Stereotypes In The Movie 'White Man's Burden'

The movie White Man’s Burden, a 1995 drama, reverses the typical American cultural perspectives. In this movie John Travolta and Harry Belafonte create an emotional story highlighting the way people treat others. In a White Man’s Burden Harry Belafonte is a successful and wealthy black man, and John Travolta is a poor struggling white man. To me this movie showed me many things I was blind to. The reversal of traditional white and black roles emphasized the injustice that many minorities, in this scenario blacks, go through on a daily basis. The way the movie introduced the two many characters, Travolta and Belafonte, drew attention to the differences between the neighborhoods in which they lives, the cars they drove, and their job positions. Belafonte was the CEO of the factory that Travolta was a low level worker. One day Travolta volunteered to help out his white boss by delivering a package to Belafonte. While delivering the package Travolta catches a glimpse of Belafonte

In the toy store Travolta’s son, a young white boy, wants this specific superhero, a black man. I compared this scene to the experiment we watched a few weeks back where the little girl (black) was asked to pick out the better doll, basically pick the superior skin color. Between a white doll and a black doll, the little girl picked the white doll. When Travolta’s son picked out the black superhero it symbolized to the audience that the little boys mindset was similar to the little girls in the experiment, that the other skin color was better and superior and his own skin color was inferior. As the movie progressed Travolta and Belafonte relationship grew, and as the movie came to a end Travolta ended up saving Belafonte life. Belafonte realizes the way he has viewed Travolta, and all whites in general, was