The audience is then left translating these narratives into their own daily lives, and as a consequence, inequity and prejudice develops.įor instance, Divine and Eliot (1995) compared a study of African Americans in 1933 to a study in 1995 and both studies delineated that African Americans were depicted as being ignorant, musically talented, dirty (physically), and very religious through language and stage direction devices. Directors then actively use language and image as devices to portray their characters, and in turn these devices perpetuate stereotypes. Therefore, as stated by Wilson (1995), stereotypes become “shortcuts to character development and form a basis for mass entertainment,” (Wilson 61). According to Barry (2009), stereotypes are often used in the media industry as “dramatic devices” as they allow audiences to identify a character’s “anticipated value system and/or behavior expectations,” based on their appearance, accent, name, possessions, etc. The Oxford Dictionary defines a stereotype as “a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.” Most commonly stereotypes are used when referring to race, gender, ethnicities and sex and they are often normalized and naturalized in the mass media. Additionally, students will focus on a unit on film techniques prior to study race and gender representation, so that they can use subject specific vocabulary. In doing so, students will analyze dramatic devices, character development and story lines in a variety of films. It also aims to explore how Hollywood holds agency in representing and misrepresenting marginalized groups in society and how these representations have changed or remained constant over time. This unit explores how race and gender are represented, and not represented, in Hollywood.
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