When looking at the relationship between mainstream media and the role race plays in mainstream media we cannot help but ask ourselves, why is it that when a show has just one token minority character we are satisfied that said show has taken enough steps towards diversifying the cast? Why is it that everyone laughs at the token black character in any given movie being the first to die, but no one does anything to contradict it, and we see it time and time again? Furthermore, why is society seemingly okay with the way in which minorities are represented, or rather, stereotyped, in the mainstream media? What will it take to change the blatant stereotyping of entire races in the media? It seems like, even with as many advances we have made with civil rights and equality, we are still so far from viewing each race as equal, and that is made painstakingly obvious through blatant racism in the media. Suffice it to say, it is not going anywhere, anytime soon.
The media is responsible for essentially all information fed to society. Not only does it inform citizens about news locally and globally, but it informs them of customs and traditions as well as social norms. While the media can inform citizens that certain behaviors and ways of treating people are bad, it can also inadvertently (or in some cases advertently) desensitize an entire people to prejudices and blatant discrimination.
Stereotyping is a problem running rampant in the portrayal of minorities in the media. It is only natural for humans to stereotype as it is a way for us to more easily process large amounts of information about groups of people into categories. Stereotyping is inevitable going to happen, and that is not necessarily a problem. Charles Berg addresses this in his book “Latino Images in Film: Stereotypes, Subversion, and Resistance” when he discusses Walter Lippman’s definition of stereotyping. However, it is possible to turn a common categorizing mechanism like this into a hateful tool used by one people to segregate another people. Enter mainstream media.
In the same book, Berg discusses common Latino stereotypes that are ever present in modern films. An example of one is “el bandido,” which shows negative traits such as “dirtiness, ugliness, sneakiness, ignorance, and a proclivity toward criminality and violence” (Berg 39). This stereotype is based on the Mexican bandit character from old Western films, but modernly, it is commonly seen in TV shows and movies when we see the Hispanic gangster, thug, or drug-runner, who is portrayed as doing almost nothing but causing trouble for innocent, good-natured people, who more often than not tend to be white (Berg 68). What’s particularly interesting about Latino racial stereotypes is that for each male stereotype there is an equivalent female stereotype. The female equivalent to el bandido is the harlot, because she is “hot-tempered” and merely “a slave to her passions” and thus will do anything to get revenge if she does not get her way (Berg 70-71). Two other archetypes are the male buffoon and the female clown, which are portrayed as goofy and clumsy, serving no other purpose but comic relief. The entire reason they are funny is because of their differences from the standard white norm (Berg 71-72). A classic example of the male buffoon is Ricky Ricardo from “I Love Lucy”. A recent example of the female clown would be Sofia Vergara’s character in Modern Family. The latin lover, and the dark lady are the last pair of Latino archetypes. They both exist to be sexually appealing, but for the exact opposite reasons that their white counterparts would be considered attractive; there is an air of danger and mysteriousness to them that the white characters would not be given.
In Donald Bogle’s book “Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films”, he discusses the ways the roles of blacks in movies have changed and remained the same since the introduction of black characters. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the first American movie made with a black character, and he was played by a white man in blackface (Bogel 3). After “the tom” there were four other black archetypes in films: the coon, the tragic mulatto, the mammy, and the brutal black. These were used for the purpose of “entertain[ing] by stressing negro inferiority,” (Bogel 4). Though these exact archetypes are not existent in movies today, there are still basic stereotypes derived from them that are used more often than they probably should be. For example, as opposed to the brutal black, in today’s media we commonly see the angry black man (ex.: Samuel L. Jackson characters). While the angry black man is not as brute and savage as the brutal black was created to be, the same basic concept is intact in the use of both stereotypes: anger and violence trumps over logic and reasoning when it comes to problem solving. We also see the mammy still present in the form of the loud, big, black woman who usually is a mother of some sort. We see main characteristics of the mammy such as independence, boisterousness, and bossiness in modern characters like Madea.
Teresa Mok discusses Asian stereotypes in her article “Getting the Message: Media Images and Stereotypes and their Effect on Asian Americans”. Mok brings up the notion of the “Yellow Peril” or the economic threat of Asians taking on labor-intensive jobs that none of the whites really even wanted (188) that was popular in the 1920s. A modern parallel would be the problem some Americans have with “illegal immigrant” workers taking on farm and field jobs that would not be filled by other Americans, because of how intensive the work is. Though there is no real economic threat to these workers doing their jobs (if anything it helps our economy by creating more products for the market and keeping American run farms in business), there is this overt racism that makes people think it is not okay for Mexican workers to be here and “take our money out of our economy”. This sentiment is the same one as described by the notion of “Yellow Peril”, and since Asians were generally unpopular at the time, they were portrayed as “wily, mysterious, sneaky, and inscrutable” (Mok 188). The portrayal of Asian characters in media has changed over time, based on the general feelings towards Asians mostly centered around political events. When Japan attacked China in 1937, Chinese were portrayed as hard-working peasants, but when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Japanese began to be portrayed as lustful and cruel. When Mao Zedong rose to power in 1949, the rise of communism led to the Chinese being portrayed negatively in the media. In 1978, the Vietnam War led to the Vietnamese replacing the Chinese as the bad guys in the media.
There was also the heavily bought-into sentiment that Asians were weaker and more submissive. This is very obvious when looking at Asian women’s roles. The rise of the geisha in the 1950s played into that because the primary purpose of the geisha was to be cater to the man’s every need (Mok 191-192) Mostly every other Asian woman’s role served the same purpose. Though interracial marriages were becoming more commonplace, the media really only saw one type as acceptable among Asians: that of the white male and Asian female. Even then, in those interracial marriages that were portrayed, the male was always dominant over the female (Mok 192). When looking at Asian men’s roles we also see submission and weakness, but in an interesting way. Most main Asian characters were played by white males. This allowed for anything good the characters did to be attributed to the white actors playing the roles. They also were made to seem effeminate, even if they were smart. Any actual Asian actors usually played secondary roles, and they were usually very stupid or foolish; used as a portrayal of Asian mental inferiority to whites. In other words, there was not a scenario in which Asian men could have it all (i.e. mental and physical superiority), unlike white men.
A common theme in all of these racial stereotypes is that what makes them popular is that they all exhibit exactly what the white characters are not, only further enhancing the image of the white characters. When looking at the black archetypes, we see they exist as ways to portray that white people are more intelligent than their black counterparts. We also see that black characters are in general portrayed as less civilized than white characters. A similar conclusion can be drawn when looking at Latino characters. The bandido and the harlot act out of passion and without any logical reasoning. Even the archetypes that are portrayed as attractive are merely sexual objects, not attractive for their character or any redeeming traits. The racism behind the archetypes of Asian characters is made painstakingly more obvious than with most other races, due to political sentiments at the time of each new stereotype. In Asian archetypes we see that they are presented as much more passive and weak characters than white counterparts, thus making the white characters seem more dominant, both physically and mentally. While this dominance may not be deliberate, it is something that is seemingly inescapable in today’s society thanks to mainstream media. It is also something that does not seem to be going away any time soon.
If we look to recent movies and TV shows, we see examples of racism of all types very prevalent. In the recent movie 2 Guns, starring Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington, we see the portrayal of the bandido archetype in the Mexican drug cartel characters. They are all portrayed as heartless and mean because they don’t care about anything but making money off of drugs and will do anything to accomplish that. They are also portrayed as ignorant and foolish, because they are easily deceived multiple times. If we look to the popular television show, America’s Next Top Model, we can see blatant racism. In a highly controversial 2009 episode, the host, Tyra Banks, told the girls they would be taking part in a bi-racial photo shoot. The episode took place in Hawaii and Tyra claimed the photo shoot was inspired by the word Hawaiian’s made famous: “hapa” meaning a person of mixed racial backgrounds. In theory a photo-shoot celebrating people of mixed races sounds like a good thing, however that is not exactly what Banks did. Many of the models had to have makeup put on them to make their skin appear darker, otherwise known as “blackface”, a characteristic of the Tom archetype. This is also not the first time this has happened in the history of the show. In an older season of the show, models were given a race different from theirs that they had to become for a “Got Milk?” ad.
These two examples do not even begin to cover all of the blatant or subtle racism that is rampant in today’s media. The mere fact that there is so much racism is a clear enough sign that it is not going to go away anytime soon, however most people tend to ignore the problem, or worse, believe there is none. It is a sad, but true reality we live in. The media is inherently racist, and it would seem as though there is nothing we can do to stop that.
Works Cited
Berg, Charles Ramírez. Latino Images in Film: Stereotypes, Subversion, and Resistance. Austin, TX: University of Texas, 2002. Print.
Bogle, Donald. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, & Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. 4th ed. New York: Continuum, 2003. Print.
Mok, Teresa A. “Getting the Message: Media Images and Stereotypes and Their Effect on Asian Americans.” Cultural Diversity & Mental Health 4.3 (1998): 185-202. Print.
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