ethnicities, races, cultures, and religions, the American entertainment industry is almost sterile in its representation of this wide variety. A study done by USC in 2013 revealed that…
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Writing Project 3: Using Lenses A stereotype is an oversimplified, stock conception of a person, a nation, an ideology, etc. The use of stereotypes in propaganda, however overt or subtle, reinforces the general prejudices towards that entity. The focus is usually on a trait that the target audience finds particularly horrendous, although it can also be comical. Example of Propaganda: In this cartoon in the Star from September 1935, in the wake of Italian aggression in Ethiopia, Mussolini is…
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find themselves on the outside looking in. Subject to widespread stereotypes the community has largely internalized, Asian Americans are left with less opportunities to climb the corporate ladder than other groups. A closer analysis of Asians in the workforce reveal a massive underrepresentation extending throughout several fields: Asian Americans made up only 2% of the congressional population in 2012, 1.5% of Fortune 500 CEOs, and less than 1% of players in the NBA (Norris, “Looking at the Bamboo…
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Spike Lee's film Bamboozled (2000), cinematically stages American mass entertainment's history of discrimination with humiliating minstrel stereotypes which was first brought to film in 1915 by D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation. Blackface' minstrelsy is a disturbing legacy that began as a tradition in the early 1800s on stage, with white actors using burnt corks to darken their skin and "allowing them to portray African-American slaves, usually as lazy, child-like providers of comic relief"…
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There were four major forms of entertainment in America before 1860. Theatres were open to everyone and some could hold nearly 4,000 guests for a show. However, theatres were also well-known for their disorderly audiences and prostitutes. In the 1840’s minstrel shows began appearing in northern cities. They were biased and expressed the prejudices of the working-class and were extremely racist toward African-Americans. White men painted their faces black and preformed for the audiences. While there…
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Hello my name is Joanna Raphael and my question is how do prejudices affect the entertainment industry. I will be looking at this topic from the gender perspective. What first peaked my interest in this topic was the knowledge of women being placed on different pedestals than men. Dee Meehan, a sociologist, theorized over how woman in media are typically only seen as three things, a house wife, Mother, and a sexdx object. I then wanted to further my research, and really dig deep into the inequality…
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The most prominent and popular form of American entertainment in the nineteenth and well into the twentieth century was the minstrel shows. “If American popular music has a birthday, it could easily be March 7, 1843. On that evening, the Virginia Minstrels, a four-man troupe of experienced blackface performers, presented the first complete minstrel show at the Masonic Temple in Boston.” (Brody, Campbell 29). The white men would apply burnt cork or grease paint to their faces to have the appearance…
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From the very beginning of visual media entertainment stereotypes have been projected to the masses, it is why television broadcasts are called programming. The intent is to create brief periods of broadcasting data that influences the mind to enjoy itself, accept the premises presented in short bytes of information, and we should become immersed in the entertainment enough to stay for the entire television show. Stereotypes in media have been used to cause controversy, gain acceptance, and most…
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faces stereotyping in the media. One common stereotype is the Christian extremist. This is the Christian that holds a strong religious stance and will go over the top in order to preserve these beliefs. This can be evident in The Shawshank Redemption. In this television series, a prisoner is depicted as the Christian extremist that likes to hand out Bibles and recite verses to his fellow inmates. Entertainment industries portray these types of stereotypes because they amuse viewers and generate higher…
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story takes places in America during the 1950s and is full of catchy songs, fun choreography, a simple plot and patriarchal values. These components are quite common in the musical genre, with one-dimensional characters and the heavy use of gender stereotypes. I ask: how does this genre with musicals such as Grease, remain popular within a female based audience when they perpetuate sexism and use the male gaze to hinder the progression of strong female leads? This paper argues how Grease combines heteropatriarchal…
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