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Transmission of Ideology Through Film: The Cinematic Construction of Gendered Domination in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

Sociological Quarterly

Published online on

Abstract

Contemporary applications of behavioral and social science to the understanding of how cinematic narratives influence viewers tend to be bifurcated. Cognitive film/media theorists and psychologists emphasize microlevel processes at the expense of the macrolevel. Sociological approaches emphasize macrolevel analysis at the expense of the microlevel. Bridging these two levels is the mesolevel concept of identification elaborated to apply to stereotypic role relationships; that is, schemas or associative networks linking thoughts, memories, emotions, and behaviors. Here assumptions of Social Cognitive Theory and Transactional Analysis are employed to contextualize a discussion of how cinematic narrative can operate to construct an ideologically hegemonic narrative reinforcing the legitimation of gendered domination at the sociocultural (macro)level of analysis.