Identity and representation in the media go hand in hand with the perpetuation of stereotypes in our culture, regardless of whether or not you as an individual buy into the stereotype. Women are much more likely to be depicted as victims, black and latino men are much more likely to be depicted as villains or miscreants than their white counterparts, etc, etc. in today’s television programming (this by the way is NOT limited to fictional shows, NEWS shows are brutal for falling in line with these unbalanced projections).
I don’t think the issue at hand is racism or oppressions, at least not in a direct “let’s paint [insert ethnicity here] as violent, evil people” by those who write/produce the shows our culture watches. The whole problem with perpetuation of ANY ideology is that everyone is affected. Even if you don’t believe the stereotypes, you know them. Its easy for producers to use the sterotypes because they know their viewers can instantly grab onto and understand stereotyped concepts by relating what they see to things they already know, concepts that have been hardwired into their understanding. The producers have the same hardwiring, yknow?
No, the real problem is how it affects our perception of real life. When we see someone who resembles that gangsta thug whos sellin crack to school children on one of those horrible cop shows, its impossible not to draw up the stereotype in your own mind. Now, that’s not to say that you as an individual cannot reject the stereotype, ‘this guy is NOT that guy on the TV show,’ but just the fact that the mental picture/connection is made is where the problem lies.
A good analogy is something known as the ‘mean world syndrome.’ People who watch a lot of news programs (often hyping up violence/mishaps -if it bleeds it leads) are much more likely to believe that they are in danger when they go outside than people who do not watch lots of news. There’s even a positive coefficient thing goin on with it, the more news you watch, the more threatened you feel.
Removing the stereotypes from the mediated culture - or replacing them with ones that are less harmful, a la Cosby - won’t make them go away from the minds of people, at least not for a very long time. But, perhaps if we weren’t inundated with stereotype reinforcement everytime we turned around, the connection between the things we see in real life and the things we see in the media may not be so strong, and maybe it would be easier to reject the sterotypes for everybody.
