Following successful shows like Daredevil and Jessica Jones, Netflix recently added Luke Cage to their TV Marvel universe. Cage portrays a black super-strong superhero whose skin is bulletproof. Set in contemporary Harlem, New York, the show portrays various black and Latino characters in prominent roles. Despite praiseworthy reviews and mainstream popularity, some critics expressed their disapproval of the predominantly non-white cast, claiming that the show is racist and that Cage’s portrayal is “too black.” While the increase in minority characters has been a major stride for equal on-air representation, previous sociological research suggests other problems and pitfalls remain.

From 1978 to 1989, the number of black characters on prime time television doubled. Yet, minority presence was more likely to be found in comedic roles, such as the Cosby Show, rather than dramas. While there were more depictions of black and white relationships, these relationships were featured in more formalized settings such as the workplace, whereas relationships among whites took place within informal settings such as the home.

• Russell H. Weigel, Eleanor L. Kim, and Jill L. Frost. 1995. “Race Relations on Prime Time Television Reconsidered: Patterns of Continuity and Change.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 25(3): 223-236.

Ethnic minority representation in the media has not suppressed the perpetuation of racist myths and stereotypes that further stigmatize these groups. While greater demand for blacks on TV were rooted in demands for social justice, subsequent television programs often over-depicted black criminality or problematized black culture. Latinos are also underrepresented in television, and when they are depicted, these portrayals are more likely to be more negative than portrayals of other racial groups. As a result, under-representation may lead audiences to believe that there are fewer minorities in the actual population.

• Herman Gray. 2013. “Subjected to Recognition” American Quarterly 65(4). 771-798.
• Valerie Adams-Bass. 2014. “Measuring the Meaning of Black Media Stereotypes and Their Relationship to the Racial Identity, Black History Knowledge, and Racial Socialization of African American Youth.” Journal of Black Studies 45(5): 367-395.
• Jake Harwood and Karen Anderson. 2002. “The Presence and the Portrayal of Social Groups on Prime-Time Television.” Communication Reports 15(2): 81-97.

Even programs like The Cosby Show that featured predominantly positive images of middle-class blacks can produce unintended consequences. Interviews with middle-class black families suggested that many viewed the doctor-lawyer duo between the Huxtable parents as a role model for the black community. On the other hand, many middle-class blacks criticized the show for depicting an unrealistic characterization of a black family that seemingly never endured any racial problems. Furthermore, these depictions of black middle-class families may have suggested to white audiences that blacks could make social and economic strides if they worked as hard as the Huxtables.

• Leslie B. Inniss and Joe R. Feagin. 1995. “The Cosby Show: The View from the Black Middle Class.” Journal of Black Studies 25(6): 692-711.

More and more popular media outlets are talking about why purposely stopping your period might be a good thing. Many medical professionals now advocate for menstrual suppression, usually through hormonal treatments that many people are already using. Birth control options like the pill are being used as a way to improve the quality of life for those of us who get periods, but this medical development affects the social meaning of menstruation.

Menstruation is not simply a biological phenomenon. Rather, people experience menstruation within a social context. In a society that often assumes heterosexuality, girls’ first periods mark them as sexual objects, indicating their ability to reproduce, and differentiating them from boys. After their first period, girls report feeling sexualized by others, as well as more ambivalent about their bodies. Menstruation often evokes disgust by both men and women, often becoming a social stigma that must be hidden.

• Janet Lee. 1994. “Menarche and the (Hetero)Sexualization of the Female Body.” Gender & Society 8(3): 343-362.
• Ingrid Johnston-Robledo and Joan C. Chrisler. 2013. “The Menstrual Mark: Menstruation as Social Stigma.” Sex Roles 68(9)

While menstruation is typically discussed as something natural, what counts as menstruation is socially constructed. In the light of new drugs specifically designed to suppress periods, the FDA and companies marketing the products make distinctions between bleeding that occurs while taking hormonal birth control and bleeding that occurs without it. They argue that “pill periods” are not in fact “real” periods because they are artificially modified and therefore unnecessary. This redefinition demonstrates how bodily processes, like menstruation, can be redefined and reimagined, and how the way they are experienced is influenced by social context.

• Katie Ann Hasson. 2016. “Not a ‘Real’ Period? Social and Material Constructions of Menstruation.” Gender & Society 30(6):958-983

They say there is a first time for everything, and after 20 long years, the time has finally arrived. With the state of New York’s legalization of mixed martial arts, New York City will host UFC 205, which has been deemed the greatest fight card in UFC history. Headliners Irishman Conor Mcgregor and Joanna Jedrzejczyk of Poland are expected to attract large numbers of attendees and evoke an emotional connection among fans. Events such as the World Cup and Superbowl are cultural symbols, and UFC 205 is shaping up to be no different.

The UFC is a major attraction in sports right now. The urge to emotionally connect with others in an excited crowd is a compelling reason for buying tickets to major sporting events like this. People who attend a big match-up often experience eustress — positive forms of stimulation that lead to elevated levels of excitement.

Randal Collins. 2004. “Interaction Ritual Chains”. Pp. 75-90 in Micro-Sociological Analysis. 3rd edition, Contemporary Sociological Theory, edited by Craig Calhoun, Joseph Gerteis, James Moody, Steven Pfaff, and Indermohan Virk. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Daniel L. Wann, Merrill J. Melnick, Gordon W. Russell, Dale G. Pease. 2001. Sports Fans: The Psychology and Social Impact of Spectators. New York, NY: Routledge.

Porri and Billings have found that people are drawn to sporting events that differ from traditional, mainstream sports like baseball and football. MMA athletes’ unique personalities and set of combative skills generate interest in a different way than team sports do. Social acceptance and mass popularity of attending an event also influences an individual’s decision to splurge and see the big fight. The bigger the event, the greater the desire to be part of the experience, especially if friends and family think it would be cool to attend.

Seungmo Kim, T. Christopher Greenwell, Damon P.S. Andrew, Janghyuk Lee, and Daniel F. Mahony. 2008. “An Analysis of Spectator Motives in an Individual Combat Sport: A Study of Mixed Martial Arts Fan.” Sport Marketing Quarterly 17: 109-119.

Sarah Porri and Andrew C. Billings. “No Limits: Sensation Seeking and Fandom in the Sport Culture of the X Games.” Pp. 91-100 in Sports Fans, Identity, and Socialization: Exploring the Fandemonium, edited by Adam C. Earnheardt, Paul M. Haridakis, and Barbara S. Hugenberg. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books

As the sport of mixed martial arts continues to grow, so does the research on this new sport that is captivating spectators. Other lines of research into MMA investigate the reworking of masculine identity and reasons why participants choose to participate, whether it is for competition or for health reasons. 

Kyle Green. 2015. “Tales from the Mat: Narrating Men and Meaning Making in the Mixed Martial Arts Gym.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 45 (4): 419-450.

The ways that non-Western victims of violence and poverty are portrayed in the news is problematic. For example, on the 6th of October this year, The New York Times had an above-the-fold image of migrants on its front page. The image was of several dead and dying African migrants on a boat and, troubling as this may be, the image was not an anomaly. Consider the images we have recently seen from Syria — from the drowned child on the beach to the dazed child covered in dust pulled out of a bombed building. Social scientists explains how the choice to use these kinds of images is neither an objective nor an accidental process.

News images are rarely meant to teach us something new, rather, they are meant to reaffirm what we already know while tugging at our heartstrings. Nowhere is this more evident than during instances of instability and violence in the Global South. Even in death and suffering, non-Western victims are denied their privacy; their pain is meant to be consumed by the audience while reaffirming real and symbolic differences.

• Barbara Rosenblum. 1978. “Style as Social Process.” American Sociological Review 43:422–38.
• Keith Greenwood and C. Zoe Smith. 2007. “How the World looks to Us: International News in Award-winning Photographs from the Pictures of the Year, 1943-2003.” Journalism Practice 1(1): 82-101.
• Marta Zarzycka and Martijn Kleppe. 2013. “Awards, Archives, and Affects: Tropes in the World Press Photo Contest, 2009-11.” Media Culture and Society 35(8): 977-995.

Images of pain and suffering are less about an increase in “bad” things happening and more about how  we understand the consumption of pain, suffering, and death of victims that are “Other.” They allow us to consume the pain of others from the comfort of our living rooms while reminding us of how “good” we have it.

• Kari Andén-Papadopoulos. 2008. “The Abu Ghraib torture photographs: News frames, visual culture, and the power of images.” Journalism 9(1): 5-30.
• Alexander Nikolaev. 2009. “Images of War: Content Analysis of the Photo Coverage of the War in Kosovo.“ Critical Sociology 35(1):105-130.

In the case of Africa and Africans especially, the use of images has a long and troubled history. Research continually shows that images of Africans are often steeped in stereotypes of Africans as simplistic, tribal, “noble savages,” and primitive.

• Guy Berger. 2010. “Image Revisions: South Africa, Africa, and the 2010 World Cup.“ Equid Novi: African Journalism Studies 31(2):174-190.
• Melinda Robins. 2003. “‘Lost Boys’ and the Promised Land: US Newspaper Coverage of Sudanese Refugees.“ Journalism 4(1): 29-49

The defining images of 1960s Africa are of starving Biafran children. The image of the 1990s is that of a vulture stalking an emaciated Sudanese child near the village of Ayod in South Sudan by Kevin Carter. Such images often reaffirm stereotypes of the continent and its peoples as ‘starving’, ‘chaotic’, or ‘sick’. This history makes it possible to plaster images of dead and dying migrants on a boat across the front page of an American newspaper with little to no discussion of the structural factors leading to their deaths.

• Jo Ellen Fair and Lisa Parks. 2001. “Africa on Camera: Television News Coverage and Aerial Imaging of Rwandan Refugees.” Africa Today 48(2): 35-57.
• Minabere Ibelema. 2014. “Africa’s Otherness: Changes and Resilience in News Coverage.“ Journalism & Communication Monographs 16(2): 162-217.
• Austin Okigbo and Bellarmine Ezumah. 2015. “Media Health Images of Africa and the Politics of Representation: A South African AIDS Choir Counter-Narrative.” Journal of Asian and African Studies.

Marvel’s new series focusing on superhero Luke Cage debuted on Netflix in late September to critical acclaim. The show boasts a 95% rating on RottenTomatoes and was called “one of the most socially relevant and smartest shows on the small screen you will see this year,” by Deadline.com’s Dominic Patten. Aside from its artistic merits, commentaries also praise the prominence of Luke Cage as a “bulletproof black man in a hoodie,” with the show’s star Michael Colter telling The Huffington Post: “It’s a nod to Trayvon, no question … Trayvon Martin and people like him. People like Jordan Davis, a kid who was shot because of the perception that he was a danger. When you’re a black man in a hoodie all of a sudden you’re a criminal.”

Comic books and comic book culture have slowly become more diverse as companies like Marvel have begun prioritizing the inclusion of racial minorities in their stories. Kamala Khan, a Muslim teen, has replaced the white hero Carol Danvers as Ms. Marvel. The hero replacing Iron Man is a black teen named Riri Williams. And Miles Morales, a black Hispanic teen, replaced the white Peter Parker as Spider-Man. Yet despite its recent progressive slant, Marvel and other comic companies have had issues with racial stereotyping, particularly with their black heroes. Marc Singer describes how the medium of comics relies on racialized representations, with appearance being a major way to distinguish characters from one another. 

• Marc Singer. 2002. “Black Skins” and White Masks: Comic Books and the Secret of Race.” African American Review 36(1), 107-119.
• Adilifu Nama. 2011. Super Black: American Pop Culture and Black Super Heroes. University of Texas Press.
• Herman Gray. 2013. “Subject(ed) to Recognition.” American Quarterly (65:4), 771-798.

This is also heavily tied up in the portrayal of superheroes as super-masculine. When the racial aspect of this dynamic is uncovered, we see a complicated history. Rob Lendrum traces these heroes to the “blaxploitation” era of film/media in the 1970s, arguing that many superheroes were influenced by this culture, including Luke Cage. Jeffrey A. Brown sees these images as one-note and compares them to the black-owned works of Milestone Media Inc. comics.

• Jeffrey A. Brown. 1999. “Comic Book Masculinity and the New Black Superhero.” African American Review 33(1), 25-42.
• Rob Lendrum. 2005. “The Super Black Macho, One Baaad Mutha: Black Superhero Masculinity in 1970s Mainstream Comic Books.” Extrapolation 46(3), 360-372.

Scientific and technological innovations have given humans a number of new methods to manage fertility and create families. One of the more recent advances in this area is the controversial birth of a child with genetic material from three parents, rather than two. Social scientists find that while these new technologies have helped countless individuals grow their families, their use and availability often reproduce class and gender inequalities. 

Families have always come in forms other than that of the Cleaver’s. Many parents have children from more than one partner. Other families have same-sex parents, single parents, or are childless, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Invitrofertilization (IVF) and surrogacy are options for some women who have trouble conceiving, but the procedures are very expensive and not as easily available for people across socioeconomic lines. As a result, research finds that the framing of infertility as an individual issue rather than one related to structural constraints places stigma on childless women.

• Mary Lyndon Shanley and Adrienne Asch. 2009. “Involuntary Childlessness, Reproductive Technology, and Social Justice: The Medical Mask on Social Illness.” Signs 34(4): 851-874

These conditions have created an exploding market for new reproductive technologies. The science of freezing eggs and sperm has resulted in egg and sperm banks where people can donate sex cells for compensation. Although both an egg and a sperm are required to create an embryo, the recruitment and marketing for these services is different for men than women. Women are more likely to be recruited to provide an “altruistic service” and donate their eggs to infertile women; the staff at egg banks have been found to capitalize on cultural norms of motherhood to construct egg donation as a gift exchange. As a result, there are far more women than men participating in this kind of service, even though it is much less physically invasive for men.

Katherine M. Johnson and Richard M. Simon. 2012. “Women’s Attitudes Toward Biomedical Technology for Infertility: The Case for Technological Salience.” Gender and Society 26(2): 261-289.

Lauren Jade Martin. 2010. “Anticipating Infertility: Egg Freezing, Genetic Preservation, and Risk.“ Gender and Society 24(4): 526-545.

Rene Almeling. 2007. “Selling Genes, Selling Gender: Egg Agencies, Sperm Banks, and the Medical Market in Genetic Material.” American Sociological Review 72(3) 319-340.

Donald Trump’s “nasty woman” comment during the third presidential debate has ignited a veritable “nasty woman economy.” Just two weeks later, there are numerous hashtags and a growing diversity of merchandise, including a tote bag, that reclaim “nasty woman” as a positive and empowering label. Elizabeth Warren capitalized on this at a recent Clinton rally when she said, “nasty women are tough, nasty women are smart, and nasty women vote.” As The Atlantic details in their feminist history of the word, “nasty” was reappropriated as a “badge of honor” some time ago, and they point to songs like Janet Jackson’s Nasty as an example of women using the word in a positive way. The reappropriation of stigmatized labels is not new, though social scientists find that this strategy has both strengths and weaknesses.

Psychologists have found that when a group reclaims a derogatory label, perceptions of that group’s power increases. And once a group is perceived as powerful, individuals feel more empowered to self identify with that reappropriated label. However, this strategy only works for derogatory terms like “queer” and “bitch,” not for descriptive terms like “woman” or majority-group terms like “straight.”

• Adam D. Galinsky et al. 2013. “The Reappropriation of Stigmatizing Labels: The Reciprocal Relationship Between Power and Self-Labeling.” Psychological Science 24(10): 2020–2029.

Some sociologists argue that this power is merely a “false power.” The fact that terms like “bitch” are still sometimes used as derogatory terms, often by the very people who claim to be reappropriating them for good, leads some to the conclusion that reclaiming terms in this way only hides oppression by making it acceptable and keeping the term alive in the lexicon. Scholars like Mariam Frasier also point out that class, race, and gender inequality shapes if and when someone can identify with a reappropriated label.

• Sherryl Kleinman, Matthew Ezzell, and Corey Frost. 2009. “Reclaiming Critical Analysis: The Social Harms of ‘Bitch’” Sociological Analysis 3(1): 46-68.
• Mariam Fraser. 1999. “Classing Queer: Politics in Competition.” Theory, Culture & Society 16(2): 107-131.

This contested and often flexible nature of reappropriated labels is what others see as their strength. Generational and political differences often result in conflicts surrounding reappropriation of a term. These debates have been found among many groups, including feminists, atheists, and African Americans. But some social scientists argue that these negotiations and disagreements give members of stigmatized social groups the agency to evaluate their own labels and to make determinations about when and whether to accept or reject them on their own terms.

• Jo Reger. 2015. “The Story of a Slut Walk: Sexuality, Race, and Generational Divisions in Contemporary Feminist Activism.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 44(1): 84–11.
• Jacquelyn Rahman. 2012. “The N Word: Its History and Use in the African American Community.” Journal of English Linguistics 40(2): 137–171.
• Steven Kettell. 2014. “Divided We Stand: The Politics of the Atheist Movement in the United States.” Journal of Contemporary Religion 29(3): 377-391.

In 1990, the popular rock music scene was in total disarray — not a single rock album topped the charts. By January of 1992, Nirvana’s Nevermind surpassed Michael Jackson’s Dangerous to the top spot of the Billboard 200, transforming the state of rock music forever and defining the 90s teen generation. On its recent 25th anniversary, the album remains one of the highest selling rock albums of all time, and is thought to represent not only a shift in music, but in commercial entertainment as well.

Sociologist Ryan Moore notes that the rise of Nirvana and other “grunge” bands demonstrated to major music labels that notions of anti-corporatism, rebellion, and authenticity could be co-opted into a larger marketing campaign to sell a variety of products to youth. Bands like Nirvana were so successful because they personified a collective feeling in the 1990s and once advertisers and marketers capitalized on this notion, expressions of deviance permeated mainstream culture.

• Ryan Moore. 2005. “Alternative to What? Subcultural Capital and the Commercialization of a Music Scene.” Deviant Behavior 26(3): 229-252.
• Ryan Moore. 2009. Sells Like Teen Spirit: Music, Youth Culture, and Social Crisis. NYU Press.

Why did bands like Nirvana resonate so well with teenagers during the 1990s? Musical tastes can serve as a form of identity construction and the exclusivity of a collective of people, and Nirvana’s image of rebellion was a resource for youth to distinguish themselves from other generations. Although grunge developed originally as an avant-garde or experimental genre, once it seeped into the local music scene of Seattle and evolved into its industry form, it was already well established in the collective identity of youth in the United States.  

• Bethany Bryson. 1996. “‘Anything but Heavy Metal’: Symbolic Exclusion and Musical Dislikes.” American Sociological Review 61(5): 884-899.
• Omar Lizardo and Sara Skiles. 2016. “The End of Symbolic Exclusion? The Rise of ‘Categorical Tolerance’ in the Musical Tastes of Americans: 1993–2012.” Sociological Science 3: 85-108.
• Jennifer Lena and Richard Peterson. 2008. “Classification as Culture: Types and Trajectories of Music Genres.” American Sociological Review 73(5): 697-718.

Why do albums like Nevermind still resonate in the modern day? Research shows that people tend to view their memories from adolescence as especially important. At the same time, representations of major events or famous people change or develop with each new generation. Abraham Lincoln, for example, was commemorated as a “self-made man” in the years following emancipation; yet, in the rise of the civil rights movement, newer generations viewed him as the “Great Emancipator.”  Thus, we can expect Nirvana’s significance to be much different for teens today than in the early 1990s.

• Howard Schuman and Jacqueline Scott. 1989. “Generations and Collective Memory.” American Sociological Review 54: 359-384.
• Barry Schwartz and Howard Schuman. 2005. “History, Commemoration, and Belief: Abraham Lincoln in American Memory, 1945-2001.” American Sociological Review 70(2): 183-203.

Protests broke out throughout Tulsa, Oklahoma the night an unarmed black man, Terence Crutcher, was shot and killed by a white female police officer, Betty Shelby. Police killings have surged in mainstream media since the 2014 shooting deaths of young black men like Michael Brown and Eric Garner, shootings that have overwhelmingly involved male law enforcement officials. As a result, female police officers and the likelihood that they will use unnecessary force have largely been excluded from the conversation.

Findings in this area, however, are mixed. Some report that there are no significant differences between use of force by men and women when making arrests, except for the fact that use of force encounters for women were slightly less likely to employ a weapon and produce injury. Others, however, noted that female police officers are less likely to use force and suggest that a greater female presence may reduce violent interactions with citizens.

• Peter B. Hoffman and Edward R. Hickey. 2005. “Use of Force by Female Police Officers.” Journal of Criminal Justice 33(2): 145-151.
• Amie M. Schuck and Cara Rabe-Hemp. 2005. “Women Police: The Use of Force by and Against Female Officers.” Women & Criminal Justice 16(4): 91-117.

The last several decades have witnessed a rise in female officers in law enforcement agencies. Consequently, social scientists have addressed the gendered assumptions about women’s competence in handling tasks traditionally considered masculine. Institutional norms in policing often require a great deal of “emotional labor” that differ based on an officer’s gender. Women officers are expected to display little outward signs of emotion in their interactions with citizens, and yet are commonly still assigned policing tasks that tend to be devalued as feminized and judged as appropriate for women officers, such as administrative duties and community policing. 

• Susan Ehrlich Martin. 1999. “Police Force or Police Service? Gender and Emotional Labor.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 561: 111-126.
• Christina DeJong. 2004. “Gender Differences in Officer Attitude and Behavior: Providing Comfort to Citizens.” Women & Criminal Justice 15(3-4): 1-32.

Some research suggests that female officers are more likely to be victimized themselves. One study finds that female police officers are not at an increased risk of experiencing victimization during police-citizen interactions, but that incidents involving interpersonal violence along with alcohol and/or drugs increases risks for women on the job.

• Cara E. Rabe-Hemp and Amie M. Schuck. 2007. “Violence Against Police Officers: Are Female Officers at Greater Risk?” Police Quarterly 10(4): 411-428.

Done and dusted. Brazil’s run of hosting global sporting events has officially ended. From the opening game of the FIFA Confederation Cup in 2013, to the closing ceremony of the Paralympics on September 18, it has been quite a ride. Spectacles of the grandest of scales were to be portrayed on television with mostly smiles and laughs, but also some sadness. In the eyes of the world, Brazil’s sporting exploits look to be a success, but was it worth it?  Was the estimated $30 billion the Brazilian government spent hosting these events a good investment? It is probably too early to say for sure, but sociological research can give us a sense of what kind of analyses need to be done to find out. 

In the past, economic growth has often been seen as the primary reason for hosting major sporting events for developing nations. But when even economists acknowledge that little economic revenue will be produced, we must look to other rationales. The hope of breaking into the upper-echelon of nations with positive news coverage and prestige has emerged as one of the justifcations for hosting global sports spectacles today. For example, South Korea, who co-hosted the 2002 World Cup, used the event to promote itself as a modern state, just like its neighbors Japan and China.

• John Horne and Wolfram Manzenreiter. 2004. Accounting for Mega-events: Forecast and Actual Impacts of the 2002 Football World Cup Finals on the Host Countries Japan/Korea. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 39(2) 187-203.
• John Horne. 2015. Assessing the Sociology of Sport: On Sports Mega-events and Capitalist Modernity. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 50(4-5) 466–471.
• Martin Curi, Jorge Knijnik, and Gilmar Mascarenhas. 2011. The Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro 2007: Consequences of a sport mega-event on a BRIC country. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 42(6) 140-156.
• Barbara Schausteck de Almeida, Chris Bolsmann, Wanderley Marchi Junior, and Juliano de Souza. 2015. Rationales, rhetoric and realities: FIFA’s World Cup in South Africa 2010 and Brazil 2014. International Review for the Sociology of Sport 50(3) 265-282.

Other countries like Brazil, China, and Russia have used their recent Olympic and World Cup events to help build positive public opinion around the globe. Who knows if Brazil’s exploits will make a lasting impact on the world stage, but this criteria will surely be among the most important in how these Games are judged in the future.