The reproduction of social classes

Abduljaleel, 25 years old

I was sitting at the back of my car and my driver was taking me to college when I told him to go pick up my new spectacles from villagio. And so I gave him the receipt and tried to simplify my language with half Arabic and half English to make him understand what I’m trying to say. But I was surprised when he replied with a fine English with a good accent! I was even more surprised when he told me that he completed two years of his college life and couldn’t afford the rest so he dropped off.

Social classes reproduce itself
Abduljaleel’s Father was a Driver and worked so hard for his son not to be a driver and to educate him. But social classes tend to reproduce itself, and social mobility is almost impossible for working class people. It’s as they call it the American dream that social mobility can be achieved by hard work and personal effort. However, social mobility can’t be easily reached, and the idea of that all men are created equal with equal chances is just a dream! Since his father was a driver his future can be expected the day he was born. We can’t predict that he will be a driver as his dad but sociologist will agree that his social status remains as his dad’s, because social classes reproduce itself.

And so he dropped off his American dream!
After two years of college he wasn’t able to afford the rest so he dropped off and became a driver as his father. Social class is not about how hard someone works but rather it is inherited. And because Abduljaleel was born in a lowbrow culture and almost everyone around him was poor and from the same social class mobilization remained just a dream!



Why Social classes reproduce itself?
It is the way that the bourgeoisies (high-class) have set up the society to benefit themselves is preventing the low class people to mobilize upward. The most obvious example is the low wages of the working class people. With low wages none of the working class people is able to afford education or better life. Because if all proletariat (low-class) were able to educate their children and mobilize upward there will be no one left to do the hard work. So bourgeoisies set up the society in a way that they will remain the high-class people.

Slumdog Millionaire

Danny Boyle, the director of Slumdog Millionaire movie, is captivating his movie as a riddle. The movie is centered on an Indian teen, Jamal Malik, he is uneducated and grows in the slums of Mumbai. Jamal participates in “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?” in its Indian version, and he is close to get the 20 Million rupee. He gets the attention from the police on suspicion of cheating. How does the little slum with low education know all the answers? Is he lucky? Genius? Or does he cheat?

In the movie, it shows Jamal flashbacks the events that happened in his life that had all the answers for the program’s questions. The movie focuses on the background scenes of Jamal that help him to be a Millionaire. This movie is so interesting; it has some drama and hilarious scenes and a bit of romance.

Nonetheless, Slumdog Millionaire clearly shows social class and class division. It is not only about the great music it has or the incredible views, but it indicates important sociological concepts about the class system. The American Dream ideology has a different meaning of what happens in the movie, the American dream ideology believes in the personal effort that achieves upward mobility. However, Jamal achieves social mobility but without any effort, he becomes a millionaire and moves up the social system because of the famous show.

The movie implies the moral consequences of poverty, as shown the police takes Jamal and is surrounded by questioners to admit his cheating. Jamal faces hard times due to the social and economic exclusion because he is born in the Lowbrow culture that associated with lower and working class. The movie shows a dialogue between the police inspectors who discuss the impossibility of what Jamal knows, they are certain that he cheats and can’t know the answers. The title of the movie itself  ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ contains a contrast within it, which provides a symbolic meaning of the content of the movie. Although he becomes a millionaire, he is still seen as on of the Mumbai’s slums, and one of the scenes in the movie shows how the upper class rejects the idea of a slum to be one of the Highbrow culture and to move up the class system, for example the broadcaster is in the wash room with Jamal, writes in the mirror the wrong answer for the 20 Million rupee question, he wants Jamal to lose the contest and go back from where he is, but Jamal chooses the other answer and he becomes a millionaire.

The film’s message is clear that everyone has a chance to be a ‘millionaire’ or to be in the elite class, even Indian slum can do it. But there is always social inequality in real life, as people don’t start from the same starting point to achieve social mobility.

The Sociological Effects of Digital Technology

For this blog, I will attempt to analyze the sociological effects the digital age had and is still having on us. First, however, I will provide a brief history lesson of the subject at hand.

It is not surprising that this issue has turned into a hot debate amongst professionals from various fields. Long before the internet and other digital tools were created, new forms of media "have always caused moral panics: the printing press, newspapers, paperbacks, and television were once denounced as threats to their consumer's brainpower and moral fiber." (Pinker, 2010)

One of the more obvious effects of digital tools, including but not limited to video games, is alienation. In Mix It Up, David Grazian explores the feeling of total flow experienced by those that are totally immersed in mediums like online games. Players who fall into this state slowly become disconnected from the real world and lose the feeling of the passing of time, which Grazian says is illustrative of the increased levels of loneliness and alienation. 

Another effect of digital environments, such as social networks, is the small degree to which someone living in the digital age has control over his or her social identity. Palfrey and Gasser, co-authors of the book Born Digital, provide an example of a 16 year old girl living in the agrarian age. If that girl wanted to change her social identity, how others view her, she could travel to a distant land and start a whole new life with a new social identity. With the rise of the digital era, however, this dramatic change has become near-impossible. If this girl was living nowadays, her social identity would probably be greatly influenced by her online interaction with family members, peers, and online friends, thanks to digital environments like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Keek, along with the other various social networks and hubs of communication that belong to the internet.

If we take a look at who exactly has access to and uses these fancy digital mediums and social networks, we notice immediately yet another effect of digital tools that we see in everyday life--social inequality. This is because the poor and those of the lower working class usually do not have access to things like social networks and online video games. As a result, their social identity is much less complex and less rich than those who are privileged enough to own and use such tools.  

  

My 8 year old brother with his Ipad

                 

My Ipad in his age

                                                                                                                  

These were, in summary, some of the sociological effects the digital age and its accompanying tools are having on us. What other effects can you think of? 

It's 2013 and We're Still Alive!

I recently watched the movie 2012, and it was basically about the world coming to an end. The movie “was inspired by theories that the calendar of the ancient Mayans foretells the end of civilisation on Dec 21, 2012” (Philip Sherwell and Hernando Garcia 2009). Hollywood spent more than $200 million on creating this film as it was meant to attract a global audience. The end of the world is considered a big catastrophe affecting every individual on this planet. Since Hollywood is a tool of capitalism as our Cinematic Sociology textbook described, all it cares about is making money. The whole story of the movie 2012 wasn’t realistic and convincing, and yet the producers managed to create the film through using visual effects to portray the natural disasters seem real. Now let’s analyse the movie from a sociological perspective. For example, from the conflict theory lens, we see that in the movie there was a portrayal of conflict between social classes. The bourgeoisies were the elites and people with power who managed to get on the spaceship without any problems, where as the proletariats weren’t able to get on the spaceship because they weren’t rich and they were from the working class who built the spaceship. The bourgeoisies were able to protect their interests and arrange society in a way that most benefits them, at the expanse of the proletariats. This means that the elites and the people with power had the resources to afford getting on the spaceship by purchasing the boarding tickets ahead of time. The proletariats were less fortunate since they were the labourers, and didn’t own the means of production. Social inequality played a role in the 2012 movie. The innocent ordinary people in the movie were left behind and weren’t notified to evacuate ahead of time. They weren’t also informed about the spaceship to rescue themselves. It was interesting to watch 2012 and analyse it from a sociological perspective. I happened to learn about the Mayan calendar, and I learned that Nasa ended up writing an article dedicated to answer people’s inquiries and to clarify the fact that 2012 is not the end of the world.

Glass Ceiling barriers Can Be Broken!

When sociologists study gender, they focus on male-female differences in behavior and appearance that have been socially created. Sexism has brought many inequalities to women, especially within areas of education, work and politics. By sexism, I mean the belief that one sex- and by extension, one gender- is innately superior to another, justifying unequal treatment of the sexes. The concept of gender stratification becomes evident, as there tends to be unequal access to power, prestige, and property on the basis of sex/gender.



The notion of glass ceiling could be the reason for gender inequality. In this case, glass ceiling is an invisible barrier that keeps women from reaching the highest ranks of jobs or industries. This may be the case with some women, but not with all women, certainly not Mercedes Duerineckx. She is the founder and CEO of the International and well known, Art Wanson Gallery. She has created a luxurious platform for all art expressions, under the trademark of excellence, tradition and exclusivity.



Women tend to face gender discrimination within higher education, but Duerinckx didn’t. She got her Business Administration degree in Tourism.



Duerinckx’s education and Art Wanson Gallery is not her only accomplishment. She has been awarded businesswomen of the year 1992 in Morocco, Founder and CEO in real state industry 1985-1992, and the executive member of Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Tanger.



She said that growing up in a multicultural family has helped her become who she is today. Duerinckx was born in a Spanish family in Morocco and later on moved to Spain and France. In sociological terms, she was raised in a highbrow culture, with a diverse cultural background.

A Sepration: Hearts and Houses Divided

A Separation is a 2011 Iranian movie drama movie written and directed by Asghar Farhadi. The film received the Golden Bear for Best Film, won the Golden Globe Awards Best Foreign Language Film.

The Iranian movie, “A Separation,” captures the drama and real life suspense of the modern society as it evolves around the changing role of both controlling men and assertive women. The movie questions the great phenomenon and duality of class, religion, culture, modernity and tradition.

A separation evolves around a secular-modern and open-minded couple, Simin: the wife, and Nader: the husband. However, their conflicting differences lead to filing for a divorce. Simin wants to move abroad for a better future for her daughter, whereas, the Nader is unwilling to relocate because of his fathers ill condition.

The movie starts by when Simin is trying to convince the judge to let her divorce her a bank-clerk husband, Nader. However, the judge turns her down when she explains that she wants to leave the country in order to have a better life for their daughter. The judge questions her, “What are the conditions that you don't want to live here and you don't want to raise your children here?” Following this scene, the director hinges on the question and portrays the obstacles they’re faced within the Iranian society.


Simin tends to be an open-minded and independent woman, as she leaves the house, rather than agreeing to her husband’s decision. As a result, Nader is forced to hire a nurse to take care of his ill father. We are then introduced to another side of the Iranian community: the religious, poor and holy. Social inequality and cultural clash becomes evident when Nader hires a nurse for his father, Razieh. For instance, Razieh calls her religious leader and asks permission on whether she could help out the old man, without having her husband informed of her job in first place.

The movie emphasizes on culture, social inequality and religion between the increasing poor and rich citizens. Cultural differences are greatly evident by comparing Simin’s and Razieh’s life. Razieh tends to satisfy her husbands needs and is scared of her husband finding out about her job, whereas Simin is more independent with making her choices. Plus, their non-material culture is evident through their clothing, as it is another symbol to portray women in Iran. The more rich and open-minded women dress more freely, whereas, the poor and oppressed women wear black Chadors. In addition, social inequality is evident as Simin’s husband is a bank clerk, whereas, Razieh’s husband is unemployed.

Social Stratification

According to sociology, social inequality would be defined as a situation in which valued resources and desired outcomes are distributed in such ways that people have unequal amounts and/or access to them. And one of the main ways they would be affected, is because of social stratification, the systematic process of ranking people on a scale of social worth, leaving many either in a situation of absolute poverty or relative poverty.

We can see every society in the world stratify itself people, any criterion could be used to distinguish them, the most common being social status - which is determined by your profession - the kind of job you do and the money you earn as a result of it.

This chapter on social stratification reminded me of the all time epic Hollywood love story, The Notebook, where the main focus of the movie is the separation of this poor and young man who falls in love with a rich young woman and gives her a sense of freedom. They get separated because of nothing else but their social differences. Her family rejects the guy because of his un-wealthy family, and instead gets her engaged to a soldier, to maintain the same social status. More or less, that’s the laws of the universe.

Disney's "stereotyped" land!

If you’ve watched any of Disney's classical animated movies then you probably haven’t noticed some of the misleading elements that appear within some characters.

If you’ve watched any of Disney's classical animated movies then you probably haven’t noticed some of the misleading elements that appear within some characters.

Disney corporation is one of the seven enormous companies that have a wide control over the mass media today. These cultural industries reproduce social inequality by reinforcing stereotypes in countless images for the mass market. So, as silly and childish these Disney characters may be, some of their descriptions could be listed under racism or social inequality. Examples of these inequalities and racism are shown in Disney's most famous movies such as; Aladdin, The little Mermaid, Pocahontas and Peter Pan.

When I was young, after watching Pocahontas and Peter Pan, I assumed that there was a gang called the Red Indians. The image that was drawn in my mind about those people was similar to the image of pirates. It wasn’t until I’ve studied them in history that I found out that Red Indians are native Americans, but the style which the movie portrait them in made it hard for me to think of them as civilized people.

However, native American or Red Indian characters were not the only ones accused of showing a racist image among Disney's cartoons. Aladdin is mainly taken from the Arabian Nights famous stories, but nothing in those stories mentioned that Arabs cut off your ear if they don’t like your face! Thats what the theme song of Aladdin says. As well as the represented image of the Arabian cities which was reintroduced in the movie Transformers. This stereotyped image that the Middle East is a piece of desert occupied by barbaric people is very common in most of the movies made by big corporations.

Its obvious that some of Disney’s characters portray different races and cultures in a negative way. Though these types of shows and movies are perceived as innocent entertainment products, they are successfully absorbed by children; making their knowledge of these real-life characters nothing but the negative stereotyped image they have portrayed.

This could be explained through the critical approach to popular culture, as it proves that radio and movies are no longer considered art, they are just business  made into an ideology to justify the rubbish they produce.