It's All About Who You Know

Though my original blog post focused on the different gender roles and stereotypes that the characters in the film Neighbors represented in a specific scene within the movie, I am also able to notice themes in the movie that better correlate with my research conducted for the wiki readers guide, as well as my overall research throughout the semester about college as a whole, its depiction, and how much the social aspects of college affect the post graduate world. As previously stated, I originally focused on the segregation of genders in a specific scene of my chosen film in my original blog post, but my research, and subsequently, the articles I used, regarded the topic of racial segregation in the professional field.  My original thesis when beginning my research was “Does de facto segregation in schooling, among students, translate to the professional world?”  With the information I gained from my research on this topic as well as throughout the semester, I can further analyze and extend upon the topic through connection of my film research as well as my journal research by asking “what impact does the social aspect of college have on post graduate life and society.”  Through this synthesis of information and analysis, I am more capable of finding credible examples to my claim.  When attempting to understand the world around us, especially as we, college students, begin to transfer into the independent and professional world, it is important to see how the world is, what constructs make it up, and what was the original foundation of those constructs.   Since college and higher learning prepares students for employment in their designated fields, as well as prepares them socially, through analysis of college life, we can find the origin of many social “norms” today, such as de facto segregation originates from norms created in college. 

Though the movie has a greater focus upon gender segregation and the exploitation of gender roles in a specific scene of the film, de facto racial segregation is somewhat apparent as well.  Obviously the movie Neighbors focuses on what life is like when within a fraternity or living next to one, especially the social aspect.  Though not in a fraternity myself, I realize that during the selection process, both the selectors and selected, much choose a person or fraternity based on their social similarity and likeness.  Both Tatum in her essay and the authors of the academic journal, "Race and the Workforce: Occupational Status, Aspirations, and Stereotyping Among African American Children" that I used for research claim in their respected works, people of specific race are more likely to befriend others of the same race and socioeconomic background.  Stereotypically speaking, college fraternities are commonly depicted as a group of somewhat affluent, European-American males.  Though there are fraternities that are composed of mostly African-American members as well, the fraternity in Neighbors attempts to illustrate the media’s portrayal as well as the public’s stereotypical perception of fraternities, by having a mostly, all white fraternity with the exception of one black member of the fraternity in the film.  Though this somewhat counters my original hypothesis of different racial groups joining together due to deeper knowledge and empathy for each other’s live, I find it an extremely interesting note that could potentially depict an outlier variable within my research that extends across the whole evaluation, depicting that Tatum’s and others’ argument does not always apply.  However, within the film, the black fraternity brother is mainly a minor character, seemingly only there for comic relief, while not being part of any of the drama in the film.  As stated though, the demographics of the fraternity in the film are overall white.  The demographics even seem to remain this way in the new pledge class within the film, which is overall white as well.  A specific, interesting scene is when the fraternity is throwing a party and there is a black cop who watches the fraternity to make sure things do not get out of hand.  Though I could be over-analyzing a scene that is strictly meant to be humorous, the fraternity sends out their one black member to go speak to the black cop.  As the article "Race and the Workforce: Occupational Status, Aspirations, and Stereotyping Among African American Children" elaborates on, this action by the fraternity could potentially be because people of certain races are commonly more comfortable with members of the same race.

All of this can be refined to instances of expectation and aspirations that were held by the college students as children, as alluded in the article mentioned.  The journal, "Race and the Workforce: Occupational Status, Aspirations, and Stereotyping Among African American Children" notes that “the occupational goals of older African-American children may be influenced by their consciousness of racial discrimination within society” (Bigler), and the same could be believed about membership within social societies at college and by extension, social societies in post graduate life.  Events like that of the recent video released of the Oklahoma fraternity, collectively performing racist chants on the way to an event would definitely turn non-whites away from a specific fraternity and quite possibly fraternities as a whole at Oklahoma.  Though it is not apparent or focused on in Neighbors, discrimination can be a theme in Greek life and could potentially discourage non-white races from joining.  Again, this translates to the professional world in more ways than one.   Through deep analysis of the social segregation that the film is for the most part depicting, one can see a social trend that happens during school and can translate to the professional world.  Many times, members of a fraternity will pursue a job that has employees that are similar to the characteristics of past fraternity members.  Perhaps if one’s fraternity is either specific to one race, or more diverse, their social surroundings in college can come into play when applying for jobs and deciding rather or not to work in specific places. 

A great point made in both "Race and the Workforce: Occupational Status, Aspirations, and Stereotyping Among African American Children" and “Racial Segregation among Places of Employment” is that many times, people of different genders and races aspire to be in a field and socioeconomic status, both consciously and subconsciously, depending on the expectations and conditions in which they are raised.  Again, this can be connected to fraternity culture and overall social interaction that happens within the years spent by a student in college.  For the most part, people would rather spend their social and leisure time with those who are most like themselves and have the same aspirations in order to find social relatability and acceptance.  Aspirations that are cohesively made and shared among certain social groups, such as fraternities, within college are either achieved or attempted at upon entering the professional world or whatever happens after one graduates from college.  One example of this from Neighbors is Dave Franco’s character, throughout the duration of the movie, causes Zac Efron’s character to think about post graduate life and look for a job.   Furthermore, from the habits, discriminations, and social norms made early in life and specifically college, we can see them transferred into one’s post graduate life causing different interactions within society, as well as different social grouping.

Bigler, Rebecca, Cara Averhart, and Lynn Liben. "Race and the Workforce: Occupational Status, Aspirations, and Stereotyping Among African American Children." Developmental Psychology Copyright 2003 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 2003 Vol. 39.No. 3 (2003): 572–580. Web. 15 Mar. 2015. <ephost@ebsco.com>.

Becker, Henry. "Racial Segregation among Places of Employment." Social Forces Vol. 58.No. 3 (1980): 761-76. JSTOR. Web. 1 Mar. 2015. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2577183>.