The New World

Harold Evans once said, “Attempting to get at truth means rejecting stereotypes and clichés”. Yet at some points stereotypes help us to gain a truth that would otherwise have to be learnt over and over again, each time we encountered it. When trying to view the world, one must realise that by grouping people based on stereotypes, they are allowing themselves to recognise different peoples, threats, ideas and many other different aspects of society. Whether this grouping has any real basis or not is the entire argument within this essay. Analysing this concept through theory of knowledge means that at least two areas of knowledge need to be recognised. This essay will be discussing it through both a human sciences perspective, more specifically with relation to psychology, and also the arts, through film, something in which even recently stereotypes are very common. Extracting a knowledge issue from this question is difficult as the topic is already so broad however for the purposes of this essay, a few words within the title will first be defined. When defining stereotypes it needs to be spilt up to function in both the psychological sense but also the area of film and literature. In psychology the definition of a stereotype is a set of generalizations about a group of people or a social category. It may be correct or incorrect. Mostly, these statements are exaggerated. However if we were to define stereotypes in the arts then it would be different, as it would be more

To some degree all ethnicities and cultures are the victim of stereotyping, however, some experience it more than others. A rather prevalent stereotype is the “drunken Indian” trope. In contrast to the low population of Native Americans, their unfortunate stereotype is rather pervasive. This is exactly why Native American authors such as Sherman Alexie and Leslie Marmon Silko feel the need to address this issue within their own works. While Alexie and Silko approach it in different ways, both make use of the “drunken Indian” trope to showcase the depth of the characters apart from the harmful stereotype. Where Sherman Alexie employs a lighthearted approach to the stereotype, Leslie Silko decides to take a more serious route. However,

In addition, that trait shares Hall’s ‘racialized regime of representation,’ of how people of color are in a constant historic struggle around the stereotypes fixed upon them by the dominate culture. Richard Dyer, a Professor in Film Studies, clarified that “in stereotyping the dominant groups apply their norms to subordinated groups, find the latter wanting, hence inadequate, inferior, sick or grotesque and hence reinforcing the dominant groups’ own sense of the legitimacy of their domination” (pp.356). The European colonies were the dominate culture that established the normalcy of US society. These perceptions can lead the subordinate group, or race to be internalized the dominate culture and racially stigmatizes others and themselves. Neil Diamond, one of the directors of the documentary Reel Injun (2009), conveyed a reasonable example of the indoctrination of negative stereotypes; while he was growing up in a remote community as a child. Diamond mentions that although the children were actual “Indians,” they all wanted to play the ‘good guys’ a.k.a. the cowboys in their children’s’ game. Young Native Americans are continuously exposed to mainstream misrepresentation that can cause them to develop insecurities, to devalue and dehumanize themselves and their own culture.

Stereotype is a continuous issue among a lot of races especially among the Indigenous population today. There have been several ways in which the society views Indigenous people and some of these stereotypes include the sexualized maiden, alcoholics, poor, savages and so many others. According to Yale Belanger (2014), the two main images which are often used are, “the noble peace-loving savage and the blood-thirsty and inherently war-like savages” (p359). He explained that both stereotypes have been existing for a long time and then has since then continued to the modern era.

Some of the common misconceptions is that indigenous writers are that they could not speak English, uneducated, all lived in teepees, and their medicine was primitive. The writers that we have read about dealt with these stereotypes was by including hints and lines that these stereotypes are false. “Lullaby” by Leslie Marmon Silko has a line about where the Indians stayed showing that they did not live in teepees. In this story they lived in a “boxcar shack where the rancher let the Indians live” (pg 1545). “Pawn Shop” by Sherman Alexie is a very short work that demonstrates that Indians are civilized. The man in the story goes into a bar looking for all of his friends but can not find them so he leaves after the bartender gives him a free drink for all of his troubles. “I leave, searching the streets, searching storefronts, until I walk into a pawn shop, find a single heart beating under glass, and I know who it used to belong to, I know all of them” (pg 1647). This works demonstrates that Indians are just like normal people who go to shops, bars, and lose people along the way that they miss dearly.

Which group of people had the most difficult time being accepted in America and why?

Stereotyping may be historical, but the emotions it arouses are eminently present today. According to Jack G. Shaheen, “Stereotypes are especially confining images. They are standardized mental picture[s] . . . representing oversimplified opinion[s] . . . that [are] staggeringly tenacious in [their] hold over rational thinking,” (303). It is obvious today that the presence of the Native American Indians is historically significant. Attitudes of those in the nineteenth century, who viewed images of American Indians, were shaped through the means of media. In this piece I will discuss how society, specifically the media has stereotyped Native Americans.

Throughout history humanity has been met with powerful men; such men include great conquerors, from Alexander the Great in Greece, Attila the Hun ruler of the Barbarian tribes, Caesar in Rome, to Christopher Columbus founding the New World and many others who changed geography and history. Through the examination of his life we will know how a simple religious man transformed his time and became a great “conqueror”, using no army, no armor or deadly weapons, and much less material resources. He was able to conquer and help build a ‘spiritual’ empire in the name of Jesus. This man is Saul of Tarsus or later and better known as Paul. We will explore who he was, what he did during his lifetime and how he eventually became the “mother” of early Christianity.

Philip Deloria’s work, Indians in Unexpected Places, focuses on the expectations or “stereotypes” that plagued the Indian peoples. Because the Indians are supposedly violent, uneducated, and culturally incapable of full assimilation, many actions ensured their confinement in restrictive reservations. The expectations placed on the Native Americans are because of the American government during the nineteenth century and popular culture throughout the twentieth century. Violent actions committed by both Indians and whites created the stigma that all natives were incredibly savage. This behavior would be the focus of multiple media institutions in the twentieth century and other popular forms of entertainment like plays, athletics, technology

Pierre Gottschlich defines a stereotype as “an exaggerated belief, image, or distorted truth about a person or group” (281). Even though we hate to admit it, stereotypes are used way too often in our everyday lives. We use them as a way to provide ourselves with knowledge of a certain race, gender, age group, or personality. Gottschlich also explains that stereotyping is a way to “help us to cope with complexity in an environment” (281). They are a way for us to ‘learn’ about someone, when in reality we know nothing about the individual. The way Indians are portrayed in the media is the result of distinguishing who was not American. In Indian Accents: Brown Voice and Racial Performance In American Television and Film, Davé explains that from 1924 to 1947, the United States placed restrictions on citizenship that resulted in preventing South Asians from immigrating to the United States (Davé, 2013). As a result of this, Srividya Ramasubramanian points out in “Stereotyping of Indians: Evidence From Content Analysis of Film Media in the US” that the main reason for the stereotyping was to help distinguish ‘Western’ from ‘non-Western’ characters. They would use the visual differences such as skin color, the way they dressed, and physical characteristics to make the differences known

In the United States, when a child is asked to think about Christopher Columbus, chances are the child will portray him as a courageous, heroic explorer who discovered America. However, when a child is asked about what they think of when they see an Indian, the child will most likely describe a half-naked human with a feather on his head. Any young American will unknowingly stereotype Indians as figures of the past. These cognitive constructs [stereotypes] are often created out of a kernel and then distorted beyond reality (Hoffmann, 1986). Without any doubt, these attributed characteristics are incorrect. Unfortunately, the majority of Americans regard Indians as “obstacles to white settlement.” However, historians, scientists,

After close examination, historians have observed a common pattern along with a dynamic transformation in American's perspective of the western culture and the multitude of people who populate that region. Often, Western storylines have a negative representation of Native Americans. Native Americans are often depicted as a race of savage people whose actions are often illustrated by attacking homesteaders and settlers for no valid reason.

Driven out by war, poverty, and uncertainty of the future, the English sailed their way out to America. The New World was a place for them to broaden their influence over world affairs and increase wealth. They saw this as an ideal chance to create a new beginning for themselves and leave the problems of the past behind to establish a utopian society. Upon their arrival, the English brought many beneficial goods with them which were of great use, however they also introduced disease which devastated the Native Americans. There were many negative things that happened in the lives of Native Americans after the arrival of the English. Among the negativity was the greatest loss of the demographic disasters in history. The Native American population dropped from nearly 30 million to 3 million. Whether the English had come as missionaries or settlers to America, they created upheaval for the Native Americans. The intrusion of English brought new beliefs that threatened their lives. Initial contact with the English was good hearted, until the land-hungry and conversion-minded migrants revealed their true colors. The disparities during the seventeenth century between these two cultures marked great misunderstanding, conflict, and war.

Film media in modern society has a unique force of power on human culture. Modern society is consumed by film media, and cinema has become a powerful tool for shaping culture, education, pleasure, and propaganda. Film media has impacted the views of current-affairs, politics, social issues and world event. Cinema can be a powerful force, and can influence the way people view or think about certain cultures, and has the ability to form stereotypes. A stereotype can easily be formed by the film media because of its direct images of a person’s appearance, personality, and common feelings towards a particular culture.

One of the things that the television and movies cause us to do is to create stereotypes for people around us who are from numerous diverse social and cultural backgrounds. Television and films supply materials of which we form our very characteristics. These have shaped our sense of what our selves mean to ourselves; how we feel about being a male or a female; which class, ethnicity and race, of nationality we belong to, and of our sexuality; and of “us” and “them.” Perhaps the most significant misconception that one can derive from the media is that of the other cultures, and thus makes us form some misunderstood and untrue assumptions about people who are from a different culture. It is by seeing the media that we learn how to behave,