Medievalism, Misogyny, and Orientalism: The Representation of Queen Sibylla in Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-130
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Lapina
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Kingdom Of Heaven

This article is an historian's engagement with Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven (2005) and its portrayal of Queen Sibylla of Jerusalem. It demonstrates that the film presents a myth of medieval women's lack of agency, especially in the spheres of warfare and politics, and that it also projects modern misogynist and Orientalist tropes onto the medieval past. In addition to critiquing the film's historical claims, it draws on medieval sources to reconstruct what the historical Sibylla's roles were likely to have been, and to demonstrate the prevalence of women's involvement in allegedly "masculine" spheres of activity. Finally, it calls on historians to expose the dangerous uses of "medieval" imagery in contemporary popular culture and right-wing ideologies.

Paramilitarism and music in Colombia

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 541-559
Author(s):  
Eduar Barbosa Caro ◽  
Johanna Ramírez Suavita
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Drug Trafficking ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Political Context ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Total Absence

Abstract Colombia has experienced violence at the hands of both guerrillas and paramilitaries fighting to control territories, drug trafficking, and gain political influence. Though in recent years armed activities by both groups has subsided, their conflicting ideologies are visible in several contexts in today’s polarized Colombia. We tend to think about conflict in terms of bullets and people in military uniforms, but discourses of conflict are also evident in popular culture, such as music. In this paper, we analyse 19 corridos paracos, videos produced by sympathisers of Right-wing guerrilla groups, to demonstrate how this is done. Here, we find songs present a messianic portrayal of the paramilitary along with sexist ideas as the representation of manliness. Moreover, there is an almost total absence of peaceful actions in the lyrics, and an exaltation of brutality and terrorism. In a political context which cries out for reconciliation, these do little to this end.

Defusing the male working class: Populist politics and reality television

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 545-562 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fredrik Stiernstedt ◽  
Peter Jakobsson
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Reality Television ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Reality Show ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
Cultural Artefact ◽  
Neoliberal Ideology ◽  
Right Wing Populism

This article presents an analysis of the makeover reality show Real Men, which was broadcast on Swedish television in 2016. The analysis shows that Real Men – like other shows of its genre – functions as a form of ‘governmentality’ through which forms of neoliberal subjectivity are propagated and pedagogically enforced on ‘bad subjects’. However, the show surpasses the genre conventions by questioning the authority of the norms and values (i.e. middle-class, cosmopolitan and urban values) that are being propagated and in letting the values held by the working-class men on the show eventually be victorious and accepted within the narrative. The purpose of this article is to try to make sense of a popular cultural artefact such as Real Men against the background of the crisis of legitimacy for the neoliberal ideology and the rise of (right-wing) populism, and to try to understand how the forms and genres of popular culture transform and respond to this changing political context.

Transforming reality

1988 ◽  
Vol 17 (10) ◽  
pp. 17-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paulo Freire ◽  
Vivian Schelling
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Adult Literacy ◽  
Paulo Freire ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Political Awareness ◽  
Educational Method ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The World ◽  
The Right

One of the key figures in the Popular Culture Movement, Paulo Freire is the founder of a revolutionary educational method which brought literacy — and political awareness — to thousands of the poor in Brazil. His books, which have played a key role in adult literacy movements throughout the world, have been banned by many dictatorial governments, including those of South Africa and, most recently, Haiti. Forced into exile from his own country following the right-wing coup in 1964, Freire finally returned in 1980. In São Paulo he talked to Vivian Schelling about his work

After the Fall: Hollywood Cinema and the Redefinition of America in the 1970s

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-112
Author(s):  
Thorsten Carstensen
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Shared Values ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Hollywood Cinema ◽  
The Past ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
Strong Focus ◽  
Societal Changes ◽  
National Consensus

AbstractThis manuscript traces Hollywood's response to the disintegration of U.S. national consensus in the 1970s under the spell of Vietnam and Watergate, with a strong focus on the representation of masculinity. In my comparative reading of several canonized movies of the 1970s (The Deer Hunter,Dirty Harry,The Godfather,Rocky), I demonstrate how Hollywood cinema, amid America's struggle to redefine its shared values and regain its self-confidence, advocated a return to myths of the past in order for the country to rewrite what historians have called the narrative of “victory culture.” As it is, arguably, in popular culture where societal changes manifest themselves most readily, I look at these films in the wider context of 1970s television, demonstrating connections with TV dramas such asBonanzaandThe Waltons. I conclude with an outlook on the Reagan presidency and the rise to prominence of right-wing sequels such as Rambo II and Rocky IV as the seemingly inevitable consequences of 1970s disintegration.

Pedagogie patriotyzmu

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (4(250)) ◽  
pp. 190-211
Author(s):  
Piotr Zańko
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Units Of Analysis

The author of this paper argues that the discourse of patriotism in public space in Poland is dominated by right-wing and ultra-right-wing circles. The content of these narratives usually takes the form of a closed, martyrological-national patriotism. Despite this hegemony, in opposition to it, subordinate groups produce narratives of critical and open patriotism. Using various subversive strategies, they try to free themselves from this domination. The main goal of the article is to identify the content of these discordant discourses, their forms and the ways in which they are made. The units of analysis will be selected popular culture texts and cultural practices (hip-hop and rock lyrics, graffiti, murals, banners, performative activities in urban space).

Stepping in the Shoes of Leaders of Populist Right-Wing Parties

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jolanda Jetten ◽  
Rachel Ryan ◽  
Frank Mols
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Growth Condition ◽  
Baseline Condition ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Economic Context

Abstract. What narrative is deemed most compelling to justify anti-immigrant sentiments when a country’s economy is not a cause for concern? We predicted that flourishing economies constrain the viability of realistic threat arguments. We found support for this prediction in an experiment in which participants were asked to take on the role of speechwriter for a leader with an anti-immigrant message (N = 75). As predicted, a greater percentage of realistic threat arguments and fewer symbolic threat arguments were generated in a condition in which the economy was expected to decline than when it was expected to grow or a baseline condition. Perhaps more interesting, in the economic growth condition, the percentage realistic entitlements and symbolic threat arguments generated were higher than when the economy was declining. We conclude that threat narratives to provide a legitimizing discourse for anti-immigrant sentiments are tailored to the economic context.

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