Applying Theory to Popular Culture- Sociology

this is what my professor has sent as instructions for this paper
” As part of our training in this course, we aim to become critically thinking consumers of sociological information embedded in popular culture and mass media. The assumption is that popular culture both reflects, and shapes, a society’s beliefs, values, norms, and ideologies. We are aware that sociologists collect data for understanding society and sociological processes and phenomenon. Popular culture is one of the many sites from where this data can be harvested. In this assignment, you will be harvesting sociological data (mainly qualitative) from a movie, will think about it analytically, and reflect upon it through the lens of relevant theories and/or concepts that you have become aware of through this course.

For this assignment you will choose a feature length movie (Not a documentary) that you can access through cable, TV, Disc, or the Web. You should also select a focused area within sociological theory that you would want to use as a lens to review the movie. This should be a reading that we have covered, or particular theory or concept within a reading. Choose a reading that is different from the one that you chose for your first paper. While I will not prohibit you from using multiple theories and concepts, I strongly advise that you use a specific theory/concept and apply it on the movie so that you can focus and think deeply rather than spread your thoughts wide and thin.

Once you have selected a theme/theory/concept and a movie, read the concept/theory, and then watch the movie critically, thoughtfully, taking notes as you go, and while you do it keep identifying messages, beliefs, values, norms, roles, metaphors, symbolic depictions etc. that have sociological significance.

At the broadest level, I suggest that you think about the movie first on the basis of the theory/concept you chose, and then do the reverse- think about the chapter/theory/concept on the basis of the movie. This strategy allows you to think dialectically, as it lets you test the movie against the reading, and also test the reading against the movie. This strategy will help you see if the movie agrees with, disagrees with, distorts, complicates, or extends the reading, and vice versa. Your ultimate aim should be to have fun doing this assignment, make it engaging for a sociologically informed audience, and demonstrate your familiarity with sociological theory.” , for the movies I have chosen ” The Great Gatsby” and the reading is ” Class, status, party” by Max Weber