Producing and Consuming Inequality: A Cultural Sociology of the Cultural Industries

Abstract

"I've been saying that Tarell and I are that Barry JenkinsChaos and confusion marked the award for best picture at the 2017 Oscar ceremony.Moonlight, a film made by a black filmmaker that placed at its centre the normally marginalised experiences of black gay men, was initially not announced as the winner. Rather, due to an error by the consultancy tasked with organising the envelopes, La La Land, a tribute to a bygone age of Hollywood musicals, was initially presented with the award. In the quotation above, Moonlight's director Barry Jenkins narrates his sense of disorientation at the announcement. His words also betray a sense of being out of place or in a dream at the idea of winning Academy Awards for a marginalised story by a filmmaker from a marginalised sector of the American population. That moment distils many of the themes of our special issue, which looks at the exclusions and inequalities within the cultural and creative industries, and how these inequalities relate to broader social divisions."If you can't see it, you can't be it". This well-worn phrase has underpinned a flurry of recent controversies around the cultural industries that have become persistent and wide ranging across almost every part of the sector. There are numerous examples: outrage at the stubborn racial and gender inequalities in the cinema and video games industries, captured by #oscarssowhite and #gamergate; the media and online debates over accusations of whitewashing of leading Asian characters in blockbuster films Dr Strange and Ghost in the Shell; Kim Gordon's comments on the two steps forward, one step back experience of women in the popular music industry; the controversial resignation of Emma Rice from the Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London; and the assertions and counter claims as to the benefits, particularly over pay rates and access to parts, of privileged backgrounds for those working in British theatre.

The values of culture? Social closure in the political identities, policy preferences, and social attitudes of cultural and creative workers

“…Indeed, values tend to be implicit in discussions of cultural workers’ commitment to long hours and exploitative working conditions (McRobbie, 2015), rather than the subject of formal investigation. Moreover, this empirical question has particular significance given recent theorisation of the connection between cultural production, cultural representation and cultural consumption (Hesmondhalgh, 2018; O’Brien et al, 2017; O’Brien & Oakley, 2015). The values of cultural workers might both account for some of the social closure of cultural occupations, and have wider importance for social division more broadly.…”

“…We begin by situating our interest in attitudes and values within the literature on the relationship between cultural production, cultural consumption and social inequality (Brook, O’Brien, & Taylor, 2017; O’Brien, Allen, Friedman, & Saha, 2017; Oakley, Laurison, O’Brien, & Friedman, 2017; Oakley & O’Brien, 2016). In doing so we connect, for the first time, research on cultural production and inequality to research on values.…”

Resisting subalternity: Palestinian mimicry and passing in the Israeli cultural industries

“…Hence, the afforded spaces of creativity during production are not necessarily mirrored in media texts, although they are determined by the same power structure and economic interests (Saha, 2017; Ursell, 2000). Furthermore, since the cultural industries are deeply related to broader social divisions and wider inequalities in society, minority cultural labor becomes at least partially complicit in the reproduction of images of their group identity (O’Brian et al, 2017). This position makes them directly face ‘othering’ as a multidimensional social process of identity formation taking place during production.…”

“…This article explores the challenges that minority creative workers face in the media industry and the way they react to them. Scholars in the field have established the notion that workers from minority backgrounds entering the cultural industries ‘are not afforded the same creative freedom [of] their white, male, middle-class counterparts’ (O’Brian et al, 2017; Saha, 2018). However, this does not and should not prevent us from wondering whether minority creative workers could still be active agents by resisting submission and marginalization even when they cannot influence their own representation in hegemonic media texts and change narratives.…”

On white-collar boxing and social class

“…McCoy & Scarborough, 2014; Peters, van Eijk, & Michael, 2017; cf. O’Brien, Allen, Friedman, & Saha, 2017). Bourdieu’s original analysis may be rendered an historical account, but inequalities in consumption can nonetheless be understood through the logic of distinction (Prieur & Savage, 2013).…”