Racial Stereotypes Of Film, Movie, Films Like The Avengers Or The Twilight Vampire Series

From the beginning of the film industry, individuals and communities—particularly those of racialized and gendered minority groups—have been either underrepresented, misrepresented, or both. Hollywood has been a massive suspect of misrepresentation and enabling/promoting socially constructed misconstructions through mainstream films since its creation. Despite obvious progress being made towards eliminating underrepresentation and misrepresentation and embracing true cultural depictions, films often still foster stereotypes and misrepresentation both directly and indirectly. One example of a film that does this is “The Pursuit of Happyness” starring Will Smith and directed by Gabriele Muccino.

The arrival of African slaves, sold in the plantations of colonial America, definitely triggered a superior-inferior relationship and mentality between “the whites” and “the blacks”. This present-day culture, resulting from a society of masters and slaves, has struggled against central concepts deeply rooted in the nations past .With strong cultural values on racial discrimination, the path towards the concept of racism in America was a vital moment in the course of the nation’s history. Social concepts and attitudes could not be altered overnight, but it can be altered. Indeed, in the quest for social progress, the struggle for equality has gone a long way, with black Americans now holding high-ranking

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

“It is said that seeing is believing but that depends on the source vision”. If one does not experience first-hand they see through another medium which is often film and television. Film is one of the reasons black culture and the black experience is misunderstood and filled with fabricated beliefs. African Americans have been involved in Hollywood films since film earliest forms in the early 20th century. In these early films African Americans was showed in a damaging unpleasant way. African American filmmakers have been are emancipating the black image from Hollywood’s depiction of Blacks. They are challenging the stereotypes and destroying the view of the singular black experience. Black are becoming more involved in the

The film industry’s portrayal of African American people consists of countless stereotypes and inaccuracies. These depictions lead to an innumerable amount of misrepresentations about the African American community. As the latest wave of black films begins to dawn, the clearer the images become of a collective people. Using my personal experiences as a mixed woman of color, as well as including my academic strengths and goals, and points of view regarding various black films, the content of this paper will examine the representation and stereotypes that can be seen in African American Hollywood.

African American has a long history since the time of the slavery in the United States of America. There has been a timeline on how the changes have occurred in political, education, social and economic development of the black Americans. The black people were despised because of their skin color leading to lack of development on their part. They were denied their rights until the late 20th century when their fight for recognition brought the much anticipated results. These changes have gone until now that the Americans were able to select a black person as the president. Since 1877, there are a lot of things that happened in the history of the black Americans to reach the modern days. This paper looks at the long journey the African

G. Willow Wilson once said that “there's a burden of representation that comes into play when there aren't enough representatives of a certain group in popular culture.” The articles “Opinion: “Black Panther" gives me a personal reason to cheer for a new superhero” by Brandon T. Harden, “Opinion: "Black Panther" and the beauty and strength of black women” by Mary-Jean Nleya of Al Jazeera, and “'Black Panther' inspires more than African Americans” by Dean Obeidallah illustrate why movies such as “Black Panther” have impacted Hollywood and its viewers. Despite the fact that there are some people who do not attend the movie theater and may not care about renown movies such as “Black Panther” or “A Wrinkle In Time”, it is clear that these movies with diverse casts will impact and support accurate and inclusive representation in Hollywood.

Harmful racial stereotypes have plagued the entertainment industry since blackface minstrel shows began in New York in the early 1800’s. Although the structure of minstrel shows changed over time; the images, blackface, and the caricatures of blacks continued. Early Hollywood films sustained the racist tradition of white actors performing in blackface with numerous silent movies that included white actors playing non-white characters in a particularly stereotypical fashion. Eventually non-white actors were allowed to play themselves in film, however they were cast in extremely prejudiced roles that degraded themselves like “the coon”, “the tom”, “the black buck” or “the mammy” for African American actors, and “the bandito”, “the greaser”, “Latin lover” or the “spitfire for Latino actors. Although there are some productive ambiguities within some of these roles, they are ultimately damaging.

In the first place, films and television are forms of media that not only entertain and make people laugh but plays a big role in how the world looks at African Americans. “Collectively, these films and television shows primarily written and diversified by Black entertainment excluding Monster Ball and Deceptions are dupli casual representations of black women” (Jefferies). Consider the case of Sally, a young caucasian girl that lives in the suburbs of Nevada. She never met a black person. Because of the

Throughout this chapter, Korgen main arguments pertained to the media’s portrayal of Black and White biracial characters in movies. Typically the media portrays people with lighter skin to have more positive characteristics while people with darker skin more negative characteristics. Media is one first place young children get these images from and it can have a huge impression on them without even knowing it. They are placed within this social class of existence. “Viewers tend to pay the most attention to characters who share their age, race, and gender and those they wish they could be like” (Korgen, 2010, pg. 89). Biracial Americans go through the toughest scrutiny by both races on whether they fit into either group. I know my brother and sister have this issue from the time they were little especially my sister, she is lighter skinned and was never truly accepted by the black or white girls at school.

In 2015 Hollywood Diversity Report: Flipping the Script, Drs. Darnell Hunt and Ana-Christina Ramon takes a hard look at the statistics of women of color involved on television, in movies, and behind the scenes. In 2013, cable scripted television programs had approximately 62.9% lead male roles and 37.1% female lead roles – of that 80.7% of lead female roles were white and 19.3% were Asian, Latino, Indian, and black women of color – a slight increase of 4.6% since 2012. It was in 2012 that women held the most female leads in the history of film: 30.8% – of these 15.1% were women of color; however, in 2013, the percentage of female leads dropped to 25.3% while increasing in minority roles to 16.7%. Furthermore, it is seen that female television writers and directors make up approximately 30% with 30% of these women being minorities. Oscar winners by gender was an even 50% in 2012, and increase of 32% since 2011. Of these female actresses, 25% of them were minorities – an increase from 0 in 2011. Drs. Hunt and Roman admit to studying these finding in an attempt to shed light on the “Hollywood race and gender problem” (Ramon). The increase and decrease of gender roles and minority roles is proof that Hollywood has the capacity to correct the problem when it comes to discrimination and prejudice, but seemingly refuse to do

Many people like to watch movies as a source of entertainment. While actors and actresses act out various roles in movies, they make movies more entertaining for the audiences to watch. Now, think of the first five movie stars that you can come up at the top of your head. At least three of the five movie stars that you think of are white. As the majority of the movie industry consists of white people, minorities and their achievements are generally overlooked. The majority of the names on the credits contains white actors. Ethnic minorities are portrayed and treated differently within the movie industry compared to white people. In fact, minorities are more negatively treated as they face many racism and discrimination in the industry.

In the past history, African Americans were slaves and were looked at and thought of as less important than whites. Still today

Films have the power to both influence and reflect society. The stereotypes prevalent throughout American culture are reflected in most films. While the United States is becoming an increasingly diverse country, this diversity is not portrayed within American cinema. Minority figures often occupy

“Oscars So White” a phrase that began trending on social media sites after the 2016 Academy Awards announce their nominees for Best Actor and Best Actress, it was predominately white for a second year in a row. The movie industry is no stranger to controversy and since its inception it’s constantly been guilty of underrepresenting ethnic people. It’s evident that film is a type of mass media that has a certifiable amount of power to influence audience’s views, yet this platform constantly disregards the need for diversity in favor of stereotypes. Movies such as Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), Scarface (1983), and Pan (2015) are all guilty of this. The depiction of non-American characters in Hollywood movies are constructed around racial