Austin Oller
Professor XXX
Class Abreviation and Number
17 November 2014
Stereotypes: Has the Role of Peter Dinklage Progressed?
In 1952 theorist Frantz Fanon wrote The Fact of Blackness, an article that illustrations the struggles of being an African- American in then modern-day America. Fanon suggested African Americans live with a prescribed stereotype of “blackness”. Because of the color of their skin, African- Americans have an image created for them. Due to this prescription, many individuals are unable to create their own persona. Fanon states that a black person is the slave of his or her own image.
Today, there are many other stereotypes being placed on people just like blackness was placed on the African American community.
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The most common type, called Achondroplasia is the cause of about 70 percent of all dwarfism. It makes your arms and legs shorter than that of your torso. Achondroplasia affects about 1 in 15,000 to 1 in 40,000 live births.
To understand Fanon one must look back to the beginning of the cinema. Stereotypes were prevalent in movies since the beginning of the cinema. One of the first movies to show a stereotypes was the 1915 silent film Birth of a Nation. In the D.W. Griffith film the African American plays the stereotypical slave of the south after the civil war.
In the article Hollywood, Black Animation, and the Problem of Representation, author Jennifer L. Barker shares a statement about her voice about black stereotypes:
“Since the early twentieth century, critics, filmmakers, and actors such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Clarence Muse, Sidney Poitier, Spike Lee, and Henry Louis Gates Jr. have argued for various approaches to representing African Americans in film, and it is unlikely that this conversation will become simpler or more unified in the near future. In fact, conversations are bound to become more complex as the nature of racial identity in America has become more heterogeneous in the last few decades”.
The image of “Blackness” was very prevalent in the classical Hollywood Period. Often depicted as mammies, coons or uncle toms during this period. In Boogle’s book Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks he writes
Throughout the years, racial stereotypes have played a major role in society. Even today, one combines racial stereotypes and prejudice thoughts before one even says a word to the person. Just seeing an African- American man while in a parking lot and pulling out ones phone, can be a simple example of modern-day racial stereotypes.
Often in many films that undermine African Americans, they are depicted as thief's, murders, or unintelligent. These images are used to show that African Americans are unlike their white counterparts. According to Friedman, "This formulation undermines the racially and sexually based violence toward African Americans, wiping out the memory of rape, castration, and lynching of slaves that occurred in the past" (Friedman). The development of African American films, or films that truly put African Americans in any type of positive light did not really start to occur until the 1970's or 1980's. Before then films were often negative in spirit. Paula Massood describes the Hollywood depictions of African Americans in the previous era as, "failing to recognize the sociopolitical changes in the American landscape. African American characters most often appeared within a southern setting, largely ignoring the black city space and culture that figured in the lives and the imaginations of a vast majority of African Americans" (Massood). However, in the following years the development and progression of African American films was able to be seen.
African Americans have had a long history in the American motion picture industry. Early depictions of African American men and women were limited to demeaning stereotypical images of people of color. During the first decades of the 20th century, many films depicted idealized vision of life in the South. These films glorified the image of the Old South .African American characters, in keeping with the dominant stereotypes, were portrayed as incompetent, child-like, hyper-sexualized, and criminal.
The history of African Americans in early Hollywood films originated with blacks representing preconceived stereotypes. D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film, Birth of a Nation, stirred many controversial issues within the black community. The fact that Griffith used white actors in blackface to portray black people showed how little he knew about African Americans. Bosley Crowther’s article “The Birth of Birth of a Nation” emphasizes that the film was a “highly pro-South drama of the American Civil War and the Period of Reconstruction, and it glorified the role of the Ku Klux Klan” (76). While viewing this film, one would assert that the Ku Klux Klan members are heroic forces that rescue white women from sexually abusive black men. Griffith
Television and film is a huge part of American culture. As the “face” of America changes, it is expected for our media to reflect it. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Since the beginning of film, minorities have been misrepresented and underrepresented. While there has been a significant increase in minority actors since the beginning of film, there is still a huge underrepresentation present in American television and film. Our media needs to reflect out diverse country. This topic is always important and relevant because race, gender, and sexuality, in general, have been issues throughout the growth of television and film. Even today, minorities are subject to
Stereotypical representation in entertainment media has long been and continues to be a reoccurring issue. Diversity representation in entertainment media has been debated over and over again, and still continues to be a major problem. The historical representation of African Americans in theatre and comedic performances still largely affects the stereotypical representation of African American males today. More often than not, when a male African American body is placed into a theatric arena, they are automatically stereotyped to only acting in a certain way. Ranging from historical contexts, viral YouTube videos, American sitcoms, and actor’s entire careers, male African American bodies have and will continue to be used to define the specific
Stereotypes and generalizations about African Americans and their culture have evolved within American society dating back to the colonial years of settlement, particularly after slavery became a racial institution that was heritable. However in the clips we watched and from my own viewing of the movie Carmen Jones the movie explains two media stereotyped roles present in films with black characters, the black jezebel and the integrationist hero. Their representations of these roles have many implications on how their characters interact with each other and other characters throughout the film and the outcome of the film’s plot. For a number of years in American film, one could find two black stereotypical presences, the integrationist hero, who dominated the screen for a time, and the black jezebel, also present in many films. Hollywood made movies that featured the well liked,
Throughout the history of motion pictures, prejudice directors have used film to control how the general public views certain demographics of people. In particular, the black community has historically been viewed in a negative light. Stereotypes were created through literature and film that still affect African Americans. Directors and writers would create relatable stories and attach demeaning traits to black people that have qualities in common with Black Americans. This would force readers and viewers to subconsciously attach these stereotypes black people. Examples of these stereotypes can be found in Uncle Tom’s Cabin and The Birth of a Nation. Derogatory terms such as “Bucks,” “Toms,” “Coons,” and “Mulattos”, have put African
According to Tukachinsky, Mastro, and Yarchi, prior to 1930, the role of Blacks on screen were seen involving mostly in criminality and idleness (540). That role still persists until the present, with Blacks usually have to withstand to “longstanding and unfavorable media stereotypes including sexually provocative females and aggressive male thugs” (Tukachinsky 540). 1970’s movies such as The Mack, Black Caesar and Coffy have reinforced this stereotypic image of the black community. 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.
Since the early developments of cinema, racial tension and the dehumanization of African Americans were portrayed circumstantially on the big screen, and through media. As portrayed in “A Birth of a Nation”, African American’s roles consisted of discriminatory imagery, and low social stature. An early film, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, was the first film to cast a black actor as the main character—even then, the character portrayals were that of a male, white actor. In the early stages of film, African American women had very little, if any, roles in the film industry. “The use of white actors to portray black individuals was common practice carried from the stage to early films” (Collins 77). According to
However, their acting careers are quite different; therefore, I will explore how in Hollywood film industry there is still a strong color bias. First of all, I will give an introduction about how skin color has being given privileges within Afro-American community, and then I will analyze how this affects on Hollywood film
Over the course of approximately one-hundred years there has been a discernible metamorphosis within the realm of African-American cinema. African-Americans have overcome the heavy weight of oppression in forms such as of politics, citizenship and most importantly equal human rights. One of the most evident forms that were withheld from African-Americans came in the structure of the performing arts; specifically film. The common population did not allow blacks to drink from the same water fountain let alone share the same television waves or stage. But over time the strength of the expectant black actors and actresses overwhelmed the majority force to stop blacks from appearing on film. For the longest time the performing arts were
The African American portrayal in white-American entertainment, especially in films has produced malicious and ignorant beliefs of the everyday Black person. Entertainment venues such as minstrel shows and silent films are causes to today’s stereotypical views of African Americans. The African American community along with other American ethnic cultures had enough; therefore, between 1915 and 1950, the race film genre began its movement to increase positive cultural awareness to the world. This paper will examine three key elements (Keywords, Unspoken Cues, and Threads) from the films, Big Timers (1945) and Dirty Gertie from Harlem U.S.A. (1946) in explaining their significance impact and their fitting into the paradigm of race film genre.
Quentin Tarantino’s film Jackie Brown, released in 1997, challenges the pervasive stereotyping of not only blacks but specifically black women. Nowhere is the cinematic devaluation of African Americans more evident than in images of black women which, in the history of cinematography, the white ideal for female beauty has overlooked. The portrayal of black women as the racial Extra has been fabricated through many semblances in the history of American film. Film scholars and feminists alike have long been plagued with lament for the negativity and stereotyping that sticks with black women in American cinema. In this paper, I will argue that Jackie Brown highlights and stresses the racial variance of the female African American protagonist,