Cultural Stereotypes within the Media

"Television is at the heart of image production, and the circulation of a collage of stitched-together images that is core to postmodern culture style."  - Chris Barker:
                                                                                      Cultural Studies: Theory and practice

     When you look at these characters displayed to the right what shows can you associate these characters with? George Lopez, a Mexican factory worker, Karen Smith, a dumb blonde, Neal Caffery, an average white collar male, and Cookie Lyons, a ghetto black woman. How do we quickly conclude to these assumptions? How we perceive one's culture has a lot to do with how they are perceived in the media. In this case, how television views one's culture can give a generalized view on a culture whether negative or positive. Viewers assign those negative connotations by observing what they watch. What TV decides to display is the only view many will see giving a false idea of how one culture can be perceived. For instance, when you look at Goerge Lopez, the show identifies him as a manager at a factory. If the viewer has not come in contact with another person of the Mexican culture one may perceive the entire culture as people who primarily work in factories. Television assigns a meaning or idea to a culture. According to Chris Barker, author of Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice, these stereotypes serve as vivid representations "that reduce persons to set of exaggerated, usually negative, characteristics" (271).

One of the most stereotyped shows on daytime television are shows such as Family Guy and South Park. To the left is a video clip addressing some of the stereotypes displayed within the show. These depictions assign negative ideas to a culture generalizing each culture to act in that way. However, this is not entirely true. This clip shows the idea that all Asians cannot drive, Japenese girls tend to have small items as well as breast, black women tend to talk very fast and ratchet when explaining a story, Spanish women as maids, Italian men are viewed as confident, and many more. These are examples of what Barker calls the "Post Modern Culture". Though these identifiers do not represent the full modern culture, it represents a period of change through its cultural patterns (203).

Will these stereotypes ever change? in this day and age I personally believe they won't. Cultures have been stereotyped since the beginning of the television beginning with the African American culture. One of the firsts shows African American's were featured in was called Amos 'n' Andy. according to Barker, this show became a developed comedy that "became a symbol for the degradation of black people through since of humor" (275). Television has been using negative stereotypes as a comedy for years and they'll continue to use it til this day. As long as these negative stereotypes sell and gain ratings, the constant exploitation of culture will continue to be displayed for the liking of viewers.