The Southern Stereotype Essay

The hillbillies are the most stereotyped of the rednecks. Television depicts the hillbillies as primarily being incestuous, no teeth, gun shooting, and trashy yard people. Most people in today’s time believe that

Regional stereotypes are discriminations that seem to show up in a situation where people come from all different locations, for example, at a University. The first time I heard the term “Coastie” I had to ask what was meant by it. It was on a Sunday morning my freshman year of college. A few friends from my dorm and I were out on State Street heading into Starbucks for a coffee before we went to the library. It had gotten rather cold out since it was October and one of my friends, Maddie, was wearing boots, comfy leggings, and a jacket. After we’d ordered and were on our way out with our drinks, the other friend we were with chuckled and said to Maddie, “Wow, you look like such a Coastie right now.” Maddie laughed as well and said “Yeah, you’re right I do,” and started jokingly posing as if her picture was getting taken. Seeing as how I’d never heard the term before, they had to explain to me why she looked like a Coastie when I knew she grew up in Green Bay, nowhere near the coast. As most people that attend UW Madison usually learn, “Coastie” is a term usually used in the Midwest for someone who comes from either the West or East

Racial stereotypes have always been a serious issue in society. The stereotypes impact many aspects of our life. We more or less get carried away by our perceptions toward race, and judge people in a certain frame unconsciously, as Omi set forth in In Living Color: Race and American Culture. Taken by Hilary Swift, this photo presents an African American woman, waiting for a bus that can take her to the Kitchen of Love, a food pantry that located in Philadelphia aiming to feed people suffering from hunger, where she volunteers. It happens in dawn so it’s still dark outside. The surroundings give us an idea that it should take place in a black neighborhood (Stolberg “Black Voters, Aghast at Trump, Find a Place of Food and Comfort”). The woman is staring at the direction where the bus is coming, with a smile on her face. As a photojournalistic image, this photo is aiming to portrait a kind and helpful African American woman, however, does this photo really “positively” portrait an African American woman?

The 1987 film documentary Ethnic Notions directed by Marlon Riggs, identifies the evolution of African American cultural depictions through ethnic stereotypes and caricatures in American culture. I feel Ethnic Notions exposes the roots of false generalization from the beginning and presents a series of classifications for racial depictions that still are noticeable in today's society. These racial depictions identified with in this film begin in the mid 1800's and continue thought to the 1960's. I now after viewing Ethnic notions agree that there are generalizations and depictions that are exaggerated in American popular culture and entertainment.

Every part of the country has their own stereotype the west coast has people in bikini and partying non-stop, east coast is where all the famous movie stars hang out and Arizona is where “cowboys” are. The middle states, on the other hand, get look down because they aren’t as incredible and exciting as the east or west coast. The Midwest really doesn't get mentioned during besides begin tornado territory. In “The Horizontal World” by Marquart she explains how the Midwest gets looked down for its dull appearances while using visuals, allusion, and anecdote to give the reader the sense of the Midwest.

Marquart incorporates hasty generalizations in her memoir to display the views that Americans have surrounding the MidWest. Marquart states “where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average”(Marquart 27). She is utilizing hasty generalizations to display the stereotypes that surround the

A main source of stereotyping comes from the layout of Maycomb. The more wealthy people live on one side of town and the poor people and the black folks live on the other side of town. The rich people think the poor people are stinky and nasty which is stereotyping, and the poor people think the more wealthy people are spoiled and snobs which is stereotyping as well. Even though for some people these characteristics may apply, but for the vast majority of folks these don’t apply. “In certain circumstances the common folk judiciously allowed them certain privileges by the simple method of becoming blind to some of the Ewells’ activities. They didn’t have to go to school, for one thing. Another thing, Mr. Bob Ewell, Burris’s father, was permitted to hunt and trap out of season” (Lee 34). People believe this because if they think ones a snob or one spoiled, then that means the rest are that way too.

a couple of extra words so that it would not sound so boring? That is basically what stereotypes are. People usually do not dig down into the culture or history of someone. They just get the general thought of a person and their culture from what other people have said or told them. I have done a little experiment where I have asked some random people questions about the south. My reason of doing so was to see what the average person thought of southerners. I have asked people a serious of questions, having to do with the southerner culture such as; knowledge, general actions, language, communication, and differences. These people

Stereotypes are a common tool used to judge others before fully understanding a situation or considering different points of view. Writers often use or create these stereotypes to get their own point across. Mencken, a writer that covered the Scopes trial, is an example of how stereotypes of southerners such as the Tennesseans, were used to compromise the outlook on how the trial was conducted and portrayed. Evidence shows that urban writers, such as Mencken himself, unfairly portrayed Tennesseans throughout the Scopes trial by insulting their intelligence and their overall demeanor.

People in the south often get stereotyped based off their appearances or the way they act. Most southerners have rituals they follow, but some are just living life. The way Flannery O'Connor deals with the traditional social structure in the South in her fiction shows that it was of major concern to her and was the source of much of her power and humor. O'Connor's exposition of a southern society which values a good, moral person yet struggles to identify Three of her short stories deal with the relationship between Christianity and society in the South: "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," "Good Country People," and "Revelation.”

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek” Barack Obama. The question is always asked does the media reflect the reality of society, or does society try and imitate the reality shown by the media? There are a number of stereotypes associated with African Americans in our society such as African American men are athletes, rappers, criminals, deviant, streetwise, uneducated, and unemployed just to name a few. African Americans in the media have changed through the years. The history of African Americans on TV or minorities in general is hampered by the racial conflicts and segregation that are embedded in American society. Historically, black actors have been grouped stereotypically and assigned to comedy. This has often been traced to the genre of black minstrelsy that was popular in the early 20th century.

When I first heard someone say, “All African American people are Ghetto,” I was very offended that someone would make this type of assumption about my culture, and I thought how ignorant this person must be; but then I stopped and wondered why other people would think this about us. I asked her why she would say something like this, and she instantly listed shows like Tosh.O and Chelsea Lately, which highlight my culture in a negative view. It was clear to me that she had made up her mind about black people through watching the media and seeing African Americans fulfill that stereotype in person. This led me to question: Where exactly do these stereotypes come from?

O’Connor states within the beginning of the video that she has come to see that most, if not all, essays of southern literature will be, in some way, grotesque. However, as she also states, she believes that with any writer that can write a grotesque story effectively, they must have some sort of talent. For several southern writers, it is not something established within their latter years, but the ability to write about the south, or write in a southern way, is primarily created as a person grows and establishes themselves within the south, as O’Connor discusses. In a way, O’Connor demonstrates how in order to understand why most southern literature is perceived as grotesque rather than modern and polite. A person must have grown up with

Stereotypes are made up and simplified ideas that people make about something else. Alabama has many stereotypes surrounding it and the people that live in it. Stereotypes of Alabama include things about lifestyle, technology, and speaking. People that have never been to the state have a very different opinion to the people that have been because of stereotypes. Living in Alabama stereotypes are somewhat true but are overall false when talking about Alabamians as a whole and should not represent the people that live in Alabama.

The question we should all ask ourselves is why. Why are there distorted images of Arabs in films and why has this trend been able to go on for such a long period of time? There is no simple explanation, but ignorance and money play critical roles. Our society’s hostility towards Arabs can be rooted to Orientalism, a cultural movement started by white intellectuals in mid-19th century, which portrayed Arab culture and people as backward, uncivilized, and even dangerous. The value has since then been widely accepted by the filmmakers, who in hopes of appealing to a wide range of audience, promote the pervasive ideology at a machine-gun pace. It is this continuous bombardment of negative images and falsehood that creates myths and stereotypes.