Ethnic Notions Essay Example for Free

social Notions EssayEthnic Notions is a documentary directed by Marlon Riggs. The title itself explains what the movie is about-impressions of race. Throughout the documentary, Riggs presents the news report of stereotypes and shows how they smooth exist. In todays society we have become so accustomed with stereotypes that they argon considered normal. The movie Ethnic Notations introduces the problem of stereotypes by explaining their origin and history, giving suits, and showing how they still exist today, so that we argon no longer fooled and unaw atomic number 18 of stereotyping and racism. During the early and mid 1900s minatory large number were envisioned on television and media as ignorant, ugly, violent and inferior to white people. These negative, degrading and horrible images of black people over time shaped peoples views and thoughts about black people and this was how stereotypes were created. Media used caricatures which are exaggerated representations of pe ople to get racist views across to white and black American people. unmatched example of a caricature is The Sambo. The Sambo was a caricature created to depict the black male as being lazy, infant like ignorant and care-free making the black male seem more like a boor than a male. Another example of a racist caricature is pickaninnies which are black children. Pickaninnies were depicted as ugly kids with rough wooly hair, big eyes, dark black skin, big mouths and bright red lips. Pickaninnies frequently resembled animals in children cartoons and were viewed as savage by white people. One of the most popular caricatures of the 1900s is the mammie caricature. The Mammie was an old(a) black woman who took care of the white mans family.Mammies were shoed as loving buzz off figures who were fat black and unattractive. Mammies were created to show that some blacks were happy as slaves and loved black people. These stereotypes were disturbing, degrading and in most cases poor represe ntations of black people. It saddens me how whites could think so low of black people or each other human being at all. Sadly stereotypes still exist today in television, media and society. One stereotype I feel definitely still exist today ids the Sambo stereotype although there are great black actors that play dramatic roles most black men in the media are still shown as being careless and immature.However not all stereotypes today are exactly the same(p) as the caricatures from the 20th century but a new modern version. For example instead of black women being depicted as unattractive mammies on television, they are now ghetto loud and un-lady like. Sometimes I even find myself acting out a stereotype, like being loud or vow in public. After watching Ethnic Notions I feel like stereotypes are too deep rooted in Americas culture to ever be completely gone. Although this conclusion is unfortunate I do believe that we could make people believe in stereotypes less and less through media, by limning blacks in a more positive light.