Observing Stereotypes: Play Analysis

Stereotypes are a form of prejudice everyone will once experience in their lifetime. Stereotypes are centered around an individual's race, gender, social class, religion, and age. They have been known to be elements people use to make judgments and subjectify people to one key feature. As Gordon Allport states, “ To state the matter technically, a noun abstracts from a concrete reality some one features and assembles different concrete realities only with respect to this one feature”(364). Mr.Allport’s words can be summed up to say stereotypes have been used as key fundamentals to associate one feature or aspect of a person with a group that represents it, typically in an unfavorable way.

There are many different stereotypes in the world today. They can be used for different categories like age, gender and race. Stereotypes are formed by the media, passed down from many generations and also just the populations need to understand the social world around us. Racial stereotypes make up large portion of stereotypes in today's society. Racial stereotypes can be used for comedic effect and our found to be funny by a majority of people, but they can also be depicted as hate to an ethnic group if it goes too far. One example of a race effected by stereotypes are Asian people. They have many stereotypes that have developed over the years. An example of a stereotype Asian people experience is that they cannot drive very well. Some

First of all, stereotypes are destructive and prevent or discourage individual growth because it can cause violence and harm. For example,

Stereotypes have great impacts on people all over the world. One of the reasons why people believe stereotypes blindly is that they know less about the objects. In order to decline the uncertainty of this new object, people choose to believe the stereotypes to feel safer. For the purpose of understanding the world more objectively, we ought to treat stereotypes critically and at least not be convinced of stereotypes blindly anymore.

George C. Wolfe’s satirical play, The Colored Museum, elicits emotion from those who read its powerful lines and make its sentiments spring to life on stage. The play is Wolfe’s indelicate way of handling sensitive subjects related to the African American community. The play carries just enough humor to keep its audience captivated and just enough scalding stereotype to keep its audience from growing bored. The satire and parody presented in The Colored Museum depicts the harsh truth about the lives of African Americans.

Stereotypes are unescapable. No matter what part of the world you are at or who you are talking to, everyone has some bias. Claude Steele say’s exactly this in his book “Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do” when he states “ We could all take out a piece of paper, write down the major stereotypes of these identities, and show a high degree of agreement in what we wrote.” His piece addresses the effects of stereotypes, which result in what Steele calls “stereotype threat”. Stereotype threat is being aware that there is an expected behavior or response to a certain part of your identity and being afraid to carry out this expected behavior or response. The threat of proving this stereotype can cause you to lose

By stereotyping we infer that a person has a whole range of characteristics and abilities that we assume all members of that group have. Stereotypes lead to social categorisation, which is one of the reasons for prejudice attitudes.

First of all, what are stereotypes? A stereotype is a quality assigned to groups of people related to their race, nationality, and sexual orientation, but there is not only one type of stereotype there are actually two types of stereotypes. There are positive and negative ones. For example, a positive stereotype about asians would be that they are smart and polite. A negative one would be something like asians have small eyes or they’re short. Some people may get offended by these and other people will not care about it at all. These are effects from the stereotypes.

In life, there is a common ground on which most every person can relate. At one time or another, we have all been promoters of or victims of the unremitting nature of stereotypes. According to the Webster’s dictionary, a stereotype is defined as “a simplified and standardized conception or image invested with special meaning and held in common by members of a group.” Most stereotypes take on a negative form and are based on characteristics such as age, gender, race, status, and personal beliefs. Generally speaking, the greatest problem that arises with stereotypes is that they judge group of people by the characteristics and actions of their ancestors, rather than on an individual basis. More often than not, these assumptions will

Stereotypes can be defined as sweeping generalizations about members of a certain race, religion, gender, nationality, or other group. They are made everyday in almost every society. We develop stereotypes when we are unable or unwilling to obtain all the information we would need to make fair judgments about people or situations. By stereotyping, we assume that a person or group has certain characteristics. Quite often, we develop these ideas about people who are members of groups with which we have not had firsthand contact. Stereotyping usually leads to unfair results, such as discrimination, racial profiling, and unnecessary violence, all behaviors which need to be stopped.

In today’s society it has become a norm to make assumptions of an individual and categorize them into groups that fit them. This would be known as stereotyping, and it occurs everyday and almost everywhere. It can affect someone’s everyday life along with their emotions. A stereotype is a widely held idea or image of a a group of people and is based off of some truth, while misconceptions are based off no evidence at all. Stereotypes can either be positive or negative. Stereotypes exist because that’s how the human brain functions, they see something that repeats within a group of people and that’s how stereotyping begins. An example of a positive stereotype would be that African-Americans are very athletic. However, there can be some negative

The dictionary defines stereotypes as “a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.” Our world today is run by an infinite amount of stereotypes. They affect every aspect of people's’ lives. Members of society let others’ opinions affect their own, and people who go against stereotypes are frowned upon. Some stereotypes include those surrounding African Americans, people of Asian descent, and transgendered people. Most people look at an African American male and either get scared of him, assume he raps, our plays sports. However not every single black male in the world partakes in those activities. Some people look at Asians and assume they are all smart, and good at every subject in school, but that

Stereotypes are deeply embedded in every society in numerous ways. The dictionary definition of a stereotype is “one that is regarded as embodying or conforming to a set image or type.” Stereotyping or Labeling is a technique that “attempts to arouse prejudices in an audience by labeling the object of the propaganda campaign

. As people grow older and realize their racial, religious, and cultural groups, they tend to differentiate themselves from other groups. The main reason we develop stereotypes is because it is just human nature for us to categorize people. Stereotypes are a way to simplify groups of people and establish identities, especially when one doesn’t know much about the group (“Overcoming Stereotypes”).

Aside from arising from mental shortcuts, it has also been proposed that stereotypes are a result of group conflict (Sherif, 1966). Regularly, individuals behave in a way that is expected of them in order to uphold the impressions others have of them. Thus, individuals act accordingly and embody the stereotype which is projected upon them (Baumeister & Bushman). The degree to which we rely on stereotypes when establishing judgements of others has been widely investigated in the field of social psychology. Frequently, the harmful consequences of relying on stereotypes is noted with the potential of this tendency to lead to prejudice and discrimination. Furthermore, the variation in the significance of stereotypes has been explored to determine