Because they always display their creators' trepidation of the target group, racial stereotypes eventually undermine their makers' cruel intentions. As Poor white Southerners are said to be sluggish, red-necked, and chubby. Immigrant Italians are said to be tiny, greasy, and hot-tempered. Upper-class whites are said to be voracious, emotionally cold, and snooty (Arant 1999). Negroes are said to be unintelligent, immoral, and content. These generalizations are not exact, but they are spread widely not only by word of mouth but also through images in television, movies, newspapers, music, comic books, talk shows, pseudo-scientific research, and even course books. These media make stereotypes, whose dissemination was once curbed to oral transmission from one person to another; seem more like factual knowledge than personal opinion. Racial primes are an outgrowth and inculcation of a reasoned, highly developed, racially conservative, "race-neutral" or "color-blind" racial socialization process in which children learn race-specific stereotypes about African Americans and other race/ethnic groups. As they get older, they persist to receive--both involuntary and voluntary substantiating messages of anti-Black stereotypes from adults, friends, games, folklore, music, television, popular media, and the hidden curriculum. A result of this credence system is Black misandry (Bugeja 2007).Black misandry refers to an embellished pathological repugnance toward Black men created and reinforced in societal, institutional, and individual ideologies, practices, and behaviors Studying stereotypes reveals both their present power and their historical flow.
In spite of their power to upset us in the present, stereotypes turn in cycles. Their connotation can change dramatically over time. The Jim Crow figure, which hastily became a stereotype standing for U.S. racism, instigate as a figure of black folklore. Poor white actors and workers who recognized with the anguish of black slaves in the early 1800s copied their gestures to speak out against employers. But their foe, in turn, used the representation of this Jim Crow mimicry to mock the alliance between blacks and their sympathizers. The evolutionary temperament of stereotypes shows that they are anything but permanent. Certainly, they may help change social attitudes over time. Many sensitive artists of every kind have recognized how to turn stereotypes inside out. They push them durable enough so that audiences see both the stereotypes' cruelty and their makers' weakness.
Although racial stereotypes have not honored the attention which gender stereotypes have, studies have shown that many racial stereotypes have been conveyed through television. Some of these stereotypes include Italians were generally depicted on television as Mafia hoodlums, Asian people are perceived as invaders or karate experts, Hispanic people as comics, banditos or gang members., Native Americans as savages, victims, cowards or medicine men, People from the Middle East are seen as terrorists or oil sheiks(Bugeja 2007). For instance, a cultural group that categorize women of another culture utterly as mammies’ displays alarm about its own nurturing capacity. Person that stereotypes others as greedy money-changers betrays its own concern for prosperity.
Gender roles were found to be stereotypical; women were underrepresented, more liable than men to be married and have children, and not as likely as men to have a job. More attention was paid to women’s appearance, and female characters, when they did work, had lower job status than did male characters. Actions and behaviors were also divided along gender lines. Female characters did more of the familial work such as child care and household tasks, and male characters did more yard work. Female characters were more verbally aggressive, and most of the corporal aggression was confined to ldquoadult dramasrdquo where men dominated.
Minorities were basically unreal, save for a few strips that included or focused upon African Americans. Viewing relations of domination for Black women for any given socio-historical context as being structured via a system of interlocking race, class, and gender oppression inflates the spotlight of analysis from purely describing the similarities and differences distinguishing these systems of oppression and focuses greater attention on how they interconnect(Millum 1975). The mainstream of gender related studies focused their attention on women. Very few studies engross male stereotypes. Studies have revealed that women are portrayed on television as inactive, being dominated by men, governed by emotion, overly emotional or dependent.
Women are also depict as less intellectual then men and generally weak. The roles which women are consigned tend to be marital and family oriented. In addition, women are frequently shown to be able to successfully combine marriage and employment. Women are normally younger then men on television and generally disappear between the ages of 35 and 50 (Berry 2000).Subjugated knowledge, such as a Black women's culture of resistance, develop in cultural contexts controlled by oppressed groups. Dominant groups aspire to replace subjugated knowledge with their own specific thought because they realize that gaining control over this dimension of subordinate groups' lives simplifies control. While efforts to influence this dimension of an oppressed group’s experiences can be partially successful, this level is more difficult to control than dominant groups would have us believe (Atkins 2002).For example, holding to externally derived values of beauty leads many African-American women to dislike their skin color or hair texture. Likewise, internalizing Eurocentric gender philosophy leads some Black men to abuse Black women. These are cases of the triumphant infusion of the dominant group's focused thought into the everyday cultural context of African-Americans. But the long-standing continuation of a Black women's culture of resistance as expressed through Black women's relationships with one another, the Black women's blues ritual, and the voices of contemporary African-American women writers all attest to the difficulty of eliminating the cultural context as a fundamental site of resistance (Berkman 2003).
The existence of African-American women thinkers such as Maria Stewart, Sojourner Truth, Zora NealeHurston, and Fannie Lou Hamer who, though excluded from and/or marginalized within such institutions, continued to produce theory effectively opposes this hegemonic view. Moreover, the more recent resurgence of Black feminist thought within these institutions, thecae of the outpouring of contemporary Black feminist thought in history and literature, directly challenges the Eurocentricmasculinist thought pervading these institutions.
Conclusion
In conclusion it is revealed that stereotypes reflect are facilitated by power relations in a society. Stereotypes of a disgraced group are frequently accepted as the truth and are not understood as problematic until the group can manifest its fully human condition. As the group's virtual power grows, it can sometimes stop the public proliferation of blatant stereotypes about it. The portrayal of women in media stereotyping is also very frustrating and depressive for the women who are directly targeted. I dispute that while juncture of media stereotype is fairly limited as a conceptual image, the interlocking imagery can assist to identify how the relationships among the structures of oppression have become institutionalized.
Reference
Arant, David. 1999. Perspectives: Ethics, Issues and Controversies in Mass Media.
Atkins, Joseph B. 2002, The Mission: Journalism, Ethics, and the World: International Topics in Media.
Berkman, Robert I. and Christopher A. Shumway. 2003. Digital Dilemmas: Ethical Issues for Online Media Professionals.
Berry, David.2000, Ethics and Media Culture.
Millum T. 1975, Images of Woman: Advertising in Women's Magazines.
Bugeja, Michael J. 2007, Living Ethics: Across Media Platforms.
