Social realism is a term used to refer to the work of artists that draw attention to real socio-political problems and offer a critqiue of these power structures. It also reveals the tensions that are found in society between oppressive leaders or elites and their victims. One of the most common sources of social realism are documentaries, as they often focus on the problems that exist in society between different classes of people.
The term Social realism refers to a different type of works including photographs, texts, painting, videos or films that focus on reality and especially on the life of middle-class people or the working class of society. This type of works aims at showing reality as it is and also at depicting the way power works in society to create a critique about it. Considering these ideas, the work that can be found in social realism are documentaries as these type of work as based on reality and in most cases aimed at creating a critique based on aspects of reality which make documentaries suitable for social realism. Also, others such as fairy tails, Disney cartoons, and action movies are based on fiction and therefore could never be used as part of Social Realism.
