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Take the following assessment. You do not need to write anything down unless you want to. It’s purpose is to help you understand media’s influence on our attitudes and opinions. It is important that you are honest with yourself. Only you will know how you answered, but it’s important that you answer with what you initially feel when reading through the choices.
The essay instructions are at the bottom of this page, but it’s important that you complete this short assessment before starting the essay.
Using a three point scale, 1. Negative, 2. Neutral, 3. Positive, record your first reaction to each of the following types of people while you imagine what each looks like.
A midwestern farm boy.
A Muslim woman.
A man from Alabama without a high school diploma
A man from India
An older woman living on Park Avenue
A New York City Businessman
A woman from rural Mississippi
A French artist
For the next part, we’ll define “know” as someone with whom you have more than a casual acquaintance. For our purposes, to know someone means that you have an ongoing relationship with them. You know if they’re married, how many kids they have, where they grew up etc. It’s a deeper relationship than you have with a person you see once in a while and all you know about them is their name.
Hopefully, of the examples above, there was one or two that you don’t personally know. From where did your perception of these people come? Why do you have the image that you have of each type of person? You may know someone that was raised on a farm in Nebraska, but do you personally know a New York businessman? Have you ever eaten dinner with a woman from rural Mississippi? Yet I bet you were able to create a visual image of what each of these people look like. And you may even have had an instant opinion of them. Why? Especially if you don’t personally know someone that fits that description?
Stereotypes.
Many of our perceptions are formed by the media and entertainment we consume. If I told you that I watched a Police Drama set in New York City, and told you the bad guy was a drug dealer, most likely, many of you would have a similar mental image of that character. The same is true if I ask you to describe the “hillbilly” from a movie set in rural Georgia. This learned expectation partly comes from movies. Whether or not it’s accurate is irrelevant. It is what we expect.
Intellectually, we know that stereotyping (or prejudice) is wrong and dangerous. Yet most of us do it without realizing it. We try to be open minded and form our opinion of each person as an individual, but the reality is often different.
Films have the ability to shine a bright light on negative, dangerous and incorrect stereotypes and perceptions.
But as we’ve seen, they can, and do, also perpetuate them.
The film this week, In the Heat of the Night, perpetuates many stereotypes but also dispels other stereotypes.
ESSAY INSTRUCTIONS
For this essay, think of one stereotype (other than racist because that would be too easy) presented in this week’s film that was perpetuated.
Briefly describe the stereotype and which character fits that stereotype. (Not from this film) For examples: “I chose the stereotype of the arrogant, self-absorbed rich guy. Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas lives up to this stereotype.”
Then described how the film perpetuates the stereotype. For my example I could say that the character was only interested in making money and didn’t care how his actions affected those impacted by those decisions. An example would be his takeover of the airline would cause many people to lose their jobs, but it made him millions of dollars so he was indifferent to them being put out of work.
Then tell me why you think the filmmakers included this stereotype in their film. What part of the narrative was served by this character? In other words, were this character’s attributes necessary to resolve part of the story? Or were they included to add dimension to the film? Or were they there for comic relief? It all depends on the character and what we as an audience expect from such a character.
Now, do the some for a stereotype that was dispelled in this film.
Finally, add a brief conclusion on whether you think these portrayals in film are fair to the actual people represented by these stereotypes and what lead you to that conclusion.
The purpose of this essay is to help you better understand the influence movies have over how we see the world, and the people in it.
This essay should be 1-2 pages.
