Quentin Tarantino Racial Stereotypes

The black stereotypes in Spike Lee’s film “Bamboozled” are very evident in the main characters in the minstrel show, Mantan and Sleep n’ Eat. For the show, Mantan and Sleep n’ Eat are depicted as lazy, unintelligent, and foolish. Their stereotyping is intentionally obvious to shock and shame the viewers of the show using satire. In addition to the obvious stereotypes in the television show, Lee uses the other character in the film to showcase other stereotypes. Lee uses the characters: Pierre Delacroix, Thomas Dunwitty, Sloan Hopkins, and Big Black Africa and his group as additional, slightly less obvious views of black stereotypes.

In the novel “Slaughterhouse Five”, Kurt Vonnegut illustrates the over-sexualization and negative qualities women are associated with. Vonnegut published his novel at the start of the second wave of feminism where women’s rights were finally beginning to get recognition (Napikoski, "Feminism in 1969”). However, the main character in Slaughterhouse Five, Billy Pilgrim, reinforces the idea that all women match a certain unjust category. Vonnegut has received much praise for his novel Slaughterhouse Five, however upon further analysis, his portrayal of female characters fit flawed stereotypes.   Notably, perhaps the most baffling character Billy Pilgrim belittles is his wife Valencia Merble.

Racial stigmas exist everywhere we look including commercials, shows, and movies. There are many influences that come from media outlets that lead society to critizes races and ethnicities by portraying them in having stereotypes as well as discriminating against a specific group, and lastly advertising biased thoughts. For example, the show Fresh Prince of Bel-Air displays African American stereotypes. At the same time, the film American History X which represents the effects of discrimination African Americans and Mexicans. And, the Volkswagen Polo commercials that displays prejudice thoughts against Middle eastern.

The film Ethnic Notions examines the various caricatures of African Americans in popular culture and the consequences of these representations from the 1800s to the 1980s. The film showed how America went through a face of injustice for a period of time. The internet defines stereotype as qualities assigned to groups of people related to their race, nationality and sexual orientation, to name a few. (Kemick) Throughout American history, African Americans have been victims of stereotypes in many ways. White majority use violence caricatures, stereotypes, dominance, subordination and the media as ways to overpower African Americans.

Through the use of images, films, and other media outlets harmful stereotypes are often times created. One of the many challenges that American cinema endures is the inability to correctly portray characters of color. Film directors have formed a habit of creating and defining characters in a way that the audiences can easily identify with, thus leading to the reproduction of racial stereotyping. Black characters have generally been stigmatized throughout the course of history as aggressive, inferior, and irrational beings. These common stereotypes are perpetuated through the use of redundant film clichés that have a significant impact on society’s popular image of blacks. Within the article In Living Color, Michael Omi claims that despite progressive changes in America pertaining to race, popular culture is still responsible for damaging racial stereotypes and racism. Whereas, within Matt Zoller Seitz article, The Offensive Movie Cliché That Won’t Die, he discusses film clichés such as “Magical Negro” that uses an African American character for the sole purpose of acting as a mentor for their oblivious white counterpart. However, Get Out, a horror satire on the micro-aggressive black experience, directed by Jordan Peele, debunks these racial stereotypes centered around black men. The film subverts the use of racial stereotypes, as it rejects America’s depiction of common black men behavior pertaining to their criminalized lifestyle, masculinity, and aggression in

During the White Hollywood Cinema era, the Black African-American actors played the role of black stereotypes, and they also performed small parts in those films. D.W Griffith produced a racist film that had black stereotypes in it; the name of the film is Birth of a Nation. However, Oscar Micheaux made a film that responded back to D.W Griffith’s movie, which was Within Our Gates. He paved the way for other black African-Americans, which empowered them to speak out through their own films and movies. Spike Lee was influenced by Oscar Micheaux. He wanted to give the black community a voice just like Oscar Micheaux. Spike Lee turned himself into a revolutionary by the way he produced and directs his films. He is so fearless and always pushing

Over the years, films have been using stereotypes to portray humor through its characters and environment (3). Stereotypes are associated with almost everything and everyone no matter how people classify themselves. For further clarification, stereotypes are associated with people, groups, races, ethnicities, objects and locations. The Longest Yard (2005) by Peter Segal, perpetuates the use of stereotypes to portray its characters and environment through racial, gender, and prison stereotypes. These specific stereotypes are shown throughout the movie and are examples of stereotypes that have been passed down for generations. Films use stereotypes so that they are able to appeal to a larger target audience (3). The purpose of this paper is to analyze common stereotypes of racial, gender, prison, and athlete stereotypes in the film The Longest Yard.

In the movie, Unbreakable, directed by M. Night Shyamalan the main character David Dunn has a sharp intuition, better than average strength, and a natural immunity to getting injured or sick, rather than superpowers that his son and Elijah Price believe him to have.

In a time where the media has possess a strong impression on the minds of those consuming it now has become the jobs of directors, producers, and film companies to be mindful of the stereotypes they are putting forth with their content. How can we erase the negative connotations that we associate with races when these images are being maintained in the media? The Tom or Uncle Tom stereotype of the well-mannered elderly negro is one that should have vanished by now, but as of late it has been revived by award-winning filmmaker Quentin Tarrantino in his blockbuster film Django Unchained. The stereotype had previously reared its head in Disney’s live action film Song of the South. The aforementioned Disney film was made in 1946, while the Tarrantino film was released in 2012. Were those 66 years not enough to lay to rest a foolish racial stereotype?

Most film portrayals I have seen, most famously “Birth of a Nation,” show African Americans as lustful, lazy, violent, and unintelligent. In fact, in D. W. Griffith’s entirely racist “Birth of a Nation,” African Americans in the film, played by actors in blackface, continuously disrupt the “peaceful” nostalgic way of life of the south after the war. Eventually, filmmakers such as Oscar Micheaux, W. E. B. Dubois, Herb Jeffries, and Lorenzo Tucker sought to put an end to the racist films by making “race films” where African Americans acted in, wrote, shot and directed their own films. However, this wasn’t enough. Some race films reverted back to racist films, where African Americans were making fun of themselves, just to turn a profit.

The Magical Negro stereotype had been great development and hope for the people of colors in the era of the discrimination and the slavery, but, as the nation of colors grew up in the America, the population figured out that the Magical Negro stereotype were still going on. For an example, right after slavery or discrimination against the colors were broken, as the movies with main white character and the Magical Negro character came out, it was great hope for the African Americans and other Americans that they could help the hero to success and, in the reality, they also can work their way up in the film industry. Now the Magical Negro stereotype should have changed, but, as the world can see, it was not changed, yet, still the same. There

This clip is from the 2003 movie School of Rock. Jack Black plays an overly enthusiastic guitarist, Dewey Finn. He impersonates one of his friends, a subsattuite teacher, at an elite private elementary school. Fin has no teaching or educational background and little experience with children. He works at the school in order to gain money to start a new band. He starts off very unprofessionally. Yelling at the students for food and even tells one of them to shut up. He also admits to being hungover. Having to much of a headache to teach and suggests the class just to do whatever they want. Most of the studenst seemed very confused or suprised. One girl, Summer, pointed out they have a lesson plan to follow and no one would learn anything if

Although the character of Sofia knows that her resistance will cause trouble, she feels it is more important to stand up for herself, than to bow down to repression of white authority. Had Sofia not fought back, she still would have been punished for cursing the Mayor’s wife. There was no pathway for Sofia to keep her dignity and not offend the Mayor and his wife. In that system, a black person had to remain inferior to whites, and in the South, follow the Jim Crow Laws that enforced segregation. C N Truman describes Jim Crow as “a minstrel show character from the 1830’s. He was portrayed as an elderly, crippled and clumsy African American slave and his portrayal showed all the negative stereotypes of African Americans – the black man with his white master with Jim Crow being thankful for his lot in life.” Sofia goes against these stereotypes as she is a strong-willed woman who throughout the text knows she is entitled to more. The only idea that Sofia follows, is that she unwillingly has a white master, but is never thankful for this.

Although, I believe some non-black individuals sympathized or even empathized with the black characters in Django, I doubt any social change occurred as a result of its production. The movie’s plot, linking black bodies to a German love legend, took on a style the western audience is already familiar with—Disney cartoon movies. This plot allowed non-black bodies to briefly sympathize with Django and Broomhilda. The movie’s framing, with the close up moments and point-of-view shots did an interesting job of changing the notion of black and brown bodies as unmournable. Watching Django, some of the audience—including me— hesitantly laughed or smiled when a white body was killed, but found it unbearable to see the mutilation of a black body.

Django aside from being a fantasy film, it does show how an older America once was. Set during 1858, is full of racism and violence. Although, the movie stabilizes these characteristic with a bit of comedy. Nevertheless, according to Karl Marx’s conflict theory people of lighter skin would be more dominant whereas darker skin people would be considered more submissive and less powerful. Even Calvin explained how the slaves could have ganged up, or slayed his ancestors prior but instead they did not. Another theory is Emile Durkheim’s functionalist theory. In the movie this concept is present in how there are two groups of society and how one of the groups retains other in order to keep harmony. Even though the