Oakton Community College The Bee Movie An Animated Film Analysis

For this Discussion Post, make sure you review the supplemental lecture (when it becomes available) to get a brief introduction to concepts in sociology, as well as some initial understanding of content analysis.

Last week, we delved a bit into the archive, learning more about sexual and gender diversity across time and place. With confidence that sexual diversity has “always” existed, it’s time to dive into how it works today.

Bee Movie has achieved what some might call “cult” meme status, existing simultaneously as an entertaining, whacky story for children, but also doubling as a caricature of the way American urban middle class culture treats its institutions (work, law, military organization) and gendered/sexual representation. (Indeed- how do we know who is a boy bee and who is a girl bee?)

In your post this week, complete a content analysis of Bee Movie. Be sure that, prior to viewing, you’ve laid out the following coding categories, so you can make note of any quotations, situations, or other moments you notice that fall into these categories. Be sure to include at least 2 examples of each code (more are preferred), using lots of detail:

• Work, employment, labor
• Sexual innuendo
• Military/police-related organizations
• Aberrant masculinity (or masculinity framed as deviant, unenlightened, outdated)
• Femininity (animal & human)
• Cross-class interaction (middle meeting poor, middle meeting upper)
• Law, justice, “law & order,” legal system

After laying out your detailed examples, piece together larger latent messages in these representations. What does it idealize, and simultaneously denigrate? What is portrayed as “funny,” and what is the crux of that humor? What do such representations imply about these situations?

Refer to at least one of the reading to help you in your analysis.

In your response, help elaborate on your classmate’s own analyses. Use a reading your partner didn’t use to help them think more about their own observations.