to lessen the threat but not to do anything about it. Supreme Course Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg has said the following about women on the Supreme Court: “So now the perception is, yes, women are here to stay. And when I’m sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court]? And I say when there are nine, people are shocked. But there’d been nine men, and nobody’s ever raised a question about that." This is an example of actual change. By including a few women instead of radically changing the institution, the institution knows that the dominant values will still stay in place and to a certain degree, the injustice will continue, but there is less concern about it since there are representatives involved. So we have superficial but not necessarily substantive change. It's an interesting question for the Academy Awards--if they entirely reversed the racial and gender make up (6% white, 23% male) of the voters, would there be significantly different films being selected? And if so, what does that say about those who are currently voting and why they are voting? Even with Chris Rock's appearance, he may be critical of the concept, but by still performing and still making people laugh, he alleviates the issue rather than raises it. He makes people feel slightly uncomfortable with his remarks, but in the next moment is onto the next joke. Again, he superficially challenges them, but things stay largely the same. This is cultural hegemony at work. The conflicted group (in this case, African Americans and allies), raise up resistance but by this time next year, given the superficial inclusive changes, they are likely to not be as resistant.
