Discrimination within Pop Culture

This week I have learned that within pop culture many forms of societal discrimination sometimes go unnoticed or are blatantly obvious. In this week’s readings, John Fiske explored how certain groups can be marginalized or stereotyped by the dominant ideologies in society. A perfect example of marginalized groups today's society includes the LGBTQ+ community and people from foreign countries just to name a few. In our recent change of powers within our government political leadership has targeted people from other countries and has challenged gender roles.

Pop culture has the power to shape the way we think and feel about people of certain groups “Critical discrimination has been applied exclusively to high culture in its constant effort to establish its superiority over and difference from mass or popular culture” (Guins & Zaragoza, 2005). Popular TV shows like MTV’s RuPaul’s Drag Race have challenged societal criticism and cater to the LQBTQ+ community and people who follow and appreciate Drag culture. 

Then, there are shows like Netflix’s Narcos that paint a different picture of what Columbians are like. Even though the story talks about true life events that did happen in Columbia’s dark history which spanned from the seventies to early nineties. This story has in some ways tarnished Columbians and all Hispanics alike as being “Bad Hombres” or a group of people with bad intent toward America. What I have learned from the literature this week is to always question the intent of pop culture messaging before deciding how to feel or draw conclusions.

What other societal forms of discrimination have you noticed within Pop culture?