Marxism Blog Post #4

The idea of Marxism is a complex subject, but it is not necessary to know the complete historical and societal context to use Marxist theory to analyze media. The main idea that Marxist analysis looks at is power structures, how a "ruling class" controls or influences a lower class and the rest of society. An analyst looks at what rules does a society or group follow, how those rules influence the way that they interact with each other. The rules of a society that limits it's members movements is called the "hegemony". One can think of hegemony is the "sameness" that is imposed upon a group of people. For instance, our society currently has a heteronormative hegemony, meaning that it is considered deviant to be in a non-heterosexual relationship. Marxism asks us to question the rules of society and notice the unspoken rules that are controlling our daily lives. What forces are influences? Money, expectations, and gender roles, are all things an analyst can look for to interpret a characters actions and desires.  In media artifacts, one is usually not looking at an entire society, rather they look at the group of characters in the story. This could be a group of friends, or a family, or rivals. Some questions to ask: Who has the most power in the group? What desires are displayed, and how are they related to the expectations placed on the characters?