Hunger Games Adaptation Gives Way to Cultural Racism

I'm proud to say I was one of the millions of people who went out to see The Hunger Games this past weekend. I was thrilled by how closely the movie was to the book and its ability to stir up so much emotion, power, and tears in my case! The next day I found a startling article online. Apparently after the movie debuted Twitter and other social media blew up with "racists" who were outraged that some of the main characters were portrayed as black in the movie. There were tweets such as "I didn't picture them as black when I read the book and it made their death less sad" or "Rue wasn't supposed to be black, stick to the book!" The article did a good job by going back to the text of the book and showing that the race of Cinna (played by Lenny Kravitz) is never brought up and the races of Rue and Thresh (played by African American characters as well) are also not mentioned but they are described as having "dark skin and hair".

My interpretation of this is that the author of the book originally did not include race in the text because the book was written about a period of time far into the future. My guess is she wanted to make her interpretation of the future using the concept of abstract realism: that far into the future people are on a level playing field and race does not exist. However, this worked against the author the same way Jhally argues that The Cosby Show hindered blacks during the time of its run. Many people who read the book and saw no description of race assumed all the characters were white. Then, upon viewing the movie, their ideas of cultural racism came out as the black characters fell below their expectations of the character they imagined because they have ingrained thoughts that blacks are inferior. On a personal level I was angered by this article when I read it. But based on the concepts we learned today in class it is much easier to see how this outbreak of "racism" (which should really be called prejudice!) could have happened.

If you'd like to read the article it can be viewed here. The comments section incites an interesting conversation as well!

Racism

I think racism and stereotypes still exist heavily in the US even today. For instance the  Trayvon Martin case we were talking about today in class. Just the fact that someone would even consider shooting an innocent person is preposterous to me. Even if Zimmerman did see some suspicion( which was brought on by racism and Martin wearing a hoodie) the response to that shouldn't be to shoot the person. Zimmerman had no right to lay a finger on that boy just because he was dark skinned and wearing a hoodie. If anything he should have brought him into custody to see there was nothing wrong with Martin. Instead he had the audacity to shoot him. This in no way was self defense because Martin wasn't talking to him or following him or doing anything suspicious. He was wearing a hoodie because it was raining and talking to his girlfriend on the phone. Zimmerman just associated the hoodie with a gangster and assumed Martin was up to no good. That is racist on a multitude of levels and the fact that he is not yet arrested is not OK. Zimmerman needs to stop trying to justify what he did because no court of law is going to rule him innocent. He murdered a teenage boy just because of illogical suspicion. Zimmerman should be not only arrested but put in jail for life because he is guilty of man slaughter. Also the nerve of the Fox news article we read today bothered me. They want parents to stop letting their children wear hoodies. That is heavily stereotyping hoodies with being a gangster which is also racist. Everyone wears hoodies whether they are up to no good or they are just cold so banning hoodies makes no sense.

Stereotypes yaddah yaddah

Stereotypes are around for a reason because there is always a grain of truth in them. Television producers and the media have figured out that playing certain stereotypes against others will make a profit. The idea that certain races are better than others is nothing new, but in a time when diversity is supposed to be at it's highest, there is still racism running rampant. Sometimes we think the stereotypes are funny even if we are apart of the race that is being mocked, but is this ok? This goes back to Marxism in that the elite are telling the oth classes what is funny and who should be made fun of, without questioning it. Stereotypes may not always be meant in a negative way, but the mere fact that we categorize people based on race is a problem because it pigeonholes them. Can't an Asian person not like math or a Jewish person not be a doctor? Of course they can, but stereotypes make it difficult for people to break the mold and with the media reinforcing the stereotype, it just makes things worse. The Seinfeld episode where they use yaddah yaddah to describe when someone is talking aimlessly for a long time is supposed to be a jab at the Jewish heritage. Jews in the show are portrayed at neurotic and judgmental furthering the stereotypethwt Jews re hard to get along with or think they are smarter than others. What was just supposed to be comedy took on a double meaning that audiences are supposed to be unconscious of.

Stereotypes on TV

After our class discussions this week regarding the different stereotypes in the media, I decided to apply our conversation to evening television. As I browsed through channels, I saw several sitcoms that used basic gender role stereotypes. The first show, King of Queens, is based on a married couple in New York. The male character is a working man who typically gets himself into trouble with his wife and ultimately wants to have sex with her and complain to his group of guy friends over a few beers. The wife stays at home and does housework while looking after her father as well. A similar plot and storyline were in Everbody Loves Raymond as well. The way representation of American culture is portrayed as gender stereotypes and reflect our work, relationships, and lifestyles. Men are women are constantly taught to do and act a certain way from these media stereotypes being fed to the minds of our youth and society.

"Their" Stereotypes of "Us"

In America we see stereotypes of all kinds of cultures. Americans have a tendency to make themselves look better or superior to other cultures, but what does it look like when the tables are turned?this past summer I traveled to Italy and one of the most notable things I remembered was simply how people viewed Americans. For starters, the access to American media was very limited. One of the main shows they had that portrayed American was Jersey Shore. As a result, many people I encountered thought that Americans acted similarly to the characters in Jersy Shore. Most Italians I encountered thought Americans were careless and ignorant. They thought Americans drank to much, and had little respect for their jobs or careers. Another way in which I noticed Americans were stereotypes was based on food. I can recall going into the supermarket and seeing what they called "A Big American Pizza". This pizza was stacked high with different kinds of meats and even an assortment of cheeses and vegetables. The pizza itself look disgusting. This show how other countries develop perceptions based off characters in a television shows or movies, and what they think about our eating habits through news outlets and more.

COMM 330: No representation

After reading the articles in class about representation in the media and hegemony, I have come to notice many different parts of the media, not only the misrepresentation in the media but the lack of representation.  The lack of representation of certain members of the human population can be blamed on the hegemony of the white, straight, and rich dominant culture. I witnessed this first hand when I was with my 7 and 8 year old cousins. While I was playing a good game of ping pong with my cousins, my young female cousin was playing Disney songs and popular song from movies. One of the songs was the finale song of the movie “Alvin and the Chipmunks.” In the song, the chipmunks sing “born this way” from Lady Gaga. Now, I know as many people of my age know the real meaning behind the song is dedicated to LGTB individual and celebrating the way they were born. However, while listening to this song, they skipped over, entirely, any mentioning of gay, straight, or bi, and trans*. Not a single mention from the song was LGTBQA related. I really found this fascinating. Obviously kids songs are censored, like the song “I’m Sexy and I know” from LMFAO (one of the songs played by my cousin) was censored for contact, but the fact they felt the need to censor LGTB I found really quite fascinating. The fact they’d even use a song that is meant for the LGTB community and others who feel different  and had no relation to the true meaning of the song. This truly shows how society is still very far behind in terms of LGTB issues and representation amongst children.

The Token Black Guy

I'm sure a lot of you have seen film 'Not Another Teen Movie'. In case you haven't had the opportunity to see this film it was an American Comedy that made fun of teen movies. The movie was very similar to the horrible series called 'Scary Movie', which made it to 4 or 5 films. If that doesn't help do not fear I have a movie clip to justify what I am about to say.  In this film there was a character deliberately named, 'The Token Black Guy'. This black guy portrayed basically all the same characteristic bell hooks spoke of in are recent reading 'Eating The Other'. Here is the clip from the film: (Link). This bit gives a great idea of what the character in the film basically symbolizes and the role he plays. I found it incredible interesting how the director intentionally made the character out to exactly how hooks portrays many media's. It really wasn't up until last class that I realized how media often times portrays white as superior to all Others. For example, Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Bucket List, and they probable even do this in the Scary Movie series with the Wayne Brothers. I guess really after reading and doing the article summary this made me notice how often this happened in past films and other medias.