Week 8: Stereotypes and the Ethics of Representation
I have been affected by stereotypical representations numerous times, they don't really bother me anymore. I've been stereotyped by everybody: white, black, asian, hispanic, etc. I believe every person of color has been stereotyped, scratch that, everybody has been stereotyped, but it's most common to happen and it is a serious issue in the society of P.O.C. . I think it's all just ignorant to stereotype people that you do not know about, OUTSIDE of a textbook. I understand, back in the day, you only knew so much of people because of the very slim chance of coming in contact with them and actually talking to them, so you just went along with the beliefs and they are just inbeded in your brain. I'm just disappointed in how people still really judge a race ignorantly and don't bother to look up or for the facts. I've personally been sterotyped because of my hair, gender, personality, and just basically my being. The most annoying are is "You have to be mixed to have good hair", or "All black girls are loud and angry". Believe it or not, these are commonly thrown around by our own people in the black community. I want to know who came to the conclusion that black people have nappy hair and mixed or just fair skinned people in general have "good hair". Growing up, I heard this alot. When I asked what is "Good hair", people always vaguely answer by telling or showing me people with a looser hair texture and not explaining "How" it's considered to be "good hair". I always thought good hair was hair that was properly maintained in health and moisture, like all hair is good hair if you take care of it. Nobody has bad hair, it can be in a bad state at the moment, but it's not bad. That's just me. Secondly, I'm always expected as a black female to be loud and mad about everything and always have an attitude all the time. Not all of us are loud and "ghetto". That's just plain and simple. You can see it yourself, unless you chose to ignore and constantly believe it. That's dumb, but your business. I have a serious problem with the "black women are always mad all the time and about everything". Well I wonder why. We are the MOST criticized about EVERYTHING we do.
In all, stereotypes are highly annoying because they give off false assumptions of people. I think the entertainment feed off of stereotypes, I'm guessing to add to the story. What? I don't know, but I think it's unfair to P.O.C. to be represented in a negative way. People believe what they read. After you read and see it, it's embeded in your head, unless you know better, but for the younger people, but after you retain information, you start feeding it out. If you're going to give an impression of something or someone, give a proper representation. Make it fair to both parties, viewers and whoever is being represented. This day in age, representation of people of color is starting to get a whole lot better and its just refreshing. It makes me feel good inside to see that there are people who really care to put an end into these false representations and stereotypes. Not only for the P.O.C. community as a whole, but for the kids. As a kid there was barely a little properly representations of us, but I'm glad at least someone will grow up seeing someone like them on big screens, in books, and as a toy, thats headlining and not as a sidekick, etc. We're finally starting to move forward.
Update or foreword:
I do think they are necessary to comics or just in general, in this day in time, because they are so precised that someone can easily pick up on the character and just infer the rest of the information through the dialouge. Unless the artist or writer strategicly figures out a way to get the viewer to immediately grasp onto the character and know exactly who they are, etc., stereotypes will be forever thrown into position because it's just easy. They are highly annoying to whoever is being portraied in a negative connotation but it has became the route of character development. This also happens outside of creation and in life. Like the exercise in class, when my teacher asked students to draw a specific person, you already have a picture in your head of what comes to mind when you think of, lets say a scientist. A girl drew a picture of Albert Einstein because thats what people think scientist look like because it's been portraied to us in such a way.
In all, stereotypes are highly annoying because they give off false assumptions of people. I think the entertainment feed off of stereotypes, I'm guessing to add to the story. What? I don't know, but I think it's unfair to P.O.C. to be represented in a negative way. People believe what they read. After you read and see it, it's embeded in your head, unless you know better, but for the younger people, but after you retain information, you start feeding it out. If you're going to give an impression of something or someone, give a proper representation. Make it fair to both parties, viewers and whoever is being represented. This day in age, representation of people of color is starting to get a whole lot better and its just refreshing. It makes me feel good inside to see that there are people who really care to put an end into these false representations and stereotypes. Not only for the P.O.C. community as a whole, but for the kids. As a kid there was barely a little properly representations of us, but I'm glad at least someone will grow up seeing someone like them on big screens, in books, and as a toy, thats headlining and not as a sidekick, etc. We're finally starting to move forward.
Update or foreword:
I do think they are necessary to comics or just in general, in this day in time, because they are so precised that someone can easily pick up on the character and just infer the rest of the information through the dialouge. Unless the artist or writer strategicly figures out a way to get the viewer to immediately grasp onto the character and know exactly who they are, etc., stereotypes will be forever thrown into position because it's just easy. They are highly annoying to whoever is being portraied in a negative connotation but it has became the route of character development. This also happens outside of creation and in life. Like the exercise in class, when my teacher asked students to draw a specific person, you already have a picture in your head of what comes to mind when you think of, lets say a scientist. A girl drew a picture of Albert Einstein because thats what people think scientist look like because it's been portraied to us in such a way.
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