Racial and Ethnic Representation
Ever since I since I went to go see the movie Dead Pool I told myself I really wanna start reading more comic books or watch more comic based stories on marvel or any heroic fictional character. So, now I started to watch more comic cartoons I know that sounds silly but its the only thing that I get close to getting more insight on the characters. I'm actually glad that I did it because of as of right now I'm watching X-men: The Animated Series on Hulu and it gave me a lot! even about the new movie that will becoming out May 27, 2016. I'n a particular episode however that I was watching there was a character that was supposed to be Asian or Chinese and he had this stupid accent that made me laugh a little but then it mad me a little sad. It made me sad because in class we just finished talking about how they stereotype Indians and how they have to do a accent and here in this show that i'm watching there is a Asian or Chinese guy doing the same stereotypical accent. There was only one character that I've seen did that but what I love about the show so far is that Rouge is southern white women and they don't characterize her in a way that everyone might think southern people are like that stereotypical southern girl ,but they just HAD to stereotype the Asian guy. There was another episode however that I am recalling that I was just like "wow" was when they stereotyped Native Americans and how they lived in the Arctic part of the world and how they were spiritual people they slept in huts and they didn't have accent, however. There are many races and ethnics in X-Men black, white, blue, brown, even green but other than those two episodes I do see a lot of underlying messages in the ideologies into the media. Everyone has a ways of judging other people in the media that can be hurtful but because this is like a PG show kids that age won't really look into it until now at my age. I find it strange that these sorta things are being pushed in the media light and I find it hurtful because these people are living just like us and they may speck different but that is how they communicate with us, I feel that the media needs to grow up! Stop picking fun at people that has different accents or may look different or has a style in how they dress or how they wear there hair its apart of their culture! Its funny how some people could make fun of other races and turn around and copy how they dress or how they use slang. Anyways, I am getting beside myself..what I learned is that the media/the entire world is harsh but people will get scared and make fun of things they don't know that is different..what we have to do is just stand up for our rights as people to have certain things like this gone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IzSGvXc_PM Here is a theme song of the show. I really love it.
Shows geared towards younger audiences like cartoons, can really shape the perceptions of different ethnicities within younger minds. I'm not gonna lie, when I was younger I thought Native Americans (Indians) still wore traditional garb and lived in tipis and spoke their own language. This was back in the late 90s early 2000s. Until I got older and realized the colonization really displaced their way of life, also constant discrimination and racism made unable to adapt to "modern" society causing them to live way below the poverty line and suffer from many different ailments. I think it is most important to portray different cultures and ethnicities accurately especially in a great melting pot such as America.
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point. Even though accurate information exists about Native American culture (or any other culture), why do most of us still go through this discovery phase of "oooh, their culture is much more complex than portrayed on TV"? And we don't necessarily learn accurate information in school, which has always been strange to me. I didn't learn about Native Americans until college, if you can believe that. No one corrected me. No one gave me anything to read or watch that suggested Native American culture wasn't defined by spiritualism and headbands and all the stereotypical things. These stereotypical accents and roles accentuate common misunderstandings of groups of people and, unless there is an avenue to see different perspectives on people, young people will continue internalizing the stereotypes (but will hopefully have moments of discovery later in life).
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