Gender and Popular Culture ((3 Units))

Catalog description

This course is designed to critically and analytically examine different forms of popular culture from a gendered perspective. While many view media products as simple entertainment they can provide an invaluable and unique tool in examining how societies construct gender roles and the biases that exist just below the surface of most diversionary products of our society. Mass produced material and popular culture shape our society’s understanding of masculinity and femininity in modern America. By engaging with a variety of pop culture texts we can shed new light on society’s gender roles and the assumptions that we make regarding how those roles are created, perpetuated, and can be changed. This class will be an interdisciplinary examination of gender themes in American popular culture and will teach students to examine the messages encoded in film, television, literature, comic books, video games, and sports.