Stereotype

Refers to the generalization of a quality in an individual to an entire group of people that the individual belongs to. (Note, therefore, that stereotypes by definition dehumanize those who are stereotyped.) Stereotypes are created by artists (writers, actors, filmmakers, painters, musicians, comedians, journalists, etc.) in order to justify discrimination and prejudice and to facilitate marginality. The newest stereotype popularized in the West in recent years—especially following 9/11—is that Arab and Asian Muslims are all terrorists. Some stereotypes can go out of fashion because of changed circumstances (e.g. the stereotype that all Russians are communists is no longer in vogue today.) A stereotype, then, is an oversimplified mental image of groups of people, or categories of institutions (the church, etc.), or even whole countries, continents and regions. This mental-image is shared by a large number of people and it is usually derived from the extrapolation of the behavior of a single individual (or entity) to the rest of the community (or entities) from which the individual (or entity) comes. Stereotypes can be of both “positive” types and negative types. In both instances, however, the fact that this image does not conform to reality, implies that there is an inherent underlying negative element to it—even in the case of positive stereotypes. This negativity resides in the fact that it conditions behavior toward the target of the stereotype in a manner that is not warranted by the actual objective reality surrounding the target.

When the target of the stereotype happens to be a group of people or a country then the injustice that underlies this phenomenon is readily obvious. In such circumstances the behavioral attitude toward the target is preconceived; it is not a product of actual interaction with the target. For example: it is not uncommon to see immigrants come into the U.S. with preconceived views of African-Americans, even though they may have never ever actually interacted with a single African-American. [1] Of all the agencies in society that are responsible for generating, disseminating, and sustaining stereotypes the media—especially film and television—is undoubtedly the most powerful. So, for example, one of the dominant stereotypes that films in the U.S. have perpetuated concerns the racist image of people of color, especially Native-Americans and African-Americans. In the case of Native-Americans one only has to see the old “Westerns” (the cowboy and “injun”) films to quickly determine the stereotype. In these films U.S. First Americans are invariably portrayed as vermin and scoundrels who deserve to be annihilated (and many of whom were annihilated in real life), rather than as victims (which in real life they were) of a voracious and rapine land-hungry alien settler population that established its legitimacy to rob the land that belonged to the Native-Americans solely on the basis of their guns and their numbers.

As for African-Americans, the stereotypes in cinema have been at a subtler level. In his excellent book, Bogle (1989) identifies the following types of stereotypes, among others, that African-Americans have been historically burdened with in Hollywood films: the uncle tom (the polite, patient, uncomplaining 'good negro' who did everything his/her white master desired even in the face severe oppression); the coon (the comic negro who via his/her buffoonery [either as a child, a pick ninny, or as an adult the uncle Remus] served as an object of amusement and entertainment); the tragic mulatto (the product of miscegenation who is forever the victim of her mixed parentage); the mammy (a big, fat and bossy woman, often the female version of the coon); the aunt Jemima (the female version of the uncle tom); the buck (either as brutal and savage out to destroy the white man's world or as an over-sexed animal lusting after white women); the jester (the comic negro, ''[h]igh-stepping, and high-falutin' and crazy as all get-out"); the servants (respectable, uncomplaining, and entertaining domestics); the entertainers (the respectable, well dressed jester); the problem people (the victims of racism of bad whites eliciting sympathy from good whites, or angry victims of racism turned militant); and the black superstar (the race problem is over, even blacks can be superstars now). As is evident from this long list of stereotypes, the net effect has been to dehumanize African-Americans by portraying them in a manner that did not correspond with reality, not so much at the level of the individual (e.g. in reality there are some individuals who do act as uncle toms), but at the level of the group (e.g. not all African-Americans are uncle-toms). Needless to say, via this dehumanization the ideology of racism has continued to be propagated through the socialization aspect of film-viewing. (View and study images showing more examples of racist stereotypes of African Americans in this short but well-illustrated article available here.)

It is important to caution that human behavior, where stereotypes are involved, is not conditioned entirely by the stereotypes—other factors will also come into play. For example, in the case of racist stereotypes and racism, it would be a mistake to suggest that racist stereotypes alone leads to racism; for, in reality, the reverse is also probably true. Therefore, in the context of racism, the function of racist stereotypes is that they are simply one more item in the arsenal of dehumanization. That is, they help to reinforce, not necessarily create, racism. Moreover, in the creation and dissemination of insidious stereotypes of negativity by the mass media (includes the entertainment industry), nothing compares to the power of images, regardless of whether they are still images or moving images, in socializing the masses to the acceptance of prejudice and hate of the “Other” to the point of naturalness—meaning it becomes "natural" to assume, for example here in the United States, that black people are intellectually inferior or that Jews are a cunning money-grubbing people or that the Irish love their drink (meaning they are brawling drunkards) or that Italians are lazy, pasta-loving members of the Mafia. However, a common ploy among racists, sexists, etc. in popularizing stereotype images is to claim that such images constitute "art" and therefore should not be opposed or erased from the media, and what is more, it is protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Three points emerge here: First what is “art”? Who decides when an "object" is art? Is the First Amendment about protecting the right to popularize material that contributes to oppression, terrorism, and so on? Or was the First Amendment originally conceived to protect the citizenry from the tyranny of the State (but today has been hijacked for ulterior purposes)? One would be remiss not to mention here a very thorough and for the most part (though not entirely) convincing demonstration by Barker (1989) that, in his words, “the concept of a ‘stereotype’ is useless as a tool for investigation of media texts.” Moreover, he continues, “it is dangerous on both epistemological and political grounds.” (p. 210) While this characterization of the concept may be valid from the perspective of the uses made of it in different contexts, the position adopted here is that the concept, when properly defined, is not entirely valueless in some circumstances. What does one mean by 'properly defined?' That the concept should not be freighted with unnecessary baggage (value assumptions, political agendas, etc.) such as those that he identifies. Therefore, it is possible to use the term (as it is used here) in a neutral sense to simply signify the process of extrapolation of, for example, the personal characteristics of an individual to all members of the group that the individual belongs to.