Foreign Exchange Students as the "Other"

In class we talked about the concept of “eating the other” or “getting a bit of it” in which media portray males as sexually attracted to foreign women in which they seek out sexual encounters with these women and ultimately treat them as commodities. I came across a clip from “Married… With Children” that demonstrated exactly that. The family brought in a foreign exchange student for the simple fact that doing so would get them $500 a month. This is an automatic form of commodification! She was portrayed as French and very attractive although we never actually learn anything about her. The son in the family instantly invites her to stay in his room showing his sexual attraction to her. At school, all of the boys are instantly drawn to her. Being angered by this, the daughter in the family convinces the exchange student that she should skip class to get her to fail her courses and have to return home to France. The exchange student is ultimately portrayed as stupid and the sabotage inflicted upon her goes unpunished making her seem like an object in the storyline.

I feel as though sitcoms are very guilty of relying on these types of stereotypes for their humor. They get cheap laughs by using stereotypes in incredibly unrealistic situations from which the characters never see any repercussions. I’ve probably seen the “exchange student gets all the boys” in shows about high school a hundred times. Sitcoms also see some of the highest ratings in television so we know these agendas are being spread. It seems like innocent joking the way they portray stereotypes but in reality they are reinforcing what I think to be harmful norms.