Fluent Essays

People often use jokes to test the boundaries of what is considered offensive. Under the guise of humor, the joke teller can attempt to minimize any offense taken by defending the humor as “just a joke.” Clearly, an attempt to belittle or demean others as a form of humor is distasteful. And in every culture, one can encounter humor that, to be understood, relies on prejudice—whether that prejudice be about race, sexual orientation, gender, ethnicity, or nationality. What others might find funny, some find tasteless and indefensible. Simply because an offensive statement is clothed as a joke does not make the joke funny nor does it mean that the joke teller cannot be confronted by someone who finds the comment offensive or inappropriate. Even so, confronting someone about an inappropriate joke can present a social risk; the person being called out is likely to feel defensive and retaliate against whomever exposed them. For this Discussion, you will draw on your own experience and social psychology theory to examine responses to prejudiced comments.   To Prepare Review the Learning Resources for this week and think about how social psychology theory and research explains the responses that people have when they hear prejudiced comments. Recall a time when you have been present when someone made a racist comment or “joke,” and no one confronted the joke teller.  Post a time when you have been present when someone made a prejudiced “joke” or comment, and no one confronted the joke teller. Were you offended by the joke? How can a decision to stay mute be explained by social psychology theory?https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508416689095 Organization 2017, Vol. 24(3) 397 –417 © The Author(s) 2017 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1350508416689095 journals.sagepub.com/home/org ‘It’s a man’s man’s man’s world’: Music groupies and the othering of women in the world of rock Gretchen Larsen Durham University, UK Abstract Groupies are understood as a particular type of fan that are most commonly associated with rock music. The ‘groupie’ identity is almost exclusively applied to female fans but sometimes also to female music producers and is largely used in a derogatory manner both by the popular media and by fans themselves. This article argues that the ‘groupie’ identity is used to ‘other’ and exclude women from creative production in rock music. This study draws on a rhetorical analysis of five published biographical accounts of groupies to examine how the labeling of certain people as ‘groupies’ works as an othering practice that serves to support and maintain the gendered norms of rock and identifies three underlying discursive processes. First, popular and music media played a significant role in stereotyping groupie as female right from the emergence of the label. Second, the notions of ‘credibility’ and ‘authenticity’, which are central to serious music journalism, are constructed in such a way as to stigmatize and therefore exclude women from rock, primarily by reframing ‘groupies’ as inauthentic consumers rather than proper fans. Finally, the intertwining of femininity with fandom, as occurs in groupiedom, serves to magnify cultural assumptions about women as sex objects and as passive consumers of mass culture. In elucidating both the gender and marketplace role politics at play in the ‘groupie’ identity and the mechanisms involved in othering women, space is opened in which alternative possibilities for understanding and enacting the role of women in rock can be imagined. Keywords Consumer, creative industries, fans, gender, groupies, music, patriarchy Introduction The figure of the groupie looms large in the discourses and social imaginary surrounding rock music, playing an integral role in the mythology of ‘sex, drugs and rock n’ roll’. Groupies can be Corresponding author: Gretchen Larsen, Department of Management and Marketing, Durham University Business School, Durham University, Queen’s Campus, University Boulevard, Thornaby, Stockton-on-Tees TS17 6BH, UK. Email: [email protected] Article 689095ORG0010.1177/1350508416689095OrganizationLarsen research-article2017 https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/journals-permissions https://journals.sagepub.com/home/org mailto:[email protected] http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1177\%2F1350508416689095&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2017-05-10 398 Organization 24(3) found across a range of culture, leisure, and sports activities (Forsyth and Thompson, 2007; Gauthier and Forsyth, 2000; Gmelch and San AntonioPeace Review: A Journal of Social Justice, 28:474–481 Copyright C© Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN 1040-2659 print; 1469-9982 online DOI: 10.1080/10402659.2016.1237116 To Laugh or Not to Laugh at Racist Jokes I Jin Jang and Carlos Cordero-Pedrosa In times of Brexit, the French ban on the burkini, and the refugee crisis, the return of openly expressing racism in many parts of Europe increasingly pairs political correctness in a false dichotomy with freedom of speech. In this light, humor seems a suitable vehicle to sustain racist discourse in an acceptable way, and it is even presented as a critique of racism itself. Racist jokes are employed with the purpose of parodying and exposing racism to challenge political correctness. In this context, it is not clear if certain racist jokes are reinforcing or subverting racism. Laughing at the jokes, then, becomes an increasingly difficult choice. This essay departs from the authors’ shared per- sonal experiences with racist jokes presented as a parody of racism. Using two at times different, yet converging perspectives—of a Korean female and a Spanish male—we try to bring those perspectives into our reflection on the workings of racism, dynamics of power, and limitations and possibilities for solidarity. We attempt to analyze our episodes from different angles in order to present some of the manifold implications that racist jokes can reveal and hide. We start by discussing a situation in which we were watching a Spanish sitcom in a familial setting and the dilemma that arises when racism takes the shape of humor. After lunch, a ritual begins. In Spain people usually have lunch betweentwo and four in the afternoon. Carlos’ family was not an exception. After the meal was finished, the family would take yogurt for dessert, and retire into an adjacent sitting room where they would gather to relax. Sitting or lying on a sofa to let the food go down, there is nothing better than to watch a light comedy on a drowsy late afternoon. The TV is on, showing a rerun of a popular Spanish comedy called La Que Se Avecina (What’s Yet to Come). The quotidian routine of watching the show together after lunch is almost sacred, and it is only polite for the guest to join this ritual. Between laughing, they glance at I Jin to see if she understands the humor and to explain the background stories of the characters for her to be able to follow. La Que Se Avecina has been aired for eight years in Spain with immense success. Set in an upscale suburban housing development around Madrid, the sitcom revolves around the lives of the neighboring residents who are 474 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10402659.2016.1237116 To Laugh or Not to Laugh at Racist Jokes 475 gradually learning to “live worse” in the wake of the economic crisis in Spain. Gossiping, scheming, backstabbing, and plotting unlawful acts with or against one another are common devices chosen by the farcically stereotyped neighbors in their desperate and hystericORIGINAL ARTICLE Gender Representation on Gender-Targeted Television Channels: A Comparison of Female- and Male-Targeted TV Channels in the Netherlands Serena Daalmans1 & Mariska Kleemans1 & Anne Sadza1 Published online: 5 January 2017 # The Author(s) 2017. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract The current study investigated the differences in the representation of gender on male- and female-targeted channels with regard to recognition (i.e., the actual presence of men and women) and respect (i.e., the nature of that representation or portrayal). To this end, the presence of men and women on two female- and two male-targeted Dutch channels (N = 115 pro- grams, N = 1091 persons) were compared via content analysis. The expectation that men’s channels would portray a less equal and more traditional image of gender than women’s channels was generally supported by the results. Regardless of genre as well as country of origin of the program, women were under- represented on men’s channels, while gender distribution on women’s channels was more equal. The representation of wom- en in terms of age and occupation was more stereotypical on men’s channels than on women’s channels, whereas men were represented in more contra-stereotypical ways (e.g., performing household tasks) on women’s channels. Since television view- ing contributes to the learning and maintenance of stereotyped perceptions, the results imply that it is important to strengthen viewers’ defenses against the effects of gender stereotyping when watching gendered television channels, for instance through media literacy programs in schools. Keywords Gender-targeted channels . Gender stereotyping . Gender representation . Content analysis . Television Over the past decades, research has made it abundantly clear that women are underrepresented in the media and that, when they are present, they are more often than not represented in stereotypical roles (Collins 2011; Emons et al. 2010; Furnham and Paltzer 2010; Lauzen et al. 2008; Signorielli and Bacue 1999). Because the roles of women in society have expanded tremendously as a result of the ongoing process of emancipa- tion, these consistent findings are often seen as remarkable (Collins 2011; Emons et al. 2010; Lauzen et al. 2008; Signorielli and Bacue 1999). However, recent developments in the television landscape may provide new insights on the issue. There are indications that specific gender-targeted genres (e.g., soaps and teen scene) might actually showcase both a more equal distribution of men and women as well as less stereotyping in its gender portrayals (Gerding and Signorielli 2014; Lauzen et al. 2006). Following on from this speculation, the emergence of channels that specifically define men or women as their target group and thus predominantly broadcast gender-targeted genres (also called narrowcasting, Kuipers 2012; Smith-Shomade 2004) might be a promising development with regard to a more