Films Invade our Minds

Today, I’m going to be talking about how the Cinema and Society course really made me to believe in the fact that films and the media do actually play a huge factor in shaping our way of thinking and behaving. It’s so true that movies are a powerful agent of socialization. Movies definitely have an influence on our minds. The reason for making this statement is because after reading the Race and Ethnicity chapter, I realized why I made a certain decision in the past that was pretty much influenced by the movies I used to watch as I was growing up. In 2002, my father and my older sister made the decision of pursuing their education in the United States, so the whole family went together with them to make their dream come true. I was 13 years old at that time. I went to Overland High School in Aurora, Colorado. The first day of school was a terrifying experience. When entering the school I realized how much it looked like the American movies I had once watched. Boys were twice as big as me, and I wasn’t used to the co-educational system. There were a lot of students from different ethic and national groups. Students were from various countries in Asia, Africa and Europe. Another thing that I noticed was that there were a lot of African American students in the school. My older brother attended the same school, and we used to walk back to the house together. It was also another horrific moment for me because a lot of boys would walk together in groups and if their eyes were pointed at me, I used to get scared and walk faster. I thought they would just decide to attack or shoot me. I used to get scared of black and Mexican boys, the most. Thinking about it now, these misconceptions that I had were formalized based on the negative portrayal of black and Mexican people in movies. Usually the black and Mexican people were depicted as violent using guns to shoot others or knives to stab people and even using their hands for punching. The Cinematic Sociology book explains, “the origins of contemporary black screen violence are located in Hollywood’s blaxploitation period, which consists of about 60 cheaply made black-focused action-adventure flicks released between 1969 and 1974.” These negative portrayals stayed in my unconscious mind, and when I went to an American high school, my fear of people from different ethnicities that I inherited from the movies were reflected on my reaction. I also decided to go back to Doha because I couldn’t handle being scared of going to school. But, I managed to go back after a year to the same school and got over my fear. In addition, I got my high school diploma from Overland High School (OHS), which is something I’m very proud of.

Thinking about it now, people were staring at me probably because I was wearing the hijab. There were also Arab students at OHS and only a few Muslim girls wore the hijab. To end this blog, I’d like you to listen and watch the video below as it gives some moral messages to kids and young adults to not get influenced by things around them.

Subculture Project: Women's Cricket Team

This video is about the Qatar National Women's Cricket team. For the project, we studied the interactions, the performance practices and the cultural resistance of this small group of female Cricket players in Doha. The video was shot at the Qatar Cricket Association's (QCA) Cricket ground, that is located in the Industrial Area in Qatar. We attended a practice session and a championship game to collect our material for this particular video. We focus on the various different performance practices such as the dressing, the language and styles etc and we also look closely at the means of cultural resistance. i.e. form, medium, interpretation and the activity. It's interesting to see how the styles and actions of the team in some ways really unique to themselves and the interactions that they have despite their varied backgrounds are really interesting to watch. Also note the relationships that exist within the team and the interaction between the coaches and players in the video. Hope you enjoy it!

                           
                                    

Expression of Fashion or Subculture ?

The concept of dramaturgy and subcultures are almost intertwined. From previous knowledge and from class discussions, I decided to visit an English speaking school to see if there was any sort of subculture or if I could apply the sociological concepts I learnt in class. I decided to visit a high school, keeping in mind that most youth subcultures are formed when they are separated from their primary socializers, their family, and not under the influence of the dominant culture. Therefore, for this blog post, I wanted to study whether there was a subculture amongst the students from the way most Muslim girls wore their school uniforms and adapted to a westernized environment.

As I was walking through the playgrounds at break time, I noticed how most Muslim girls had their hairs covered with the hijab. The normal school uniform was a polo shirt and a pair of trousers. The girls wore both long skirts and long sleeves, or simply long sleeved shirts with pants. In a sociological perspective, this can be seen as a bricolage. In this case, bricolage is how the young girls adapt to the western style fashion, but at the same time respect their religious beliefs by wearing the hijab.

The theory of commodity was present as Dick Hebdige describes it as “the conversion of subcultural signs into mass-produced objects.” It was tough to determine if the girls were expressing their sense of modesty in Islamic clothing, or conveying their sense of belonging to a certain subculture. Some of the girls had hipster looking glasses, converse shoes and even wore revealing clothing with their hijab on. Some also wore high-rise leggings with their uniform tucked in, which could be another indication of a hipster style.

On the other hand, some girls were holding designer accessories, for example; Chanel, Gucci and Burberry handbags, while others were wearing punk looking bracelets and shoes with spikes on them.  In the end, it is up to us to decide if they belong to a certain subculture, or whether its jut a form of commodity Hebdige refers to.

The world is mediated. In other words, corporations and the media normalize what was once a shock to us. Probably, the way most of the girls were dressed was once considered socially unacceptable, but through media and the fashion industry, these forms of clothing have become acceptable and normalized. Nowadays it is not out of the ordinary for a Qatari girl to wear revealing clothing, where it was contemplated deviant two years ago.

If I were to apply the dramaturgy theory by Erving Goffman, I would say that these girls are all actors on the front stage of a theater. In this case, the stage would be the school. The students, principals, cleaners, security and the teachers are the actors playing set character roles as part of their performances. The students managed their setting, clothing, language, and gestures to correspond the image they tried to project. Nevertheless, this is impression management. For instance, the girls were presented differently on front stage than if they were to be in their comfort zone, the back stage. At one point, the girls took off the hijab and started singing when they were in the classroom alone, and put on their hijab and acted all reserved once they walked out.

The female students could be part of a larger subculture or they could just be consumers of style through the mediated world. 

Glocalization: Muslim Women and Sports

Once again, here I am writing another blog post relating to what we recently discussed in Sociology class about globalization and glocalization. Globalization can be defined as the flow of goods, services, money, people, information and culture across political borders, while, glocalization is a combination of globalization and localization. In other words, glocalization is established and disseminated globally, but also recognized to remain the local customs and traditions of a particular setting.


The beauty of sociology is that whatever theory or concept we learn, we could apply it to nearly every aspect of our society. I will be applying the concept of glocalization and globalization to the Qatar Women’s Sport Committee and specifically, Qatar’s National Team of Table Tennis for women, as I am a former player.

When it gets to glocalization and globalization, we should consider the multi-national corporations involved, governments, resistance and the consequences. Multi-national sports corporations such as Nike, Stiga and Adidas will benefit by increasing their markets and increase their profits from supplying the players and the teams with shoes, equipment’s and clothing. Also, governments and the Olympic committees will get involved in this matter when deciding on whether which countries should play against each other. For instance, when the Third Muslim Women’s Games was taking place in Iran in 2001, the Table tennis team had to get the approval from the Olympic Committee on whether they could participate in the games. In addition, I always had the sense of resistance while playing table tennis. The more conservative women and the more traditional locals were against playing. For example, one my friends had to stop playing because her family did not allow her to due to the societal norms and culture. On the other hand, some girls were conservative and played with their hijab on. Another form of resistance I noticed was segregation. Most of the time we were playing tournaments with only females, as most players and officials were uncomfortable in an environment with men. Lastly, consequences were evident when most parents and elder people were complaining about the loss of traditions and culture. The players spent more time in school and then playing table tennis, while barely making enough time with the family. The way the girls used to dress was westernized; the language we communicated in was English rather than Arabic. At one instance, one of the officials questioned me on why I don’t speak Arabic when I’m a Muslim and live in Qatar. All of these cases could be a representation of material and non-material cultural loss. At the end of the day, it depends on the individual and how they allow globalization influence their life and what they do.

At most times, I felt like I’m playing table tennis, but the Arabic version in respect to the Qatari and Islamic traditions and customs.

Gender accessibility to different spaces in Qatar

We talked in class about gender polarization and how it separates the two genders in the society, and even creates spaces specific for each gender, like bathrooms, or even schools. We also talked about how it’s more acceptable for women to cross the social constructed rules for her gender than it is for males. That made me think about how this phenomenon applies here in Qatar, and specifically for spaces. It occurred to me that the special separation is even stronger here because of the Hijab, making the access of males to female spaces harder than the access of females to male spaces.





Most of the Qatari women wear the Hijab, and that creates a restriction for men to enter many places, as I mentioned. For example, men are not allowed to enter ladies beauty saloons, and it’s so obvious that there is a sign on the front door that says no men allowed. On the other hand, there isn’t any similar sign that restricts women from entering the males’ barbershop. Some people would say that it is still not acceptable for women to enter males’ barbershops. However, its not a formal rule like in the case of women’s saloons.





Another example that shows the limited access males have to spaces specified for females, is the gym. If we look at the gyms here in the student center, we can see that there is a gym for females and a mixed gym, where both males and females are allowed in. It is forbidden for males to enter the females’ gym, but there isn’t a gym for males where females are not allowed.





The same happens with swimming pools. There are pools that are open only for females, other open for both males and females. Also, some of these mixed pools dedicate about five hours a week for females only.
A similar example to that is the cinema. A few months ago, a new cinema theater for females opened in Aspire. Males are not allowed into that space, and if we look at cinemas here in Qatar, we will not find any cinema that allows males but not females in. moreover there are parks opened only for females and children, and the zoo also dedicates Tuesdays for women and children only.



In my opinion, it is not only the Hijab that affects this special division and accessibility. This is also happening because many Qatari families are not comfortable with letting their women going alone to mixed spaces. That’s why they created spaces like the females only cinema and parks; to accommodate with the social norms and give women the chance to have fun together outside their homes.