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5.2: Oppositional Viewership - Classroom Activity

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    Oppositional Viewership | Classroom Activity | 'Media Deconstruct-o-pedia'

    How To Use This Material [Instructor Note]

    • The following is a group-based, rotating activity which has students engage a variety of different media (commercials, television shows, movies, music videos) and ‘think’ them from a handful of oppositional perspectives (class, race, gender, sexuality, and colonialism)
      • The goal is to walk away with not only a better understanding of the socially-, culturally-, and politically-constitutive nature of popular culture, but how perspectives on the margin have—and will continue—to bring about meaningful, critical change
    • Each station is dedicated to a different media/perspective, with each offering specific guiding questions that fit the particulars of that phenomena
    • This activity was designed to follow an engagement with concepts of ‘oppositional gaze,’ ‘queer reading,’ and ‘orientalism,’ but contains enough scaffolding to be accomplished without
    • I would recommend starting with a 5-10 minute introduction; review questions can be found below
    • Depending on your classroom layout and tech access, you can have the stations be literal locations in the room (each would need its own media device), or upload the stations to your learning platform for students to access using their own tech (at least one member per group will need laptop/tablet access to stream the various content)
    • You are welcome to make a copy of this material to edit and remix as you wish; please be sure to give credit and follow the CC license mandates when doing so

    Media Deconstruct-o-pedia - Exploring Oppositional Viewerships

    While it’s important to know the history, context, and critical developments of a concept, nothing beats hands-on engagement. To better realize the socially-, culturally-, and politically-constitutive nature of popular culture—and how perspectives on the margin have (and will continue!) to bring about meaningful, critical change—we’re going to work through a series of case studies. Each station is centered on a different type of media, as well as a different identity. As you and your group members move station to station, you’re to ‘think’ the gathered media from a handful of oppositional perspectives, in hopes to better appreciate what such critical positionings can unlock.

    Instructions

    Station #1: Gender & Advertising

    Station #2: Race & Sitcoms

    Station #3: Class & Reality Television

    • Guiding Question(s): What do these programs suggest is necessary to live a good, happy, healthy life? How are messages about wealth (and poverty) being communicated, both by what the characters say/do and by how it is presented by the camera/editing/production? In what ways are these programs similar, and in what ways do they differ? Are these shows promoting capitalism, or is it a ‘farce’—a more satirical, critical perspective, too outrageous to be taken seriously?
    • Examples:

    Station #4: Queer Readings & Pop Music

    • Guiding Question(s): Each example will have it’s own guiding focus; see prompts below
    • Examples:
      • Quintessentially Heteronormative: “You Belong With Me” | Taylor Swift (2009)
        • How does this song uphold and embolden classic, stereotypical ideas of love, romance, and happiness? What other popular cultures is the song in conversation with, from Shakespeare plays to Mean Girls?
      • Questionably Queer: “I Want It That Way” | Backstreet Boys (1999)
        • While not intended to be a ‘queer’ song, this Backstreet Boys hit has been perpetually labeled as ‘gay.’ What about this song might lead one to have that perspective? Does approaching the song in that way suggest homophobia, or does it provide a unique route for queer representation in popular culture? Is it ‘okay’ to have a perspective different from what the creator(s) intended?
      • Quixotically Gay: “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)” | Lil Nas X (2021)
        • Unlike our other two examples, this was fully intended to be a queer anthem. How does Lil Nas X make sure his message is communicated? What is that message? In what ways does his music video/song unlock new forms of representation for gay men, and queer people writ large? In what ways does it not?

    Station #5: (Post)Colonialism & Disney

    • Guiding Question(s): How do these early Disney films distort one’s understanding of the practices, processes, and justifications of colonization? How might these films perpetuate false, dangerous, and deleterious understandings of cultures, places, and peoples from around the world? How do these films position ‘Western’ characters, and what ‘justifications’ of/for colonization might they suggest? How, if at all, are more recent films responding to these depictions?
    • Examples:

     

    © J. F. Lindsay, CC BY-NC-SA

    This page titled 5.2: Oppositional Viewership - Classroom Activity is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Erica McCormack and Jack Lindsay.