Television And Race

1144 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Stereotypes on media

Race Televised: America's BabysitterAt some point in the course of human events, America decided that the television was their Dali Lama, their cultural and spiritual leader. Overlooking its obvious entertainment based purpose, Americans have let the television baby-sit and rear their children. I do not recall a manifesto from the television industry, but society put television in a role it does not have authority in. The only thing television set out to do was provide the passive entertainment American society wants. True, television does not accurately reflect race in America, but it is not the job of the television industry to do so. Too much importance has been put on television to provide guidance and information that American society has grown too lazy and too indifferent to find for themselves.

When society finds that their information is wrong or tainted they blame television instead of finding truth and accuracy for themselves. Although television does not reflect race accurately, Americans have become too dependent on television to provide everything they know.In one of this generation's most popular TV shows, The Simpsons, it is easy to find stereotypes. There are numerous examples throughout the series, mostly toward Apu, the Indian storekeeper. For example, in episode 1F10, Homer and Apu, the writers do not overlook a single Indian stereotype. First of all they have an Indian man as a convenience storekeeper.

The episode starts with Apu committing the usual convenience store stereotypes. For example he sells a $0.29 stamp for $1.85, $2 worth of gas for $4.20, etc. Next he changes the expiration dates on rancid ham and sells them. When his customer gets sick from it, he offers a 5 pound bucket of thawing shrimp. Later he picks up a hotdog that he dropped and puts it back on the hotdog roller.

A news team catches him on hidden camera and Apu's boss fires him. In this scene we find out Apu has a stereotypical Indian surname, Nahasapeemapetilan. His boss also makes a joke about the Hindu religion."Ah, true. But it's also standard procedure to blame any problems on a scapegoat or sacrificial lamb." [Daniels]The stereotypes continue redundantly. Jokes about Indian films, food, and other things fill the script. Then there is the grand finale, where Homer, the main character, and Apu go to India to ask for Apu's job back at the main off...

... middle of paper ...

...ton, IN: Indiana U. Press, 1997.Gibbons, Arnold. <a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=pcZ8g7DjAzA&offerid=6424&type=2&subid=0&url=http%253A//search.borders.com/fcgi-bin/db2www/search/search.d2w/Details%253F%2526mediaType%253DBook%2526prodID%253D3479472" >Race, Politics & the White Media: The Jesse Jackson Campaigns<IMG border=0 alt=icon width=1 height=1 src="http://ad.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/show?id=pcZ8g7DjAzA&bids=6424&type=2&subid=0" >. Lanham, MD: U Press, 1993.Homer and Apu. Writ. By Greg Daniels. The Simpsons. Fox. 10 Feb 1994.Lipsitz, George. Book Review: <a href="http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=pcZ8g7DjAzA&offerid=6424&type=2&subid=0&url=http%253A//search.borders.com/fcgi-bin/db2www/search/search.d2w/Details%253F%2526mediaType%253DBook%2526prodID%253D3460811" >Monitored Peril: Asian Americans and the Politics of TV Representation<IMG border=0 alt=icon width=1 height=1 src="http://ad.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/show?id=pcZ8g7DjAzA&bids=6424&type=2&subid=0" >. By Darrell Y. Hamamoto. Journal of Asian American Studies 1998: 104-107.

Show More
Related

  • Friday Night Lights Gender Analysis

    1442 Words  | 3 Pages

    This essay will discuss how national attitudes towards the working-class and the impoverished are represented in American Television. The purpose of this paper is to comprehend that television shows are not solely designed to entertain consumers but also contain a hidden agenda whose task is to protect certain ideological perspectives and therefore constant framing strategies take place. The paper will commence the analysis by discussing how males and females are represented in the television show Friday Night Lights, secondly it will look at the

    Read More

  • Annotated Bibliography: Racial Stereotypes

    1760 Words  | 4 Pages

    As a group, we believe that popular culture does in fact perpetuates stereotypes. Television is a main source of information of popular culture. Television has forever changed how humans have interacted with another and introduce a world of diversity and knowledge. But with this profit, television has also harbored negative aspects. As a group, we studied how racial stereotypes are portrayed in television. In the history of television, different racial and ethnic groups have been widely underrepresented and television itself has been overwhelming represented by white figures. And when racial groups are presented on TV, the characters are often played in limited roles based on stereotypes. A stereotype isn’t necessarily untrue, but it is an assumption based on an incomplete and complex ideas that are oversimplified into something that isn’t what it meant to be, and it’s usually negative. For example, African Americans are often depicted as violent or involved in some kind of criminal activity. Their characters often portrays a person who is always sassy and angry or that isn’t intelligent and won’t succeed in life and inferior to whites in some manner. Asian characters are

    Read More

  • American Indian Mascots Pros And Cons

    205 Words  | 1 Pages

    I agree with you that the commercial. It provided a stereotypical view of American Indians as

    Read More

  • Asian Americans as Model Minorities

    624 Words  | 2 Pages

    For 20 years, Asian Americans have been portrayed by the press and the media as a successful minority. Asian Americans are believed to benefit from astounding achievements in education, rising occupational statuses, increasing income, and are problem-fee in mental health and crime. The idea of Asian Americans as a model minority has become the central theme in media portrayal of Asian Americans since the middle 1960s. The term model minority is given to a minority group that exhibits middle class characteristics, and attains some measure of success on its own without special programs or welfare. Asian Americans are seen as a model minority because even though they have faced prejudice and discrimination by other racial groups, they have succeeded socially, economically, and educationally without resorting to political or violent disagreements with the majority race. The “success” of the minority is offered as proof that the American dream of equal opportunity is capable to those who conform and who are willing to work hard. Therefore, the term ...

    Read More

  • Racial Stereotypes in Television

    1767 Words  | 4 Pages

    their culture. Television over the years has molded the minds of its viewers – young and

    Read More

  • The Impact of African-American Sitcoms on America's Culture

    974 Words  | 2 Pages

    Since its start, the television industry has been criticized for perpetuating myths and stereotypes about African-Americans through characterizations, story lines, and plots. The situation comedy has been the area that has seemed to draw the most criticism, analysis, and disapproval for stereotyping. From Sanford and Son and The Jefferson’s in the 1970s to The Cosby Show (1984) and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in the 1990s, sitcoms featuring black casts and characters have always been controversial. However, their significance upon our American culture cannot be disregarded. During the 1950s and 1960s, 97% of the families were Caucasian. In the first five years of the 1990s, nearly 14% of the television families were African-American (Bryant 2001). These statistics obviously show the substantial impact our American culture has had on African-American television families.

    Read More

  • Stereotypes Of Native Americans In 'What You Pawn I Will Redeem'

    1091 Words  | 3 Pages

    Similarly, the popular tv series Parks and Recreation, does the same in the episode “Harvest Festival” by exposing how easy we stereotype certain groups. In both portrayals of Native Americans, they make obvious how easy it is to stereotype and believe a stereotype of a specific group without noticing it or even noticing the other qualities a certain group possesses.

    Read More

  • Angela Davis and Feminism

    1570 Words  | 4 Pages

    Center for Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, prod. Angela Y. Davis at the University of Chicago- May 2013. YoutTube. YouTube, 1 May. 2014. Web. 10, May 2013.

    Read More

  • Racial Stereotypes on Television

    1870 Words  | 4 Pages

    For many years, racial and ethnic stereotypes have been portrayed on multiple television programs. These stereotypes are still illustrated on a day-to-day basis even though times have changed. Racial or ethnic stereotypes should not be perpetuated on certain television programs. These stereotypes provide false information about groups, do not account for every person, allow older generations to influence younger generations, create tension between groups, and affect people in many ways.

    Read More

  • Blacks and the Media

    1274 Words  | 3 Pages

    According to Poverty & Prejudice: Media and Race, co-authored by Yurii Horton, Raagen Price, and Eric Brown, the media sets the tone for the morals, values and images of our culture. Many whites in American society, some of whom have never encoun...

    Read More

  • Portrayal of Asian Americans in the Media

    3279 Words  | 7 Pages

    I also researched instances of counter actions taken by Asian Americans to protest against these negative images. My research also has examples of Asians that have succeeded in breaking through the racial barriers in the media. The results show that even though racial stereotyping still exists in various forms of mass media, there are signs that show noticeable improvement in allowing a more balanced image of Asian Americans. Statement of the Problem There are close to 12 million Asian Americans living in the United States (U.S. Asian, 2000). Asian Americans are considered one of the fastest growing minorities (Pimentel, 2001).

    Read More

  • Analysis Of You Re Not The Indian I Had In Mind

    733 Words  | 2 Pages

    Many people do not realize that Indian people are around us everyday. They could be our neighbors, our bus driver, or anyone that we see on a daily bases. In Thomas King’s essay “You’re not the Indian I Had in Mind,” and his video “I’m not the Indian You Had in Mind,” he exemplifies the stereotype that many people make about Indians. King mentions in his essay that people always would say to him, “you’re not the Indian I had in mind,” because he did not look like the stereotypical Indian. Through King’s essay and video, I have been educated about this stereotype that I was unaware of. Since I now have an understanding of how unrealistic this stereotype is, I now can educate friends and family members on this issue.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Diversity On Television

    1074 Words  | 3 Pages

    Racial and ethnic diversity on television is not something that I have ever really noticed as a problem, but sitting down, and paying very close attention to the people, their roles in the show, I was able to see that there was a lack of diversity on TV. I chose a random TV channel, one that I probably would not watch, and studied the characters in the show and in the commercials for over two hours, I realized that I had never paid that much attention to the people in the show. I noticed after I was done that the largest group of people in the show and on the commercials, were white people, although there was some diversity, maybe one or two people of a different nationality, gender, or race, that overall the lack of diversity was minimal compared

    Read More

  • Stereotypes In the Media

    483 Words  | 1 Pages

    TV shows such as the Simpsons are packed with stereotypes within its half-hour broadcast. The Simpsons contains a large number of audience that watch the show daily as it is broadcasted during prime time. Characters such as Apu are highly discriminated against and stereotyped. On this show Apu is characterized as an Indian immigrant, who prays to Ganesh, and holds a highly noticeable and dissimilar accent. This is a stereotype which is observed by young children and is perceived as humorous; they apply this knowledge towards those they meet in real-life.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Susan Bordo´s Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body

    1623 Words  | 4 Pages

    After twenty five seasons, The Simpsons continues to be an influential show. With animation as a medium, the writers use satire to point out the stereotypes the media generates. In some instances, they take a stereotype and push it to the extreme, like Apu and his eight children, and other times they go against the social norms, like Lisa being a strong independent woman. Through this the viewers are reminded just how much say the media has in their perception of others and how they are constantly making judgments of any entire group of people based on the characteristics of some. I do not think that stereotypes will ever cease to exist, but I do believe that it is important we, at the very least, are aware of what they are.

    Read More

More about Television And Race

Open Document