Media Education Foundation: Class Dismissed


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Reviews and Comments

"With incisive political commentary and vivid examples drawn from television shows past and present, Class Dismissed stunningly illustrates how the working class has been (mis)represented in popular culture. Class Dismissed forces us to reconsider our perceptions of and attitudes towards the working class, and shows us how class in the United States is complexly and inextricably bound to race, gender, and sexuality. This is a superb examination that demonstrates the inordinate power of television to frame social categories and their political meaning."
- Michael Omi | University of California, Berkeley

"Fast-paced, hard-hitting, and timely, Class Dismissed employs sophisticated theory to critically analyze the way media shapes how people understand and misunderstand class in American society."
- Lee D. Baker | Editor, Life in America: Identity and Everyday Experience

"Essential viewing for students and researchers who are interested in the political economy of media, media and social change, media portrayals of social groups and issues, and media influence."
- Mary Beth Oliver | Professor of Communication | Penn State University

"Revelatory. Brings to light the political and economic forces that imperil workers, but rarely appear in sitcoms: the loss of millions of industrial jobs, depressed wages, and declining union membership, all at a time of drastic cutbacks in governmental expenditures on health, welfare, and education."
- Stephen Steinberg | Author, Turning Back: The Retreat from Radical Justice in American Thought and Policy

"Class Dismissed dares to open our eyes to television’s role in disappearing class from the American consciousness. The carefully crafted interviews set against humorous clips show how stereotypes of working-class buffoons distance us from the reality of corporate greed. Class Dismissed drives home the connections between class, gender and race to ongoing systems of inequality and reminds viewers of the importance of raising class consciousness if we are to succeed in forging meaningful models of citizenship in the future.
- Elizabeth L. Krause | Assistant Professor of Anthropology | University of Massachusetts Amherst

"At last an educational documentary that tackles head on the complex and elusive imaginings of class in the United States. MEF adds an important piece to its growing list of documentaries aimed at exposing the distortions of a corporate controlled media industry. Class Dismissed offers us a sophisticated analysis of TV’s changing representations of the working class, beginning with the now largely forgotten “ethnocoms” of the forties like “The Goldbergs”, through Archie Bunker and "The Honeymooners", all the way to "Jerry Springer" and "Joe Millionaire." Using a familiar documentary format, the video compresses a complex history into an accessible narrative that both reveals shifts in the way working class people have been portrayed and exposes the ideological effects of these representations."
- Jackie Urla | Department of Anthropology | University of Massachusetts Amherst

Class Dismissed
How TV Frames the Working Class

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In this section:
Summary
Logistical Information
Biographical Summary
Reviews and Comments
Screenings and Festivals
Articles

Summary:

Narrated by Ed Asner

Based on the forthcoming book by Pepi Leistyna, Class Dismissed navigates the steady stream of narrow working class representations from American television's beginnings to today's sitcoms, reality shows, police dramas, and daytime talk shows.

Featuring interviews with media analysts and cultural historians, this documentary examines the patterns inherent in TV's disturbing depictions of working class people as either clowns or social deviants -- stereotypical portrayals that reinforce the myth of meritocracy.

Class Dismissed breaks important new ground in exploring the ways in which race, gender, and sexuality intersect with class, offering a more complex reading of television's often one-dimensional representations. The video also links television portrayals to negative cultural attitudes and public policies that directly affect the lives of working class people.

Featuring interviews with Stanley Aronowitz, (City University of New York); Nickel and Dimed author, Barbara Ehrenreich; Herman Gray (University of California-Santa Cruz); Robin Kelley (Columbia University); Pepi Leistyna (University of Massachusetts-Boston) and Michael Zweig (State University of New York-Stony Brook). Also with Arlene Davila, Susan Douglas, Bambi Haggins, Lisa Henderson, and Andrea Press.

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Logistical Information:

Co-produced and Written by: Loretta Alper & Pepi Leistyna
Edited by: Jeremy Smith

Recipient of the 2007 Studs Terkel Award for Media and Journalism from the Working Class Studies Association

Selected as Class Action’s “Film of the Month” (10/06)

Biographical Summary:

LORETTA ALPER | Since joining MEF in 2000, Loretta Alper has produced four films including Captive Audience: Advertising Invades the Classroom, and War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death, and has served as executive producer on seven others. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in English and Communication, and a Master’s degree in Secondary English Education, both from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She first became interested in media literacy as a high school English teacher. In addition to teaching, she has done independent print and radio journalism, curated an independent film series, worked as a 35 mm film projectionist, and too many other odd jobs to mention.

PEPI LEISTYNA | Pepi Leistyna is an associate professor of Applied Linguistics Graduate Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. He coordinates the research program and teaches courses in cultural studies, media literacy, and critical pedagogy. Leistyna has spoken internationally on issues of democracy, education, and social justice. His books include Breaking Free: The Transformative Power of Critical Pedagogy; Presence of Mind: Education and the Politics of Deception; Defining and Designing Multiculturalism; Cultural Studies: From Theory to Action, and Corpus Analysis: Language Structure and Language Use. Associate editor of the Journal of English Linguistics, Research Fellow of the Education Policy Research Unit, Vice President of Curriculum Development for Action Coalition for Media Education, and co-founder of the Human Rights Working Group, Leistyna is also on the editorial boards of Public Resistance; Radical Teacher; Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education; Simile: Studies in Media & Information Literacy Education; and The Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies.

Screenings and Festivals:

Film Festivals:

LaborFest | International Working Class Film and Video Festival | San Francisco | July 5 - 30, 2007 | Co-sponsored by the ILWU Local, United Educators in San Francisco and the Oakland Education Association

Working-Class Studies Association Film Festival | St. Paul | June 16, 2007

Mayday at the Movies: Comedy and Tragedy at Work | Hofstra Labor Studies 6th Annual Film Festival | Hempstead, NY | May 1, 2007

Youngstown State University | Youngstown, PA | April 16, 2007

Three Screens Film Festival | New Delhi, India | November 12, 2006 |Part of the India Social Forum/ World Social Forum | organized by the Delhi Film Archive

Silver Lake Film Festival | Hollywood, CA | State of the Union Program sponsored by the AFL-CIO | Introductory panel included Sally Field, California State Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists president John Connolly | March 25, 2006

Das Globalisierungskritische Film Festival | Berlin, Germany | January 19, 2006

Conference Featured Screenings:

The 16th Coalition of Graduate Employee Union’s conference | University of Massachusetts Amherst | August 10, 2007

Labor Voices 3 Media Conference | CUNY Graduate Center | April 27, 2007

The Third Annual Faculty Symposium | University of Massachusetts Boston | November 17, 2006

ACME 2006 National Summit | Fire House Gallery Theater | Burlington, VT | October 6, 2006

Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) Annual Conference | Media Change and Social Theory | Organized by the ESRC (CRESC) at The Open University and The University of Manchester (in association with the Centre for Media, Culture and History, New York University), St Hugh's College, The University of Oxford, Oxford, UK | September 5, 2006

The Center for Working-Class Life’s How Class Works Conference | SUNY Stony Brook | Stony Brook, NY | June 9, 2006

Labor Notes Building Solidarity from Below Conference | Detroit | May 6, 2006

Public Screenings:

College of Interdisciplinary Studies’ Mandela-Parks Lecture Series and the Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy | Grand Valley State University | Michigan | November 1, 2007

The Critical Intersection between Language, Culture and Literacy lecture series | Greenfield Community College | Greenfield, MA | October 23, 2007

Youngstown State University | Co-sponsored by the Center for Working-Class Studies and the American Studies Department | Kilcawley Center Gallery | Youngstown, Ohio | April 16, 2007

Coe College | Co-sponsored by the Committee on Diversity and the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs | Cedar Rapids, IA | April 5, 2007

UWM Union Art Gallery | University of Wisconsin Milwaukee | Milwaukee | November 29, 2006

Omni Center | Video Underground | Fayetteville, AR | November 12, 2006

University of Wisconsin Milwaukee’s “Media and the Family” | September 29, 2006

Melbourne Independent Media Center | Glitch Cinema | Melbourne, Australia | August 7, 2006

North Shore Labor Council (NSLC) | Gulu-Gulu Café | Lynn, MA | July 18, 2006

Freie-Uni-Bochum (Free University of Bochum) | Bochum, Germany | June 13, 2006

AFGE Local 911 (employees in HUD Office) | Chicago, IL | June 11, 2006

DePaul University | Chicago Premier | May 19, 2006

William Paterson University and the Race & Gender Project | Wayne, NJ | April 26, 2006

Coalition for the Homeless | WIT Movie Night | Wesley House | Louisville, KY | April 21, 2006

Rcuch Research Center for Urban Cultural History | Boston, MA | April 21, 2006

ACME/Tactical Media Project | University of Massachusetts Boston | Co-sponsored by Jobs with Justice and Community Change, | Moderated by John Grebe – host of WZBC 90.3 FM’s “Sounds of Dissent” | April 13, 2006

Articles: