Karl Marx And Ideological Criticism
While semiotic deals with the analyzing signs within contexts, the ideological criticism deals with the system. Karl Marx puts excellent insight into ideology and class relations. According to Karl Marx’s theory, a society consists of the base and superstructure. The base comprises the forces and relations of production into which people enter to produce the necessities of life. The base determines society's other relationships and ideas to cover its superstructure, including its societal institutions, government, religion, education, media, and rituals. The relation between them is twofold, and influence of the base is predominant. The ideas of the ruling class are ruling idea. The class that is the ruling material force of society is ruling intellectual force, too. The control over technology and resources limits and determine what people can do. Problems resulted when unethical capitalist maximize personal profits by exploiting workers. Marx called for a new social order in which social class distinctions would be abolished. Construct an egalitarian democratic social order- Communism.
Social change would only result in revolution where the masses seized control of the means of production and superstructure. Then, control over ideology would naturally follow. There was one obstacle to Marx's hope of a working-class revolution. It is the fact that the working class did not see themselves as one thing, but individually. This is termed “false consciousness. ” For texts analysis based on this theory, texts and practices must be analyzed in relation to their historical conditions of productions. Each significant period in history is constructed around particular mode of production. Marx’s defines ideology as something that is oppressive and can only be ended through the conflicts of capitalism. “Ideology is not a 'message' hidden within a text or system of representation, it is the very system of representation itself and the commonsense principles that endow the system with meaning for those who participate in it. "
The idea of ideology in Marxism doesn’t give much weight to the existence of other cultures, but the idea of hegemony recognizes that there are many possible cultures that vary by time and circumstance. Hegemony dictionary definition is domination of leadership. It is used by Gramscri in 2009 to refer to a condition in process in which a dominant class does not simply rule a society but leads it through the exercise of intellectual and moral leadership. Practical definition of hegemony is subtle, unseen political, social and economic ideology that reflects the interests of the wealthy and powerful. As the previous explanation shows, the roots of ideological criticism are found in Marx’s work. Ideological criticism means analysis of media and popular culture from a perspective that recognizes the influence of political, economic and social power structures. It involves many criteria like feminist theory, disability studies, aging studies, queer theory and African-American criticism.
The first example of ideological criticism, which is an example of feminist criticism, is “Killing Us Softly 4 Advertising's Image of Women video. ” In this video, Jean Kilbourne discusses how women are used negatively in products’ commercials. While many books and organizations handle the issue, she focused on the advertisings because they have surrounded us everywhere, and many American people spent much time watching commercials. She provided some examples of adds of soaps, shampoos, cars and others that focuses on hair beauty, slim body and white skin. Women’s bodies are used as things, objects, or parts of things. The breast is used to sell everything. She made a conclusion about what does it mean to be a woman in the culture. Ideal female beauty is always significant to sell products, and ugly women are used to make fun in advertisements Through her work in this field for around forty years, she noticed that the things became worse. Kilbourne tells us about how computer touches changes the real appearance of models. They may have scares or wrinkles, but they cover that by computer touching. She provided an example of how producers take time and effort to improve on the women’s appearance in advertising. Some of the actors refuse these touches to be thin and prefer to have the same appearance in the reality. For example, Kate Winslet rejected to be thinner on the magazine cover. This bad representation of women in advertising has a lot of negative effects. Advertising let women feel terrible about themselves. Women tend to compare themselves to these models resulting in affecting self-esteem. As a result, cosmetic surgeries increase. Anorexia is spreading among girls because they anticipate looking like models. Girls become more likely to purchase products that reduce weight. This bad representation of women justifies violence toward them.
Another example of ideological criticism, which is an example of feminist criticism, is about Madonna and her representation of black culture, which is criticized by Bell Hooks. Hooks stated that Madonna does not support black culture. Instead, she insulted them. She only cares of being a cultural icon and gaining profit. Black women hate Madonna when she stated that black men are the sexiest men in the planet, and no one tried to criticize this statement. It seems that race does not matter; the only matter for people is getting money quickly and as much as they can. Another evidence of her insulting black culture appears in Madonna’s video "Like a Prayer. " Although many articles discussed public outrage at this video, no one discusses the issue of race and how Madonna insulted black culture. They focus on whether or not she was violating taboos regarding religion and representation. In the United States, Catholicism is most frequently seen as a religion that has few or no black followers. The religious experience and liberation theology in black culture are so critical, and Madonna’s representation was offensive. Bell Hooks states that black people were caricatures who reflect the stereotypes in the video. They look grotesque. The role of black females was offensive in which they were catching Madonna when she is falling. Also, the video shows that Madonna is breaking the ties that bind her as a white girl to white patriarchy and establishing ties with black men. The message is oriented to white men. It suggests that they only labeled black men rapists for fear that white girls would prefer black people. Madonna chose a black prince to make her video shocking and stimulating to a white supremacist audience, which leads to more profits.
