Stereotypes
By Lizzybeth500 - Posted on May 8th, 2006
I read an article for my English class today that discussed the various negative stereotypes of the various races that are portrayed in films. Although this was an excellent essay, I have to admit that I am upset that the negative stereotypes of white people are completely ignored. The author doesn’t say much about the characters played by white people, except that they mostly play the heroes in westerns. He completely ignores the fact that they are also portrayed as rich snobs. And more often than not, the token white in an all minority sitcom is a complete moron. This doesn’t even happen on just adult shows. For example, the hit children’s show “That’s So Raven,” the only white lead is also the dumbest character on the show. Honestly, I feel that this pretending that only minorities are faced with negative stereotyping only escalates the problem. It creates an us vs. them situation. We (the minorities) are being picked on, while they (the majority) are not. Racism goes both way people, and it’s time we open our eyes to that.
Racism may go both ways, but the majority looking bad is not a very common situation. Think about how many all minority sitcoms there are right now-not many. So the rest of the shows on tv are basically about white people. Its hard to say that whites are portrayed in a negative light a lot because of the abundance of shows and movies featuring white people. There are many movies that portray whites as something other than rich snobs. Minorities must get together and make for example, all black cast movies because they will not get much of a part in the all white movies. Minorities will often get the attention for being on the receiving end of negative sterotypes because these groups are in the minority; its easier to get picked on if you are in the minority rather than the majority.
Double-standards.
You people should realize by now that one person of a racial/religious/ethnic group doesn't necessarily represent the whole group. What were we saying about not stereotyping?
Good luck with that. It's just easier for me not to let myself be annoyed by it. I've got more important things in life to be worried about than how some moron is going to stereotype me.