In the book Pop Culture Freaks Identity, Mass Media, and Society by Dustin Kidd, many different pop culture topics were presented. In the book Dustin mentioned racial perspectives and gender perspectives.

Racial formation is defined as the process by which racial categories are created inhabited, transformed, and destroyed. This term refers to hegemony, which is when one racial group wants to maintain dominance. This could be said about Caucasians wanting to maintain dominance in the United States. Representation of races is shown by three different categories, authentic, myth, and stereotypes. Authentic is the most correct representation of racial perspectives. Myths, exact opposite of authentic, are the least correct representation of racial perspectives. Stereotypes is the category that is oversimplified idea of a race or group of people.

When talking about racial perspectives, people often do not know what term should be used. An example would be people being confused on whether to use African American or black or Caucasian or white. Due to this dilemma, a broad discomfort started in pop culture with race.

Gender Perspectives was another big topic in Kidd’s book, Pop Culture Freaks Identity, Mass Media, and Society. Gender perspectives focus mostly on the difference treatment between genders such as male, female, and others. From the text, gender imports production, content, and audience of pop culture. Women and other minority genders are underrepresented in pop culture such as television, film, and music. They minority races usually have the supporting roles in television and film. The way the underrepresented genders are analyzed is through the Bechtel test. This test finds at least two or more females in a pop culture category, makes sure they have names, and they talk about something other than men. Women are used in pop culture to only conquer men. Women and other minority genders have minority power and this privileges men. Sometimes a male is represented with hypermasculinity, is the over exaggeration of the male stereotypical behavior such as an emphasis on physical strength, aggression, and sexuality. This is where the female comes into the picture and tries to conquer the male. There is also a digital divide in pop culture with genders. Digital divide is perceived and real differences based on access to internet.

Both gender perspectives and racial perspectives are emphasized topics in Dustin Kidd’s book, Pop Culture Freaks Identity, Mass Media, and Society. Both of these categories relate to pop culture in an extreme way.