Penn State University Libraries - Streaming Video Content

bell hooks: Cultural Criticism & Transformation

In Part One, hooks discusses the theoretical foundations and positions that inform her work (such as the motives behind representations, as well as their power in social and cultural life). hooks also explains why she insists on using the phrase "white supremacist capitalist patriarchy" to describe the interlocking systems of domination that define our reality.

In Part Two, she demonstrates the value of cultural studies in concrete analysis through such subjects as the OJ Simpson case, Madonna, Spike Lee, and Gangsta rap. The aim of cultural analysis, she argues, should be the production of enlightened witnesses - audiences who engaged with the representations of cultural life knowledgeably and vigilantly. Description from MEF website.

The Codes of Gender: Identity & Performance in Pop Culture

Written and directed by Sut Jhally, The Codes of Gender applies the late sociologist Erving Goffman's groundbreaking analysis of advertising to the contemporary commercial landscape, showing how one of American popular culture's most influential forms communicates normative ideas about masculinity and femininity. Description from MEF website.

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Dreamworlds 3, the highly anticipated update of Sut Jhally's groundbreaking Dreamworlds 2 (1995), examines the stories contemporary music videos tell about girls and women, and encourages viewers to consider how these narratives shape individual and cultural attitudes about sexuality. Description from MEF website.

Edward Said: The Myth of "The Clash of Civilizations"

In this important lecture delivered at the University of Massachusetts, Said takes aim at one of the central tenets of recent foreign policy thinking-- that conflicts between different and "clashing civilizations" (Western, Islamic, Confucian) characterize the contemporary world. Description from MEF website.

Edward Said: On Orientalism

Edward Said's book Orientalism has been profoundly influential in a diverse range of disciplines since its publication in 1978. In this engaging and lavishly illustrated interview he talks about the context within which the book was conceived, its main themes, and how its original thesis relates to the contemporary understanding of "the Orient" as represented in the mass media. Description from MEF website.

Ethnic Notions

Ethnic Notions is Marlon Riggs' Emmy-winning documentary that takes viewers on a disturbing voyage through American history, tracing for the first time the deep-rooted stereotypes which have fueled anti-black prejudice. Through these images we can begin to understand the evolution of racial consciousness in America. Description from California Newsreel website (http://newsreel.org/video/ETHNIC-NOTIONS)

Further Off the Straight and Narrow: New Gay Visibility on Television, 1998-2006

This important new documentary picks up where Off the Straight & Narrow: Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals & Television (1998) left off. Since that video's release in the late 90s, which coincided with the last episode of the popular program Ellen, there has been a marked increase in the presence of GLBT characters on television.

Against the backdrop of political and social issues affecting the GLBT community, such as gay marriage and AIDS, Further Off the Straight & Narrow takes a close look at sitcoms, reality shows, and premium cable programming as it explores how representations of GLBT characters have become more complex and varied in recent years. Description from MEF website

Game Over: Gender, Race & Violence in Video Games

Video and computer games represent a $6 billion a year industry. One out of every ten households in American owns a Sony Playstation. Children who own video game equipment play an average of ten hours per week. And yet, despite capturing the attention of millions of children worldwide, video games remain one of the least scrutinized cultural industries.

Game Over is the first educational documentary to address the fastest growing segment of the media through engaging questions of gender, race and violence. Description from MEF website.

In this new, highly anticipated update of her pioneering Killing Us Softly series, the first in more than a decade, Jean Kilbourne takes a fresh look at how advertising traffics in distorted and destructive ideals of femininity. The film marshals a range of new print and television advertisements to lay bare a stunning pattern of damaging gender stereotypes -- images and messages that too often reinforce unrealistic, and unhealthy, perceptions of beauty, perfection, and sexuality. By bringing Kilbourne's groundbreaking analysis up to date, Killing Us Softly 4 stands to challenge a new generation of students to take advertising seriously, and to think critically about popular culture and its relationship to sexism, eating disorders, and gender violence. Description from MEF website.

The Mean World Syndrome

For years, debates have raged among scholars, politicians, and concerned parents about the effects of media violence on viewers. Too often these debates have descended into simplistic battles between those who claim that media messages directly cause violence and those who argue that activists exaggerate the impact of media exposure altogether. The Mean World Syndrome, based on the groundbreaking work of media scholar George Gerbner, urges us to think about media effects in more nuanced ways. Ranging from Hollywood movies and prime-time dramas to reality programming and the local news, the film examines how media violence forms a pervasive cultural environment that cultivates in heavy viewers, especially, a heightened state of insecurity, exaggerated perceptions of risk and danger, and a fear-driven propensity for hard-line political solutions to social problems. A provocative and accessible introduction to cultivation analysis, media effects research, and the subject of media influence and media violence more generally. Description from MEF website.

Mickey Mouse Monopoly takes a close and critical look at the world these films create and the stories they tell about race, gender and class and reaches disturbing conclusions about the values propagated under the guise of innocence and fun. This daring new video insightfully analyzes Disney's cultural pedagogy, examines its corporate power, and explores its vast influence on our global culture. Including interviews with cultural critics, media scholars, child psychologists, kindergarten teachers, multicultural educators, college students and children, Mickey Mouse Monopoly will provoke audiences to confront comfortable assumptions about an American institution that is virtually synonymous with childhood pleasure. Description from MEF website.

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The division of the world's peoples into distinct groups - "red," "black," "white" or "yellow" peoples - has become so deeply imbedded in our psyches, so widely accepted, many would promptly dismiss as crazy any suggestion of its falsity. Yet, that's exactly what this provocative, new three-hour series by California Newsreel claims. Race - The Power of an Illusion questions the very idea of race as biology, suggesting that a belief in race is no more sound than believing that the sun revolves around the earth.

Yet race still matters. Just because race doesn't exist in biology doesn't mean it isn't very real, helping shape life chances and opportunities.

Episode 1- The Difference Between Us examines the contemporary science - including genetics - that challenges our common sense assumptions that human beings can be bundled into three or four fundamentally different groups according to their physical traits.

Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People

This groundbreaking documentary dissects a slanderous aspect of cinematic history that has run virtually unchallenged from the earliest days of silent film to today's biggest Hollywood blockbusters. Featuring acclaimed author Dr. Jack Shaheen, the film explores a long line of degrading images of Arabs--from Bedouin bandits and submissive maidens to sinister sheikhs and gun-wielding "terrorists"--along the way offering devastating insights into the origin of these stereotypic images, their development at key points in US history, and why they matter so much today. Shaheen shows how the persistence of these images over time has served to naturalize prejudicial attitudes toward Arabs and Arab culture, in the process reinforcing a narrow view of individual Arabs and the effects of specific US domestic and international policies on their lives. By inspiring critical thinking about the social, political, and basic human consequences of leaving these Hollywood caricatures unexamined, the film challenges viewers to recognize the urgent need for counter-narratives that do justice to the diversity and humanity of Arab people and the reality and richness of Arab history and culture. Description from MEF website.

Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond takes a look at the Hollywood Indian, exploring the portrayal of North American Natives through a century of cinema. Traveling through the heartland of America, and into the Canadian North, Diamond looks at how the myth of "the Injun" has influenced the world's understanding — and misunderstanding — of Natives.

Reel Injun traces the evolution of cinema's depiction of Native people from the silent film era to today, with clips from hundreds of classic and recent Hollywood movies, and candid interviews with celebrated Native and non-Native film celebrities, activists, film critics, and historians. (description from http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/reel-injun/film.html)

The famed Outer Banks of North Carolina are a slim and moving line of sand in the open Atlantic. Many travelers think they know these islands--but south of Ocracoke Inlet rises a luminous bar of sand sixty miles in extent, with no roads, no bridges, no hotels: the wild beaches of Cape Lookout, one of the few remaining natural barrier island systems in the world.

At once exaltation and elegy, RIBBON OF SAND profiles this seascape and the transitory islands doomed to disappear. (description fromhttp://idahoptv.org/pbssites/ribbonofsand/)

Tough Guise: Violence, Media, and the Crisis in Masculinity

While the social construction of femininity has been widely examined, the dominant role of masculinity has until recently remained largely invisible. Tough Guise is the first educational video geared toward college and high school students to systematically examine the relationship between pop-cultural imagery and the social construction of masculine identities in the U.S. at the dawn of the 21st century. Description from MEF website.

What a Girl Wants

During the spring of 2000, eleven girls aged 8 to 16 from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds and two classrooms of middle and high school students were interviewed about their views on media culture and its impact on their lives.

Their insightful and provocative responses provide the central theme of the film, a half-hour examination of how the media presents girls. Juxtaposing footage culled from a typical week of TV broadcasting with original interviews, What a Girl Wants will provoke debate and, ideally, act as a catalyst for change in media content. Description from MEF website.

The basics of grinding theory is demonstrated as applications are shown. Grinding can be up to ten times more accurate than milling or turning and is used to provide high quality finished surfaces. This program defines cylindrical, internal, centerless, and surface grinding. You will see applications of these methods along with illustrations of various abrasive from the most common to superabrasives. Grinding safety is demonstrated along with the different types of grain size, bond type, and pore spacing available.

The Expendable Mold/Reusable Pattern processes section includes an examination of the most common casting process - Sand-Mold Casting, and its variations. The Expendable Mold/Expendable Pattern processes section has demonstrations of Investment Casting and Evaporative-Foam Casting. The Permanent Mold/No Pattern processes section examines the more precise casting techniques, such as Permanent-Mold Casting, Die Casting, and Centrifugal Casting. Description from the SME website.

Part of the Fundamental Manufacturing Processes Video Series, this program explores the common die cast metals and their various properties, as well as die casting machines and die cast tooling. Using shop floor footage and animated sequences the machine section covers in detail the hot-chamber and the cold-chamber machine types. Also discussed is the importance of lubrication in die casting, the use of accumulators and pressure intensifiers, and machine controls and automation. The tooling section examines the various die production materials and techniques. In addition, terms such as cover die, ejector die, fixed cores, core pulls, venting, die cooling, and draft angles are clearly defined. Description from the SME website.

Part of the Fundamental Manufacturing Processes Video Series, this unique program is an introduction to plastic extrusion and metal extrusion processes, featuring segments on hot metal extrusion, warm and cold metal extrusion processes, plastic profile extrusion, and blown film extrusion.

See actual shop floor footage coupled with descriptive animations to help you learn step-by-step how materials are transformed into extrusions. Discover the use of plastic and metal extrusion in a variety of different industries including automotive, aerospace, building and construction, furniture, and electronics. This basic introductory program is ideal tool for the classroom or for anyone who needs a refresher course on the basics of extrusion processes. Description from the SME website.

Featured are segments on the various types of forging processes, including: open-die forging, impression-die forging, seamless ring rolling, hot-die forging, and isothermal forging. This program concludes with a segment on forging automation. Description from the SME website.

Part of the Fundamental Manufacturing Processes Video Series, this program provides a detailed discussion of each of these processes, presenting a clear understanding of the similarities and differences between each of them. In addition, information on parison and preform production, the reciprocal screw style blow molding machine, the accumulator style blow molding machine, and the head and die assembly is provided. Description from the SME website.

Part of the Fundamental Manufacturing Processes Video Series, this program focuses on the injection molding machine and the injection mold to illustrate the injection molding process. This program was scripted by renown plastics industry expert, Irvin I. Rubin

The injection machine section covers in detail both the injection system and the clamping system. In step by step progression, plastic material is followed from its raw material state through the melting process and onto it's injection into the mold. Throughout the sequence, various components of the injection machine are explained.

The mold section continues this examination, allowing clear definition of mold terms as the molten material is formed, cooled, and ejected as the final part. Also featured in the mold segment are the common mold types, including the two-plate cold runner mold, three-plate cold runner mold, the hot runner mold, and the insulated runner mold. This program concludes with a section on injection machine controls. Description from the SME website.

Part of the Fundamental Manufacturing Processes Video Series, this program illustrates the physical and mechanical methods used to produce metal powders, as well as an in-depth discussion of the common part production processes--mechanical pressing and sintering, metal injection molding, and hot and cold isostatic pressing.

Through the use of shop floor footage and animations, each of these processes is explained in detail, providing a clear understanding of the similarities and differences between each of them. Secondary operations are also featured. Description from the SME website.