Michael Bai Humanities IV Period 1 Social Justice Draft March 28th, 2024. Title: Who doesn’t love watching a good movie? Picture this: a blockbuster hit featuring vibrant cultural elements from around the globe. Sounds amazing, right? Well, not quite, but it is. Beneath the surface lies a continuous issue – cultural appropriation. Cultural appropriation is the borrowing of a certain aspect from another culture; however, this has commonly been mistaken with cultural misappropriation, which does the same however stereotypes and/or marginalizes the group they are taking elements from (Cultural Appropriation). The debate surrounding the use of cultural appropriation in film is a contentious one, with one side arguing that it offers more representation to unnoticed and underrepresented cultural groups. …show more content…
Moreover, when they are depicted, they are often portrayed through stereotypical lenses that fail to capture the complexity of their cultures (Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative 2023). According to their analysis of 100 top-grossing films from 2022, "Asian and Pacific Islander characters were frequently depicted as exotic or mystical, perpetuating harmful stereotypes rather than providing authentic representation" (Media, Diversity, & Social Change Initiative 2023). Moreover, a YouTube video by Cultural Critique titled "The Problem with Cultural Appropriation" provides further insights into the negative impacts of cultural appropriation in film. The video highlights how cultural appropriation often leads to shallow and inaccurate representations of marginalized communities, reinforcing harmful stereotypes and undermining authentic cultural expression (Cultural Critique). As stated in the video, "Cultural appropriation perpetuates stereotypes and undermines authentic cultural expression in film, contributing to the marginalization of minority groups" (Cultural Critique). Works
The majority of today’s films starring Asian actors and actresses often contain numerous stereotypes. They cater to the biased views that most non-Asians have of Asian ethnicity and culture. What they do not know they make up for in ignorance and ridicule in one of today’s top forms of mass media. By using a widespread style of media in today’s pop culture, more and more people are being displayed the fabricated stereotypes of Asians.
Whether or not a naïve approach to film as an inclusive medium holds true to fact, however, is questionable. Since its popular arrival in American culture during the 1930s, film has sparked controversy over ...
During the semester, race is a big part of the lectures. In class, we talk about how race is distinguishing physical characteristics used to place people in different racial categories (Jensen). The biggest concern with race is racial inequality. Racial inequality is the inadequate or unfair treatment of minorities in areas like income, education, employment, health, the criminal justice system, and media. The article written by Rebecca Keegan from the Los Angeles Times newspaper discusses the inequality of race in media specifically movies. This article relates to the unfairness in films because minorities are poorly portrayed in the majority of films. More often than not, minorities are the “bad guys” in films. They are caught up in criminal activity and live in poorer neighborhoods than the majority. The article gives numerous statistics proving and exploiting that there is indeed racial inequality depicted in films. Also the Keegan touches on how minorities are underrepresented in films in the way that they usually do not have as many speaking lines compared to the white actor/actress.
Author Michael Omni states in his work “In Living Color: race and American Culture”, “ The power of the media lies not only in their ability to reflect the dominant racial ideology, but in their capacity to shape their ideology in the first place” (542) . The media has the ability to make society see any race in any light they choose. For example African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanics are all tied to smoking marijuana, excessive alcoholism, broken sentences, being indolent, jobless, and imprisonment. These are sometimes true in every race but they portray these listed races in an inaccurate way in every film. Hollywood directors do have a social responsibility to stop stereotyping different ethnic groups. Through analyzing various films such Friday, American Me, and Skins you will be able to see the prejudice stereotypes and the negative affects its causes in society.
While it is true that Hollywood has taken strides in order to mend and prevent these prejudices, it’s taken many years with heavy doses of pressure from society for any form of action to finally take place. Because of this, one should question and challenge the sincerity of the industry on whether it truly realizes the implications of its ignorance or if it feigned sympathy in order to benefit from the issue, publicly, financially or both.
In Shohat and Stam’s article, Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the media (2013), they discuss the issue of racism within the media and entertainment industry, such as Hollywood films. More importantly, Shohat and Stam’s discuss the assertion of racial politics in casting within the Hollywood films industry. The interesting idea to their argument is that they suggest that for a film to become financially successful, the casting of the protagonist must consist of a white star as they are seen to be ethnically universal (Shohat & Stam, 190). They further suggest that the ethnic minority have been limited to designated roles which ultimately perpetuate their ethnic stereotype (Shohat & Stam, 190). They concern this issue by critically analysing and contrasting western Hollywood films against other ethnic films.
In addition, due to negative feelings about Asian Americans prevalent in American culture, Hollywood’s attempt to expand its target audiences is constrained, and despite the increasing market values of Asian Americans, Hollywood is possibly unwilling to portray successful Asian characters for fear of provoking its mainstream audiences who hold prejudice against Asians. There is a dominant white preference over the effects certain stereotypes may have on Asians and Asian Americans (Park, 2005).
Although we have taken monumental strides in the past fifty years towards racial equality and diversity, it is still commonly argued that popular culture lacks some sort of racial representation. In the United States, the people who live here are vastly diverse when it comes to race and culture, yet in the media people of color get marginalized and stereotyped everyday in film, music, and etc.
The Twilight Zone aired an episode in 1960 called The Four of Us Are Dying. The episode follows a con man capable of changing his appearance by merely looking at the person he wants to become. His whole life he has slipped by, without a conscience, using his ‘talent’ to mold into other established people’s lives. He takes advantage of his ability and finds ways to rob his victims of their identities, fame, and personal acquaintances. In today’s pop culture, especially pop music, this flagrant disrespect for culture and counterfeiting of style are diminishing the credibility of many popular artists. Similar to the man in The Twilight Zone episode, there are artists in the spotlight today that need to be reconsidered for their ‘unique’ styles.
Cultural appropriation can be defined as the process of borrowing and changing the meaning of cultural products, slogans, images and elements of fashion. In todays society we see more and more of this, especially in the celebrity world. This essay will give insight as to what cultural appropriation is and it will examine the reasons and consequences of celebrities that “borrow” from other cultures.
However, as degrading the stereotypes may be, some directors use these stereotypes to communicate the reality of the situation. For example, when the premise of the plot relates to history of Asian Americans, the inclusion of culture-specific attitudes and accents transforms the movie or TV show in an unidealized perspective of the world. Rather than shying away from what is considered racist, the directors stays true to what is part of society. Therefore, the ethical responsibility is to display these negative stereotypes.
While watching movies, have you ever noticed that the villains in almost every single Hollywood film are of Middle Eastern or European descent? In a reoccurring theme of Hollywood, the villains in these films are almost always foreigners or people of color. This is a stereotype. On the other side of the spectrum, we often see that the heroes of these films are most often than not white males. This is another stereotype. Within the last few years, we’ve seen actors such as Will Smith, Morgan Freeman, and Zoe Saldana take the lead roles, so it can’t be said that there are no non-white heroes, but there certainly isn’t many. Hollywood action movies, moreover than other genres, are typically loaded with an abundance of stereotypes. The way these movies are composed and structured can tell us a great deal about the views held within the American psyche and who holds the social power. The harsh reality is that the media ultimately sets the tone for societal standards, moralities, and images of our culture. Many consumers of media have never encountered some of the minorities or people of color shown on screen, so they subsequently depend on the media and wholeheartedly believe that the degrading stereotypes represented on the big screen are based on fact and not fiction. Mary Beltran said it best when she stated in her “Fast and Bilingual: Fast & Furious and the Latinization of Racelessness” article, “ultimately, Fast & Furious mobilizes notions of race in contradictory ways. It reinforces Hollywood traditions of white centrism, reinforcing notions of white male master while also dramatizing the figurative borders crossed daily by culturally competent global youth – both Latino and non-Latino” (77). This paper will specifically look...
Asian-American Identity through the Media. After decades of oppression and discrimination, Asian Americans were pushed into a mold to pose as a high-expected community with a lack of flaws or humanity. The pressure and expectations created by these judgments started to enforce harmful stereotypes and ideals on the Asian American community. It wasn’t until recent years that Asian American creators, authors, artists, and actors started to play a major role in reshaping societal perceptions of the Asian American identity through their creative media. By exploring how their work challenges mainstream portrayals and stereotypes of Asian-ness and Asian-American-ness, it’s important to consider the finer perspectives and reclaim agency over their
Structuralism was developed by Ferdinand de Saussure in the mid-twentieth century (Cuddon and Preston 923). This creation was brought on, in part, by the French existentialism period and is often combined with the semiotic theory of literary criticism; both are the source of development for other literary criticisms from the formalist schools of thought. As the name suggests, structuralism examines the structure of the work, investigating the ramifications of the organizations of literatures (McManus, 1998). As an image to portray this idea is examining the structure of a building and comparing it to the structures of other buildings in its surroundings, and then subsequently comparing the common features of those buildings to buildings from other cultures and what those architectural discrepancies represent (Brizee and Tompkins, 2011).
Globalization is the spread of different political, economic and cultural trends to different parts of the world. (Stanford) American media has spread rapidly throughout the world, and at the forefront of the media blitz is film.