Many shows and movies depict sociological concepts in today’s society. A great example
would be a show called The Office. The Office is an American television comedy, based of a UK show also called The Office. This show portrays the everyday lives of Office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania branch of a fictional business called Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. This show was meant to appear as if it is an actual documentary, but in reality, it is just a fictional show. To make the show actually look like a documentary, it is filmed in a single-camera setup, without a studio audience. They even had the characters have interviews with the camera and various points throughout the series, and at the end there was a documentary released as if
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that was what we were watching. The whole documentary theme gave the show a sense of uniqueness and made it stand out from other shows. The one thing that really made it stand out, though, was that the show had many sociological concepts portrayed within the series. The main sociological concepts depicted were deviance, groups and organizations, race and ethnicity, and sex and gender norms/stereotypes. Deviance, as we learned, is the recognized violation of cultural norms. The Office is filled with examples of this.
In season 2, episode 14 a character, named Todd Packer, left a “surprise” on the carpet of Michael Scott’s office. The thing he left was not clearly specified, but it is most likely some sort of bodily waste. This is deviant because people do not normally leave things like that on a friends carpet, especially as a joke. Another example would be in season 6, episode 25 the audience found out that Donna, Michael’s girlfriend, was cheating on her husband with Michael. When Michael found out, he did not break off the relationship. He continued to allow her to cheat on her husband with him. This is clearly deviant because the social norm states that cheating is bad. When Michael found out she was cheating, he decided not to end it, which is the thing most people would have done. And third example of deviance in The Office is in season 9, episode 14 a member of the warehouse vandalized Pam’s mural. This is considered deviant because vandalism is deemed wrong. Pam put a lot of hard work into her mural, and it was ruined by the warehouse worker. There are many more deviant acts in this …show more content…
series. Groups and organizations are frequently represented in this television show. Groups and organizations consists of two or more people that identifies and interacts with one another.
Not only is The Office based on a workplace, which in itself is a group, but there are various types of groups shown within the series. Michael considers the office a family, which is a primary group. That means they all are close enough to have some sort of emotional connection with each other. In reality, they only work in the same space as each other. Within in office, they have specific groups. One of the groups is called the Party Planning Committee (PPC). The PPC is a group of office employees that gather to make preparations for upcoming events and parties. It is lead by Angela Martin, a relatively stern accountant, for most of the show. She was an authoritarian leader, which is a clear instrumental leader who assigns tasks and issues orders. Another group in the office is The Finer Things Club. This triad club consists of Pam Beasley, Toby Flenderson, and Oscar Martinez, three separate office members. They get together to discuss a specific novel that they read for the club each month. This is an example of a normative organization. This means they each joined voluntarily based on similar interests. Those are only small examples from the 9 seasons of the
office. Race and ethnicity is the topic of cultures and the stereotypes that go along with them. The Office includes this many times throughout the entire series. One example in when Oscar Martinez comes back from vacation. Michael decides to throw a welcome back party for him, celebrating his culture. Because Michael is not educated at all, he throws a very stereotypical party. The party includes several piñatas, tacos and empanadas, sombreros, Mexican music, bright colors (red, green, and yellow), and he even wanted Oscar to ride in on a donkey. Another good example is in season 1, episode 5 when Michael was gathering players for an employee basketball game. He chose every male in good shape and the only black male in the office. When he chose the black man he said “Stanley, obviously.” He thought that Stanley would make a good player because he thinks all black men are good at basketball. The best example in the show is in the diversity day episode. Michael has the staff participate in an activity where each employee wears a race or ethnicity on their foreheads and the others have to treat them like their card’s stereotype. Michael took it too far and talked to Kelly so offensively that she smacked him. Michael and other characters made multiple other stereotypical comments thought the show. Sex and gender is a topic that includes many gender norms/stereotypes, sexual orientation, etc. This is a reoccurring conversation topic in the series. In several episodes, certain characters would make stereotypical comments about women or the way men should act. The first example comes in in the second episode made. It was in the diversity day episode. Michael had Pam (who had the word “Jewish”) and Dwight (who had the word “Asian”) talking and Pam said that Dwight may not be a very good driver, based on untrue stereotypes. Dwight thought that he was a woman right away. In season 2, episode 2 Todd Packer, the inappropriate traveling salesman, came by the office and made a comment about a “blonde incompetent” female. To try to make it seem less offensive, Michael Scott claimed that there are a lot of dumb people out there no matter the hair color. Todd Packer replied with “they are women, right?” This is an untrue, negative stereotype surrounding women that dates since women did not attend school, while men did. In a later season the audience met a character named Andy Bernard. Andy did not conform to all male gender norms. He fantasized about his wedding, sang a lot, enjoyed dressing up in fancy clothing, liked tea more that coffee, etc. Those are all more female gender norms. Rumors about Andy being homosexual surface more than once. He even got to the point of questioning it himself because so many people were claiming he was gay. On top of all of this, Michael makes a number of “that’s what she said” jokes throughout the series. The main sociological concepts depicted were deviance, groups and organizations, race and ethnicity, and sex and gender norms/stereotypes. The Office is probably one of the best television shows to portray sociological concepts, along with Friends, Seinfeld, and other related shows. There are many examples in this show, but those are just some of the big ones.
One of the sociological theories is conflict theory. The conflict theory deals with people's level on wealth, or class. The conflict theory says that social change is beneficial, contrary to focuses on social order. In the story of the woman and her children, the conflict theory plays a big role on the situation. Police of higher class are threatening the homeless woman. The conflict theory is a constant struggle of people of higher class over powering people of lower class, or the weaker. The police are trying to over power the woman by telling her to leave. Even though the woman and her children were doing nothing wrong, the police used their power to tell her to leave. Also the people of the area showed their conflict theory by telling the police officers to come. They must have felt embarrassed to have a woman of such lower class to be around them. They used their power of class to have the woman removed from their community. The woman wants to be there because she has no home and it is a good community to be in, but the people look at it as an embarrassment to them because it makes their area look bad for someone of such lower class to be around them. The conflict theory is unique to all other theories because it separates people into categories determined by their wealth and standards. Their status is the element that categorizes them, weather it is class, race, or gender. The conflict theory do not always use class, race, and gender all at once. In this situation race and gender is not a main issue, although gender could be a reason, but it would fall under the feminist theory. This story is mainly dealing with class. Through all this conflict the woman feels over powered and domina...
To begin with, defining the term deviant behaviors is in order to understand the issues concerning reality shows. “The definition of deviant means to be diverse from what is considered to be morally correct or common” (Deviant. (n.d.). In other words, a person cannot act socially correct/ normal in character. “The next term to consider is behaviors meaning the manner of how one conducts themselves” (Behavior.
Deviance is described as “the recognized violation of cultural norms”(Macionis 238). While deviance can include crime, it is not always such. Deviance can mean trying to sneak into a hospital room, desperately searching for someone like the character of Benny in the movie Benny and Joon. Or it could be preforming on the streets for people to watch. Deviance isn’t always a criminal act. The movie Benny and Joon gave several examples of deviant behavior portrayed by the three main characters, Benny, Joon, and Sam.
Also we can see how each character illustrates the term deviant and through this we can understand some of their behaviors. Each character is deviant in their own ways. When referring to deviance, deviance refers to the violation of society’s norms (Ballantine 173). Each character is seen as deviant by either their actions that brought them into detention or some of the acts we see them do during the detention. For example, during one scene we see Allison as a thief because she steals Brian’s wallet during the detention and also because she comes to detention without even being in trouble, just to be deviant. Also we see Claire as deviant in the way she skips school to go shopping, and puts make up on during detention and how she cares about her appearance, also she enters in a relationship with John during the detention. Andy is deviant when he smokes marijuana because he is a varsity athlete and that is what athletes are supposed to do. John is constantly deviant in so many ways such as he is not involved in school activities, challenges Principal Vernon; he destroys school
In this paper will be talking about the three sociological perspectives as it pertains to the fraternities and sororities in today’s world. I have chosen this topic because it can be easily understood in all three perspectives.
Deviant behavior is sociologically defined as, when someone departs from the “norms”. Most of the time when someone says deviance they think against the law or acting out in a negative behavior. To sociologists it can be both positive and negative. While most crimes are deviant, they are not always. Norms can be classified into two categories, mores and folkways. Mores are informal rules that are not written; when mores are broken, they can have serious punishments and sanctions. Folkways are informal rules that are just expected to be followed, but have no real repercussions.
For it to be deviant the crime would have to be something out the norm, that people isn’t use to. The behavior that’s considered deviant varies from the type of people who are involved, the time, and the society. Drug dealing, is the most common type of deviant because it is an accepted goal with accepted means. The person who is dealing tow drugs knows what kind of trouble they can get into and they know it’s illegal but continues doing it because of a goal they have. Yes, it’s plenty other crimes out there that can be labeled deviant such as child abuse, domestic violence, fraud, assault or even drunk driving. They all share one common interest and that is the fact that it’s wrong and isn’t an everyday thing that the average eye would consider to be
Deviant Behavior Deviance, romanticized in the story of Bonnie and Clyde, or maligned by individuals creating chaos and anarchy is present in all societies. Deviant behavior in contemporary American society has a vast range: from harmless, such as getting a conspicuous facial piercing, or as harmful as assaulting an individual. Deviancy is a violation of social norms. A deviant act is not inherently good or bad; what is deviant in one society may not be the same in another. Social norms are guidelines for acceptable behavior and are rules put into place to establish order in society.
In my interview I chose my girlfriend's neighbor. Hector is of Mexican decent and he is here because in Meigs county the produce fields hire Mexican laborers on worker permits. Hector started out doing this then he became the boss about five years ago and received his green card and now is an American and can speak very good English. He explained to me that in Mexico there is no age when you can start working so there are young boys working at six to ten years old to help support his needy family. He also stated that women do not usually work they are only aloud to go to the village markets and get goods for their family's and raise there many children. I asked about minimum wage and he kinda laughed and said some teens and men who work are lucky to get a dollar an hour, but he said the people who are lucky enough to get to do what he got to do make there family's a lot of money. He said when he started coming to America to work he was picked like a lottery pick because there are only so many jobs for little positions he and his entire family was dirt poor, but now he said his family is the richest in the village. He said that he has also got to move all of his immediate family to America.
Deviance is defined as actions or behaviors that violate socials norms. In turn the concept of deviance is dependent on the social observation and perception. “By it’s very nature, the constructionism through which people define and interpret actions or appearances is always “social.” ”(Henry, 2009 , p. 6) One’s perception of a situation may be completely different from another depending on cultural and social factors. The way someone talks, walks, dresses, and holds themselves are all factors that attribute to how someone perceives another. In some cases what is socially or normally acceptable to one person is deviant in another’s eyes. For this reason there is a lot of gray area involving the topic of deviance because actions and behaviors are so diversely interpreted.
What is deviance? What does it mean? What determines a behavior as deviant? Deviance is anything that violates a social norm. For example, when a child burps at the supper table but doesn’t excuse himself. Who we socialize and spend time with will determine what we deem as deviant behavior. There are many types of deviant behaviors, some of these behaviors may not be considered deviant to one culture but to another they are.
Working in today’s society has changed in the last few decades. The economy and technology are the main reasons for this change. The type of job and environment where one works has also changed. The fact that many people work from home via the internet has drastically changed the workforce and the environment surrounding it. With this change have come new demands, expectations, and opportunities for employers. Everyone deals with these demands differently, affecting the employee’s quality of life and job satisfaction. Though the job and office types and locations have changed over the years the need for job satisfaction has not. In today’s economy the job is not as stable as it used to be. One must be prepared for changes in the future.
Before I started taking the course of sociology I wasn’t really expecting to learn anything, it was just supposed to be an easy online class. However, that was not the case. It challenged my mind. I started to see sociology all around me, starting with family, then friends, and how I see things overall in general. The fact that we have an everyday life in which there are patterns in ways of living is what sets a platform for a sociological breakdown and for being a part in what we do. A better way of understanding ourselves. We use sociology in many ways every day. One central and important study of sociology is the study of everyday social life. Everyday life and sociology are definitely two different words and situations, but they tend to hold a close relationship. While sociology is the study of the human interaction, everyday life consists of everyday human interaction. Everyday life is filled by human beings interacting with one another, ideas, and emotions. Sociology studies the interactions with all of these and shows how mere interaction resulted in things such as ideas. For an example, race and ethnicity are important concepts in the field of sociology and are ones that are studied a great deal. Race plays a large role in everyday human interactions and sociologists want to study how, why, and what the outcomes are of these interactions. Current sociological theories focus mainly on how there are many different factors in our everyday items of life, like movies. We were assigned a final to write a review for a movie in sociological form. The movie that was on the list that also happened to be one of my favorite movies, Toy Story. When we were assigned the assignment, I never thought about how in-depth it was with sociol...
Deviance is the sociological concept of behavior which violates the standards of conduct or expectations of a group or society. Functionalists explain deviance as a common part of human existence, interactionist look at everyday behavior to explain deviance, and conflict theorists argue that people with power define deviance.
Sociology is the product of the intellectual response of the Indians to the western interpretation of Indians to the Western interpretation of Indian society and culture mainly after the beginning of British colonial rule in India. The early sociological beginning can be started from Karl Marx, Max Weber as well as Durkheim who depend on the British writing on India for analysis of Indian society and culture. Intensive field work and the first monograph on a people of India in modern anthropological tradition was done by W.H.R.Rivers on the todas, after him two of his students G.S.Ghurye and K.P.Chotapadhyay play an important role in the development of sociology and