Week 5: Cultural Analysis

For this week's post, I take a look at three groups and how they are portrayed in popular media today.

Asians, Children, and People with Disabilities

Asians:

I believe that Asians are somewhat underrepresented in media. I say this because there are many times in media where the show sticks to the stereotype for Asians (being inherently smart or inherently good at martial arts). But there are other shows that don't necessarily focus on that stereotype, but still include it.

These stereotypes are not necessarily negative, because obviously, not all Asians are smart or good at fighting. I feel that it is what is applied in addition to those stereotypes that create the negativity. For instance, when there is a smart Asian person on a show. It is not negative until they are portrayed as helpless and weak. Also, when there is a person that's good at martial arts, it is not negative until it is portrayed that all of the people good at martial arts actually want to kill everyone. Sometimes the martial artists are positively portrayed as mentor figures and sometimes negatively as, crime masterminds.
 
For example, in a British television show, Bad Education, which features a young teacher who just finished college and the events that occur with his students. Being new to the education scene, this teacher is simply not experienced and is essentially a "bad" teacher. In the show, there is one petite Asian girl who is simply one of the smart students and everyone in the class knows this. What is funny about this though is that since the teacher is bad at what he does, the Asian girl often curses angrily at her teacher in Chinese, but instead of being angry, the teacher always misinterprets the Asian girl's Chinese outbursts as insightful lessons and "agrees" with the girl. Although being smart is not necessarily negative, Bad Education makes it so that even though they have this "token" Asian person, she is not a helpless smart person, instead of that, she actually lashes out at the teacher and anyone that picks on her. (It's just that when she lashes out, she insults people in Chinese so that they don't know exactly what happened).

Evil Mastermind Martial Artist:
Lethal Weapon 4, Jet-Li plays a ruthless crime mastermind

Mentor Martial Artist:
Ip Man 2, Donnie Yen plays a family man that teaches his students to not be reckless.

Just for Fun:
Interesting Article I found concerning Asians in media:
http://sitemaker.umich.edu/psy457_tizzle/asian_american_men

Children:

I believe that children are a bit under-represented in media. Although there are many shows in the media world where children are stereotypically depicted as mischievous or deceiving. There are other shows that depict the other end of the spectrum as innocent or fun, but it doesn't happen quite as often.

Children being depicted as mischievous:

• Children in South Park (Especially Cartman)
• Bully in Bad Education (Bully steals the teacher's shoes)
• Family Guy, Stewie trying to kill his mother

Children that were somewhat realistic: Modern Family

People with Disabilities:

I believe that people with disabilities are under-represented in media. This simply because I have not actually seen many shows that portray people that have disabilities. Although there have not been many shows that portray people with disabilities, the shows I have seen portray people with disabilities are not necessarily negative. For example, in the popular show, Family Guy, Joe, the paraplegic cop is depicted as a particularly burly man that is fully capable of fulfilling his duties as a policeman. Joe is still an active fellow despite his disability. In Family Guy, Joe does not seem like he is torn by the fact he has a disability, he simply likes to live his life.

Also in the British show, Bad Education, there is a kid in a wheelchair that instead of being helpless and being bullied, it is actually the kid in the wheelchair that bullies some of the other students. The kid is actually crafty and takes advantage of his disability. For instance, when the kid shows up late for class and the teacher asks him why, the child in the wheelchair simply states the teacher is silly and that the reason he is late is because he moves around in a wheelchair. The kid also has another student push him around because "The chair isn't going to push itself."