Over the past few weeks we have looked at many different concepts.
Ideology
Are the rules which are like our laws and values that tell us how to behave? This belief system is embedded in our culture through various agents like schools, politics and mass media. These ideologies are created over a long period of time, by those who were in power.
There are many different types of ideologies, however one is the most dominant.
Dominant ideology – Is a set of beliefs that are held by the majority of people
Alternative ideology – This ideology is seen from a different point of view or an alternative to the dominant point. These are usually seen immediately as ‘wrong’. However, these ideologies can become the new dominant ideology. For example, religion, family etc.
Additionally, ideologies might include patriarchy, capitalism and Marxism. For example, Rocky Montage, looking at the characters you get two opposing points of view. One embodied by America (Rocky himself) and the other by Russia (the opponent). It’s how they fight, and one is obviously more dominant over the other. Overall, rocky is seen as the capitalist and the Russian opponent is seen as the communist.
Marxism
Is the belief that capitalism leads to oppression and exploitation of people (workers). So, the rich get richer by exploiting the hard labour of the poor.
Marxism was developed in the early 19th century by two German emigres living in Britain – Karl Marx and Frederick Engels
A very good example for Marxism is ‘The Lego Movie’, in the film the main character is Emmett who is a worker who works all day – working class. On the other hand we have the wealthier elite – president business who is in charge of the whole police force as well as (Lego) people in general.
Rea's Blogs 