The Influence Of Racial Humor In The Media

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demonstrate the research and conclusion that have been reached about the negative impact or racial humor on certain ethnic groups.

Media
The media has a strong influence on how societies receive and react to the context of the messages that the media displays to the public. From Disney movies on up to horror films there’s a plot that each film is trying to accomplish. The controversial issue comes into play based on how the film messages are portrayed. Films that use racial humor harm the particular race that the films are depicting. Films with racial humor that is enhanced to be seen as acceptable creates prejudge mental labels for certain races. The viewers of these films are more likely to view these stereotypes portrayed in the …show more content…

It creates a sense of superiority in some cases to make a particular race to appear as if it is better than the others. “That popular television fails to offer critiques of or alternatives to prevailing cultural ideologies, images and effects associated with whiteness are neither surprising nor new”(Thornton 2011 p 445). This shows how society has not adapted to the development of time nor does it give respect to the races that has overcome racial stigmas through generational revolutions. Racial humor continues to highlight the racial disparities that certain races face on a daily bases. This is highly due to the preconceptions of how they have been previously portrayed in the media through historical views. Certain stereotypical attributes have been assigned to certain racial groups by judging them from their heritage or the history of their race. A study done by Toni Schmader analyzing two racial groups’ reactions to films depicting their racial groups concluded the negative aspects of racial humor/depiction. “Mexican American negative emotional reactions including shame, guilt, anger, and less positive affect, after watching stereotypic portrayals of their in-groups”(Scmader, Block,& Lickel, 2015 p. 68). Studies such as the one that these individuals have conducted goes to show the true effects that racial humor can have on some racial groups that are …show more content…

White privilege is something that has been here since the creation of the United States. This is something that is not reflected in the media today; being that institutional racism is subconsciously embedded in all humans the lack of awareness within white privilege surpasses the common mindset of viewers when it comes to racial humor in films. Society has been taught that this kind of behavior is fine to express because of the more liberal world in which we live in. In Thornton analyzation of Psych he comes to a point in which films are constructed by a particular audience for a particular audience. “Psych’s exploration of race-related comedy generally works in the service of whiteness, and any critical potential is largely contained by the show’s assimilationist patterns of representation and its development of a character-driven interracial friendship story”( ”(Thornton 2011 p429). Being that films are made and produced by white film makers this reinforces the institutional racism that most Americans hold about one another. The stereotypic depictions are not from a source that would relate to that particular ethnic group that is being criticized in films. But in fact they are created in the mindset of individuals based on how they see the race or your previous media technique to display a particular form of humor to the audience that the films are

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