Hollywood writers and directors do not have a social responsibility to avoid stereotyping ethnic characters. Hollywood is the biggest film industry in the whole world. Not only does Hollywood provide movies just in the United States, but Hollywood produces movies to be shown around the globe. In another comparison, Hollywood can be compared to a chef at a restaurant and the audience compared to a customer dining at the restaurant. Americans and people from all over the globe watch television or movies not only for entertainment, but because they can relate to certain characters in the television show or movie. From a Hollywood writer or directors point of view, they will do all they can to make that certain movie or television show to hit the …show more content…
From the stand point of Hollywood writers and directors, they want to build characters that will be touched by the audience. There are even people whose job is to critique a movie and rate it on how the audience will perceive the movie and how it can relate to individuals in the world. For example, the movie, "Friday" starring Ice Cube, Meagan Good, Nia Long, and Chris Tucker was created as a comedy that happens in the streets every day. This movie was loved by so many people around the world. Although all the actors and actresses are African American, people loved it because so many individuals can relate to what happens in the movie. Audiences who watch this show will laugh and have such a good time because they can see themselves in the shoes of the characters. Looking beyond the fact that the Hollywood writers and directors are racially stereotyping a certain race, seeing how the audiences can enjoy a certain movie and relate to it, is probably the number one goal in the mind of all writers and directors. Another example is the movie, "The Pursuit of Happiness", starring Will Smith, Thandie Newton, and Jaden Smith can be related by many African American fathers who tried all that he had just to provide for his son. A movie like this will not only touch African American fathers, but fathers of all different races, pondering on how hard it was to raise a family as a single
The movie 'Ethnic Notions' describes different ways in which African-Americans were presented during the 19th and 20th centuries. It traces and presents the evolution of the rooted stereotypes which have created prejudice towards African-Americans. This documentary movie is narrated to take the spectator back to the antebellum roots of African-American stereotypical names such as boy, girl, auntie, uncle, Sprinkling Sambo, Mammy Yams, the Salt and Pepper Shakers, etc. It does so by presenting us with multiple dehumanized characters and cartons portraying African-Americans as carefree Sambos, faithful Mammies, savage Brutes, and wide-eyed Pickaninnies. These representations of African-Americans roll across the screen in popular songs, children's rhymes, household artifacts and advertisements. These various ways to depict the African ?American society through countless decades rooted stereotypes in the American society. I think that many of these still prevail in the contemporary society, decades after the civil rights movement occurred.
Starting with Sanford and Sons through the progression of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, it is evident that the changes transpiring in society are slowly entering the television industry. What would have been acceptable in the 1970s would be totally unacceptable in this day. No longer is an African-American father in a sitcom shown as a worthless, rude individual. The father figure is now shown more as a responsible, loving, and moral person with more realistic faults. Color now seems, through evolution, to be taken out of the equation for the African-American television families.
African American representation in the film industry has always been a topic for discussion. Whether talking about character types and roles, the actors being cast or not cast, and the lack of diversity in front of and behind the camera. ‘The contemporary status of race in mainstream American culture is intimately bound to the process of representation within and through the mass media.’ (Rocchio, 2000, p. 4). Any role that was to be played by an African American kept in with the dominant stereotypes of the time of production; incompetent, child like, hyper-sexualised or criminal.
I believe that overall this show gives a positive image of African-American characters to everyone who watches. Even though there were some stereotypes of race and gender, it didn’t affect the overall message of the program, which was to help out friends when they are in need and make sure your family is important in your life. This show was funny as it was compassionate. If I had children I would like them to watch this show because almost all of the other shows I saw on television before choosing to write about this one had Caucasian characters or animals and the main focus of the show. I believe that this program, “The Proud Family,” gives a great deal of diversity to The Disney Channel’s and ABC Kids other programs and gives children more of an opportunity to relate to a character and learn that minority people are in important part of out population as well.
Asian Americans only make up a small percent of the American population. Even more significant is that this percentage live mostly on the west and east coasts of mainland United States and Hawaii; leaving the rest of the American population to most likely get their exposures to Asians through television and movies. However the exposure they have receive throughout the history of cinematography has been hardly flattering. Throughout the course of history Asians in film have been portrayed as evil or the "yellow peril" as described by others. If Asians are not being classified as evil in this picture then they are most likely the comic relief, with their lack of coordination or grasp of the English language. With these common stereotypes in place, it gives a white American viewer a sense or need to destroy this Asian villain or superiority over the comedic character portrayed in the film.
(4) Conventional is easy. Whenever an idea is generally perceived by society as standard or traditional it becomes very easy to display to the public without the raise of an eyebrow. This is the basis on which stereotypes appear in films. You’d think in the 21st century where what once were radical notions like same sex marriage and recreational drug use are being legalized that something uncalled for like the constant portrayal of character stereotyping would come to an end. Alas, stereotypical characters continue to emerge in film and unfortunately have become a staple of Hollywood because they’re simple and straightforward, requiring little effort on the part of the writers or thinking from the audience.
In Shohat and Stam’s article, Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the media (2013), they discuss the issue of racism within the media and entertainment industry, such as Hollywood films. More importantly, Shohat and Stam’s discuss the assertion of racial politics in casting within the Hollywood films industry. The interesting idea to their argument is that they suggest that for a film to become financially successful, the casting of the protagonist must consist of a white star as they are seen to be ethnically universal (Shohat & Stam, 190). They further suggest that the ethnic minority have been limited to designated roles which ultimately perpetuate their ethnic stereotype (Shohat & Stam, 190). They concern this issue by critically analysing and contrasting western Hollywood films against other ethnic films.
For many years, racial and ethnic stereotypes have been portrayed on multiple television programs. These stereotypes are still illustrated on a day-to-day basis even though times have changed. Racial or ethnic stereotypes should not be perpetuated on certain television programs. These stereotypes provide false information about groups, do not account for every person, allow older generations to influence younger generations, create tension between groups, and affect people in many ways.
Not all African Americans are thugs and people that do not work. A lot of them have successful careers and have put in the time and effort to have good work ethic and be good people. African Americans have had a difficult history in the American film industry. During the early 20th century of filmmaking, blacks were stereotyped as not worthy of being in films, and they were only certain types of characters such as servants, mammies, and butlers. From several decades of filmmaking, African Americans have been sought out to be trouble makers, incapables, intellectually limited, and also lazy. Although blacks have won Academy Awards for acting, screenwriting, and music production they still find trouble in getting quality roles within the film industry. (Common Black Stereotypes)
helping. Television is making the shows out to seem like one race is better than another. For
Recognize that the "Culture of Hollywood" is based on motion pictures as big business as well as entertainment.
Step 3: Look in the Mirror with Someone Else’s Eyes “In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.” Dalai Lama Taking a moment to look at our lives as white people from the view point of an American of color is important to our talking about racial issues. We need to fully understand our racial identities from every view point. This idea is explored in a very interesting way in Spike Lee’s movie, Bamboozled: “African American producers like Lee are making films like Bamboozled that help both white and black audiences ‘unthink’ the taken-for-granted cultural logic of whiteness. Nevertheless, the fact that Bamboozled made many people uncomfortable suggests that perhaps things have not changed as much as they seem on the surface…”
“Family Guy” is well known to be a cartoon of disgrace and ill-mannered portrayals of real life events. Asian Stereotype was no exception portrayals in “Family Guy”. In many of the Asian stereotypical scenes in “Family Guy”, one of the episodes shows a scene about an Asian woman driver causing wreckage on the freeway as she exits out of the freeway itself. The following is a dialogue of the scene:
Especially, many American films have been recognized around the world. However, the recognized American film industry has been controversial after the film, Avatar, casted white actresses for acting Asian animation characters. Some people say that casting white actress for Asian characters of this film is right because the film is produced in the United States. However, the producers’ casting the white actresses for Avatar characters portrays racism which is not proper in this society . The directors and media producers in Hollywood should have a social responsibility to avoid stereotyping ethnic characters because films are mediums for connecting people around the world in one, the young
While watching movies, have you ever noticed that the villains in almost every single Hollywood film are of Middle Eastern or European descent? In a reoccurring theme of Hollywood, the villains in these films are almost always foreigners or people of color. This is a stereotype. On the other side of the spectrum, we often see that the heroes of these films are most often than not white males. This is another stereotype. Within the last few years, we’ve seen actors such as Will Smith, Morgan Freeman, and Zoe Saldana take the lead roles, so it can’t be said that there are no non-white heroes, but there certainly isn’t many. Hollywood action movies, moreover than other genres, are typically loaded with an abundance of stereotypes. The way these movies are composed and structured can tell us a great deal about the views held within the American psyche and who holds the social power. The harsh reality is that the media ultimately sets the tone for societal standards, moralities, and images of our culture. Many consumers of media have never encountered some of the minorities or people of color shown on screen, so they subsequently depend on the media and wholeheartedly believe that the degrading stereotypes represented on the big screen are based on fact and not fiction. Mary Beltran said it best when she stated in her “Fast and Bilingual: Fast & Furious and the Latinization of Racelessness” article, “ultimately, Fast & Furious mobilizes notions of race in contradictory ways. It reinforces Hollywood traditions of white centrism, reinforcing notions of white male master while also dramatizing the figurative borders crossed daily by culturally competent global youth – both Latino and non-Latino” (77). This paper will specifically look...