The Paradox of Dominate Ideologies in the Fight of Social Justice.

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Art is used in mass media to influence people, especially people in the generation and culture we live in today. The majority of art young people receive in our culture is through television and in particularly popular culture networks, like MTV. The television show on MTV called The Hills is an example of a show that promotes dominant ideology to young children/ teenagers. Slightly opposite of that would be another show on MTV called Jersey Shore, which is an example of a show that partly reinforces and partly challenges dominant ideology to the same type of audience. The two shows are looking at people who are in their 20s and there life as they live it in their current situation, they both claim to be reality television with no scripts. The Hills follows the life of one main girl and her friends, partners, and career however, all the actors in the show come from wealthy parents, and live a wealthy life style. Jersey Shore however, is a show about eight people living under the same roof, and following their lives as middle, working class people while they live together for the summer and also embracing there Italian culture. The difference for the Jersey Shore cast is that they do not come from wealthy parents and are only living together for the summer, until they part their own ways again. The paradox between art and social justice would be that art can be shown to fight for and against social justice. In this essay we will be comparing how The Hills is showing the dominant ideology of an upper white class structure that fights against social justice, while Jersey Shore is fighting for social justice by not showing the dominant ideologies of upper class, instead showing working class Americans. The essay will compare the two p...

... middle of paper ...

... In the end we can see how the paradox of art and social justice excites in our main stream media, through the two examples of the hills against it and Jersey Shore for social justice.

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body (pp. 99-134). Berkeley: University of California Press.

Edelman, M. (1995). “The Cardinal Political Role of Art.” Art to Politics: How Artistic creations

shape political conceptions (pp. 1-14). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Edelman, M. (2001). “Images.” The politics of Misinformation (pp. 11-17). Chicago: University

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Frankenberg, R. (1994). White Woman, Race Matters: The Social Construct of Whiteness.

University of Minnesota Press.

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