WHITE LIKE ME
Race, Racism & White Privilege in America

White Like Me, based on the work of acclaimed anti-racist educator and author Tim Wise, explores race and racism in the US through the lens of whiteness and white privilege. In a stunning reassessment of the American ideal of meritocracy and claims that we’ve entered a post-racial society, Wise offers a fascinating look back at the race-based white entitlement programs that built the American middle class, and argues that our failure as a society to come to terms with this legacy of white privilege continues to perpetuate racial inequality and race-driven political resentments today. For years, Tim Wise’s bestselling books and spellbinding lectures have challenged some of our most basic assumptions about race in America. White Like Me is the first film to bring the full range of his work to the screen — to show how white privilege continues to shape individual attitudes, electoral politics, and government policy in ways too many white people never stop to think about.

Features Tim Wise, Michelle Alexander, Charles Ogletree, Imani Perry, Martin Gilens, John H. Bracey, Jr. and Nilanjana Dasgupta.

NOT JUST A GAME
Power, Politics & American Sports

In this exhilarating tour of the good, the bad, and the ugly of American sports culture, iconoclastic cultural historian and Nation magazine writer Dave Zirin argues that American sports are about a lot more than just fun and games. Exploding the myth that the world of sports somehow stands outside the world of politics and ideology, Zirin shows how American sports culture has long been a haven for the most reactionary attitudes and ideas, promoting everything from nationalism and militarism to sexism, racism, and homophobia. At the same time, he identifies an equally strong countercurrent, a history of rebel athletes whose high-profile resistance to jingoistic patriotism, heterosexist masculine authority, white male privilege, and other forms of bullying have reverberated beyond the field of play. Inspired as much by Zirin’s passion for politics as by his passion for sports, this is cultural studies and media education at their best — a powerful classroom resource that shows how even the most benign pop cultural forms have the power to shape young people’s attitudes and ideas.

THE GREAT WHITE HOAX
Donald Trump & the Politics of Race & Class in America

KILLING US SOFTLY 4
Advertising’s Image of Women

This highly anticipated update of Jean Kilbourne’s influential and award-winning Killing Us Softly series, the first in more than a decade, takes a fresh look at American advertising and discovers that the more things have changed, the more they’ve stayed the same. Breaking down a staggering range of more than 160 print and television ads, Kilbourne uncovers a steady stream of sexist and misogynistic images and messages, laying bare a world of frighteningly thin women in positions of passivity, and a restrictive code of femininity that works to undermine girls and women in the real world. At once provocative and inspiring, Killing Us Softly 4 stands to challenge yet another generation of students to take advertising seriously, and to think critically about its relationship to sexism, eating disorders, gender violence, and contemporary politics.

ADVERTISING AT THE EDGE OF THE APOCALYPSE

In this highly anticipated sequel to his groundbreaking Advertising & the End of the World, media scholar Sut Jhally explores the devastating personal and environmental fallout from advertising, commercial culture, and rampant American consumerism.

Ranging from the emergence of the modern advertising industry in the early 20th century to the full-scale commercialization of the culture today, Jhally identifies one consistent message running throughout all of advertising: the idea that corporate brands and consumer goods are the keys to human happiness. He then shows how this powerful narrative, backed by billions of dollars a year and propagated by the best creative minds, has blinded us to the catastrophic costs of ever-accelerating rates of consumption.

THE SOULS OF BLACK GIRLS
Media Images of Beauty & the Self-Esteem of African-American Women

Filmmaker Daphne Valerius’s award-winning documentary The Souls of Black Girls explores how media images of beauty undercut the self-esteem of African-American women. Valerius surveys the dominant white, light-skinned, and thin ideals of beauty that circulate in the culture, from fashion magazines to film and music video, and talks with African-American girls and women about how these images affect the way they see themselves. The film also features powerful commentary from rapper and activist Chuck D, actresses Regina King and Jada Pinkett Smith, PBS news anchor Gwen Ifill, cultural critic Michaela Angela Davis, and others.

MORE THAN A WORD
Native American-based Sports Mascots & the Washington R*dskins

More Than a Word offers a fascinating look inside the growing movement to change the name of the Washington R*dskins football team.

Directed by brothers John and Kenn Little, who are members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, the film traces how the word “r*dskin” evolved from being a term of racist derision and slander to being embraced as the name of one of the NFL’s most beloved franchises. It also draws on the voices of Native American activists and scholars to place this controversy within the wider context of Native American history and racial stereotyping more generally.

TOUGH GUISE 2
Violence, Manhood & American Culture

In this highly anticipated update of the influential and widely acclaimed Tough Guise, pioneering anti-violence educator and cultural theorist Jackson Katz argues that the ongoing epidemic of men’s violence in America is rooted in our inability as a society to move beyond outmoded ideals of manhood. In a sweeping analysis that cuts across racial, ethnic, and class lines, Katz examines mass shootings, day-to-day gun violence, violence against women, bullying, gay-bashing, and American militarism against the backdrop of a culture that has normalized violent and regressive forms of masculinity in the face of challenges to traditional male power and authority. Along the way, the film provides a stunning look at the violent, sexist, and homophobic messages boys and young men routinely receive from virtually every corner of the culture, from television, movies, video games, and advertising to pornography, the sports culture, and U.S. political culture. Tough Guise 2 stands to empower a new generation of young men — and women — to challenge the myth that being a real man means putting up a false front and engaging in violent and self-destructive behavior.

LATINOS BEYOND REEL
Challenging a Media Stereotype

In Latinos Beyond Reel, filmmakers Miguel Picker and Chyng Sun examine how US news and entertainment media portray — and do not portray — Latinos. Drawing on the insights of Latino scholars, journalists, community leaders, actors, directors, and producers, they uncover a pattern of gross misrepresentation and gross under-representation — a world in which Latinos tend to appear, if at all, as gangsters and Mexican bandits, harlots and prostitutes, drug dealers and welfare-leeching illegals. The film challenges viewers to think critically about the wide-ranging effects of these media stereotypes, and to envision alternative representations and models of production more capable of capturing the humanity and diversity of real Latinos.

HIP-HOP: BEYOND BEATS AND RHYMES

Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes provides a riveting examination of manhood, sexism, and homophobia in hip-hop culture. Director Byron Hurt, former star college quarterback, longtime hip-hop fan, and gender violence prevention educator, conceived the documentary as a “loving critique” of a number of disturbing trends in the world of rap music. He pays tribute to hip-hop while challenging the rap music industry to take responsibility for glamorizing destructive, deeply conservative stereotypes of manhood.

The documentary features revealing interviews about masculinity and sexism with rappers such as Mos Def, Fat Joe, Chuck D, Jadakiss, and Busta Rhymes, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, and cultural commentators such as Michael Eric Dyson and Beverly Guy-Sheftall.