INTRODUCTION TO IDEOLOGY

People in every place see the world with the ideology they are aware of. From what I’ve searched
ideology was defined as “a set of opinions or beliefs of a group or an individual. Very
often ideology refers to a set of political beliefs or a set of ideas that characterize a particular culture.”
Well, ideology determines of what we think is important in our lives, of what categories you put people
into and whole host of other things. Take for example, when you are wearing sunglasses or even goggles,
they don’t change anything on the object itself but they just change the way we see it. Each ideology
draws attention to certain features of the world and hides or cause you to ignore others.

RELIGION
Compared to ideology, religion is also a set of opinions, ideas, myths, and beliefs of a group or an
individual. It involves a system of worship and faith. Let me give some examples on how ideology goes
with religion. First, when we visited our family house on my father side because we had a small
gathering, of course neighbors were invited and there’s this kid (aunt Paus’ son). They were about to give
him some pork dishes and fish but her sister said that they’re not allowed to eat pork because they are
Muslims. Eating pork is prohibited due to their religious beliefs. Next is the way the Muslim women
dresses. They are using some sort of cloth or headgears namely, Burqa, Niqab, Hijab, Chador to cover
their selves. Some of them, the only thing which isn’t covered with cloth/veil are their eyes. These are
practices and beliefs based on the ideologies that they have accustomed.

POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

Politics and economics somewhat controlled by ideology. Ideology serves as an instrument to
know how and what politics and economics the world belongs to. This serves as a cover to the politicians’
struggle of power. With the use of ideologies, rulers/politicians are able to persuade the people to believe
and obey them. There are examples of political ideology. Liberalism, this is an ideology which is
accepting the concepts of democracy, constitutional government, political equality, and free market
economy. Liberalism aims to keep the freedom of everyone. This can only happen if the Government can
remove those obstacles from aiming everyone’s freedom such as jobless, homeless, poverty,
discrimination and other social injustices in our community. Next is conservatism, according to Edmund
Burke, society must base from the tradition and customs because these are things which are already tried
and tested – people have already experienced. This kind of society is under monarchy and aristocracy.
This is where the people are ruled by kings and aristocrats. For example, when it comes to poverty, liberal
and conservative’s concepts are collided. Liberal’s approach to poverty is through social welfare
programs like 4Ps and other way of giving financial support to the people in the community while
conservative’s approach is through the raising of wealth production.

SOCIOLOGY AS AN IDEOLOGY
 Sociological view can be another term for ideological. Ideology is a set of social, political and
moral values, attitudes, outlooks and beliefs that shape a social groups’ interpretation of the world –
whole complex set of ideas. Ideology is the framework which we make sense of the world. It is a term to
describe the fact that we all look at the world through some lens – some set of ideas that help us
understand the world.

FILM THEORIES

REALISM
From the word itself realism, real-ism. Real which can be connected to the word Natural. It is
something that we can see in real life situations. Realism has to do with what we call objective reality –
the way that we see and experience the world and how film could be designed/made to mimic the way the
world appears to us on our own. Well, it doesn’t mean realistic. It is a reflection of the reality. In short,
films that appears like the real world would be considered toward realism.
FORMALISM
It is all about how a film is presented to the viewer. Film under formalism will use lighting,
editing, sounds effects, and other aspects. In short, films that are highly constructed, highly stylized
would be considered toward formalism. For example, the movie Avatar. This movie was very far from
reality, the director’s imagination was really amazing and the editing of the movie was astonishing one.
when it comes to paintings, formalism will be the one under abstract painting.

GENDER CRITICISM
Gender is the state of being a male or a female. When it comes to gender criticism, it is how the
author represents the genders in that certain text or story. The purpose of it is to criticize gender on how
we commonly perceive it. There are two approaches in gender criticism – masculinist and feminist
approach. When we say masculinist, it is an ideology under masculinity, we simply believe in the male
stereotypical gender/roles. Second is feminist, when we say feminist, it is an ideology that believes all
gender should be equal – there’s no dominant nor oppressed.

For further explanation let me show you this example:

 Student A said that, Engineering, pilot, shooting guns, driving 4x4 belongs to male and cooking,
washing the dishes, cleaning belongs to female while student B said that all those things can be
done by both female and male. So, what I want to say here is that Student A believes in the
masculinity ideology while Student B believes in feminist ideology.

If you already watched the movie Hidden Figures, that one would also an example under gender
criticism (feminist).

REFERENCES

Burrowes, J. (2020, September 4). The Psychology of Ideology and Religion. Retrieved from
http://www.ipsnews.net/2016/07/the-psychology-of-ideology-and-religion/#:~:text=Religion%20usually
%20describes%20the%20belief,%2C%20economic%2C%20social%2C%20cultural%20and

Harrison, K. and Boyd, T. (2018, July 30). The Role of Ideology in Politics and Society. Retrieved from
https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/view/9781526137951/9781526137951.00011.xml

(2012, December 19). Key Concepts in Sociology. Retrieved from

https://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-
binaries/67013_Key_Concepts_in_Sociology__Ideology.pdf
Cornell University Library (2020, August 4). Women in Islam and Muslim Realms: Dress Code.
Retrieved from https://guides.library.cornell.edu/IslamWomen/DressCode#:~:text=Sharia%20(Islamic
%20law)%20does%20not,their%20bodies%20when%20in%20public

Film and Ideology. Retrieved from

https://public.wsu.edu/~hughesc/film_and_ideology.htm#:~:text=Ideology%20is%20sometimes
%20identified%20as,group%2C%20class%2C%20and%20culture.&text=Every%20film%20has%20a
%20slant,characters%2C%20institutions%2C%20and%20cultures.

Critical Approaches to Literature. Retrieved from http://home.olemiss.edu/~egjbp/spring97/litcrit.html