Stereotypes In Media Essays - Series, Black Sitcoms,

Stereotypes In Media My topic will address how minorities and women are misrepresented in the media and how they are stereotyped. I plan to show how minorities and women are depicted or stereotyped unfairly in the news, on television, and in general. In an article from USA Today magazine, it illustrated that if you have watched, listened to, and read media all your life, you probably have filed these images into your thinking process: African-Americans are mostly rap stars, professional athletes, drug addicts, welfare mothers, criminals and/or murderers; Latinos are illegal aliens, ignorant immigrants who take, but give little back to the country and can't even speak the language, or drug-crazed thugs who have no respect for law or order; Asian-Americans are either weak, model citizens or inscrutable, manipulative, or uncaring invaders of business, especially in the United States; Native Americans are illiterate, drunken Indians who hate all Caucasians and sleep away their lives. (Saltzman, 1994) If you are like most middle-class Americans, most of what you know about members of other races or religions comes from what you read in the paper, hear on radio, or see on television. It is easy to see that racial and ethnic stereotypes still dominate much of reporting today. In today's media, African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans and Native Americans either are treated as invisible or the source of a particular problem: crime, immigration, or the economy. In reference to Native-Americans: when you watch a sport such as the Atlanta Braves baseball team or the Washington Redskins football team, you see the tomahawk chop and chants at these baseball or football games. Anything wrong with this? As for Hispanics, "You find a few Hispanics sprinkled through the networks but in supporting roles" says Hollywood publicist, Luis Reyes. "They are put there for color." (Heller 1994) In 1993, Hispanics who numbered 25 million in the United States, played in only eleven of the 800 prime-time network TV parts, according to a March 1993 Newsweek study. Another study conducted by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, found that of more than 7,000 TV characters on 620 prime-time shows between 1955 and 1987, there were 2 percent Hispanics and 6 percent Blacks. Last year, Common Law lasted only four episodes on ABC. Today, there are no shows that I can think of that are all Hispanic -- you have to go to cable TV to find a show. Now turning to Asians on TV, if you remember the show "All American Girl" which depicted a Korean family, it is no longer on the air. Where do we see them now? No where. Now let's focus on African-Americans. Television's most prominent black men are athletes and entertainers. On the court, on the field, on the rap stage, they are heroes to both Whites and Blacks, particularly to the young. What does this do? They may give an impressionable viewer the notion that speed, strength, and bad language will do for them what it has done for its heroes. Elsewhere on the small screen can be found black news anchors, reporters and commentators as well as actors, social workers, teachers, and public officials who represents different roads to achievement. But not even Colin Powell can compete in the dreams of most youngsters with that of a Shaquille O'Neal or Michael Jordan. Dr. Camille Cosby, who received her doctorate in education (her husband is Bill Cosby) has written a book: "Television's Imageable Influences: The Self Perception of Young African-Americans," which charts the damaging impact of derogatory images of African-Americans produced by our media. She observed that self-esteem is considered a pre-requisite for success. She states, "What impact would it have on your psyche to see your people constantly portrayed as the devoted servant, the chicken and watermelon eater, the sexual superman, or the social delinquent, among many other derogatory images?" It is for these and other reasons that Dr. Cosby wrote her book to emphasize the real human cost of media misinformation and indifference. Dr. Cosby also states, "As a mother, I am very aware of what children watch and how they are influenced by TV, movies, newspapers and art. The way the media distorts our differences is a covert divide and conquer strategy which I regard as a violation of human rights." (Johnson, 1995) When Blacks are invited into homes via television, it evidently is easier for viewers to laugh at African-Americans than to see them effectively addressing their problems. Former TV comedies such as the highly rated Roseanne and Grace Under Fire, addressed serious issues such as wife abuse,