Racial Stereotypes Within Film

Unit 1 Part D Final Argument

Racial Stereotypes Within Film

By Daniel Stokes

For my argument I set out to research the issue of racial stereotyping within film. This issue has interested me for a long time as it is quite blatant that many different racial groups and cultures are portrayed in certain ways time and time again within films, big and small budget. I have loved films for all my life, however I grew to realise that as I got older many of the films that I was watching or had watched as a child, created or enforced racial stereotypes and actually made me think of different people from different races in a certain way, a lot being quite negative. For example, Middle Eastern people being terrorists, or African Americans being gangsters and thugs. I have researched in a few different ways. I am going to create a survey in order to ask other people about their views on racial stereotyping within film and the affects it can have on different cultures in order to see if it can change my mind about the issue, as I feel that racial stereotyping is definitely a big issue and needs to be addressed a lot more. I also want to see if there are people that have different interpretations of racial stereotyping, or even different opinions. I have also researched online and looking at various articles of which address racial stereotyping within film in order to get an insight on what other people feel about the issue and also what people who have experienced racial stereotyping within film have to say about it.

In this paragraph I will be discussing the affects that racial stereotyping within film can have on different cultures. I have noticed that certain ways in which films use racial stereotypes make some people act negatively towards different cultures. For example, with Muslim culture and their religion (Islam) I have seen posts on social media ranting about how Muslims are crazy to worship a religion that promotes violence and terrorism. But I assume that the only reason that the person felt that way was because they had seen a films, for example ‘Team America: World Police’ where a terrorist screams "Allah Akbar" before he commits an act of terrorism, and because the film only shows that side of it and not the side of Muslim culture that hates the fact that Jihads commit such acts of brutality (which is the majority), they are just portrayed as terrorists as opposed to normal people. This creates so many negative stereotypes and effects for Muslims as they are seen as the bad guys who could be plotting something as opposed to people with families of which they love and provide for, just like everyone else. The negative racial stereotypes within film can also cause problems for many Muslims as they find it harder to fit into society in different countries and can also find it very hard to get jobs as the employers think that they'll just be trouble. For example, I looked at an article by the ‘BBC’ called “is it easier to get a job if you’re called Adam or Mohamed?” In this I found out that they sent CV’s from the two candidates, (Adam and Mohamed) who both had the same skills and experience, in response to 100 job opportunities. Adam was offered twelve interviews, Mohamed was offered four.

Another example of a racial stereotype of which I have noticed has caused negative effects on another culture would be the way in which African Americans are portrayed within film. For example, they can often be portrayed as gangsters, thieves, thugs, etc. This is done in films like ‘Boys N the Hood’, Menace II Society’, etc. This negative depiction of African Americans within film often creates the assumption that if you were to pass a black person in an alley, or at night, then you should cross the road or turn the other way. I would say that this is evident a lot more in films set in America, as opposed to films set in somewhere like the UK, although it still happens in films set here too. For example kidult hood which is set in London. Furthermore, these stereotypical portrayals of African Americans within films set in America has caused a lot of trouble for African American culture because of the fact that people assume that black people are up to no good a lot of time. Such as, the many attacks on innocent African American men and women by police officers and a lot of police brutality towards African Americans. For example, the Rodney King case, where an innocent African American was dragged out of a car and severely beaten by police officers. This links to film as people see these racial stereotypes on screen and it leads them to form prejudices in reality Now I understand that police brutality has been going on for a long time due to racism, but the fact that African Americans are so often given roles of which people already assume they are like in real life (gangsters), just makes the way of which African Americans are treated, even worse and needs to be changed in my opinion. 

I researched the percentage of black roles within film that are given where black people portray gangsters, thugs, etc. When researching this I found and article by "VOX" titled '"Gang Member" and "Thug" roles in film are disproportionately played by black actors'. In this I found that they asked a man named Bruce Nash, a man who has spent years compiling a database of 160,000 acting credits from 26,000 major US movie releases. Using his data they found that in the credits of films that credited "Gang Members" or "Gangsters" 62% of the "Gang Members" were black and 65% of people credited as "Gangsters" were black also. That's the majority, and is one of the reasons of which stereotypes within film have created a negative affect for African Americans and their culture. Furthermore, when looking at an article by "The Guardian" I came across some very insightful things wrote by a man called Andrew Rajan. One of the main things that I noticed from what he said was this, "Recent research by the British Film Institute reveals that six out of 10 British films made in the past 10 years featured no named characters portrayed by black actors. Just 13% starred a black actor in a leading role". That isn't good and it made me wonder how many roles of that 13% were stereotypical, which backs up my point that racial stereotypes do exist in the film industry. 

When researching my chosen issue I came to realise how characters of a different race are often underrepresented in big movies and in television shows also. Furthermore, when they do get cast, they are often portraying their racial stereotype. In an article I found by 'ThoughtCo.' a woman named Nadra Kareem Nittle made some very good points of which I feel have increased my view of racial stereotypes within film. She made a point about Asian actors being portrayed as "geeks, maths wizzes, techies and a host of other characters viewed as non-masculine". She then went on to talk about how the only time that Asian actors are portrayed as "physically threatening" is when they're depicted as martial artists. Now that's her opinion and obviously others may disagree. However, from reading this it made me realise that there were elements of racial stereotyping of which I hadn't taken into consideration, Asian stereotypes. This lead me to think more about Asian stereotyping when it comes to things like martial arts and actually made me think, "I've done this myself and didn't even realise". As someone who has done karate for about six years now, I have been involved in a number of competitions, some of which have involved other boys of which I have had to fight that were Asian. When seeing an Asian boy my age at a competition I remember immediately thinking "Oh no I can't fight him he's going to be an expert". I have now come to the realisation that my thoughts on fighting an Asian boy at a competition put me off due to the fact that I have grown up watching many martial arts films, (the main ones involving Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan) that it lead me to just assume that Asians are all masters of Martial Arts, which seems very silly and makes me feel very silly, but that's all because of racial stereotypes within films that I watched growing up. This has a negative impact on many Asian people as it leads people to assume that they are up for a fight or could make people worried to approach them, which could cause Asians to struggle to fit in within certain societies and make them feel isolated. 

When conducting my research I created a survey in order to find out what other people’s views and opinions were on the subject of racial stereotyping within film. All of the answers to the questions that I asked were very helpful. Many of the answers spoke about how the result of racial stereotyping within film can cause some people to act horribly towards people that they don't even know. For example, a white American man could see a man born in America with Mexican parents and assume that he is an illegal immigrant, without even knowing him. One of the reasons that this is due to is racial stereotyping within film. I have seen so many films that either mock or enforce Mexican immigrants. Having them talk in over exaggerated broken English and having jobs like, pool cleaning, gardening, etc. The fact that they enforce such stereotypes within film makes it seem okay, I mean everyone jokes about racial stereotypes in some way, I've spoken to Americans that have assumed that I drink tea and eat crumpets, (another stereotype due to film) but in reality it isn't okay but because it's done so much within in films people assume it's okay to joke about because a famous actor has said it or because if a big film company like universal has made a film with racial stereotyping then it's okay right? Well I think it's pretty wrong for a few reasons, one of my mains ones being that as I said previously, it allows children to grow up thinking that racial stereotypes are true, which isn't right morally or realistically. So in conclusion, there are lots of racial stereotypes within film that cause lots of damage to different races. However, there are some racial stereotypes that aren’t as damaging to certain people, e.g. assuming that English people eat tea and crumpets.

I set out to research racial stereotyping within film, the effects it can have on a culture and what other people’s opinions on it are. For my secondary research I looked at articles written by people who were passionate about or had experienced racial stereotyping within film. I also watched a few films where I believed that racial stereotyping was evident. Doing this reflected what I expected, as I expected lots of people to feel like racial stereotyping within film is still very much evident still. When looking at all my articles, I came to the realisation that they were all against racial stereotyping within film and TV, which I was very pleased to see. For my primary research I did a survey on Survey Monkey, where I asked various questions about things like what racial stereotyping that people were aware of, what the effects of racial stereotyping within film can have on culture, etc. From doing this I learnt that the majority of people that I asked (8 out of 10) have an understanding of racial stereotyping within film and know that it still happens today. However, I also realised that there are some people that don’t really understand the concept of racial stereotyping within film, I actually also realised that there were some people that didn’t even know what racial stereotyping was, which lead me feel as though that could be due to desensitisation from years of growing up in a time where racial stereotyping is done so often that some people don’t even realise it’s happening. I feel like my research has furthered my knowledge of racial stereotyping and allowed me to change my view on it, as I now feel a lot more strongly about the subject. This is because I have been able to learn about what people that are passionate racial stereotyping within film being stopped and also learn from what they have wrote on the subject. I believe that my piece has definitely been altered due to my research. This is due to the fact that I didn’t originally set out to address the effects that racial stereotyping can have on different racial cultures, but when doing my research and seeing how badly racial stereotyping within film actually does effect different cultures, I had to talk about. I feel like there definitely needs to be a change in the acting and film industry in order to move forward and see past racial stereotyping. In order to challenge these racial stereotypes within film I believe that casting directors and directors need to start giving equal parts to all actors of different races, they need to have a lot more diversity when casting. Furthermore, I believe that in order for it to change, we as an audience need to challenge these racial stereotypes and take a stand against it, it’s our responsibility to not accept these racial stereotypes anymore. We need to address it on social media, have petitions to stop the stereotypes from occurring in film anymore. I also feel that it is the responsibility of the owners of film companies to realise that many of the films created under their branding involve some sort of racial stereotyping of which should not be stood for.