Stereotypes in the Media - Essay Example

? Stereotyping in the Media Racial and Gender Stereotyping in the Media In the modern age, a life without the presence of the media is completely unimaginable. It is evident that all media sources including magazines, newspapers, radio, television, and even the Internet play a crucial role in our daily lives. The effect of the media on people’s lives is huge, and most of the time people are not aware of this huge influential factor. The variety of media has become large and the age in which children initially encounter the media has significantly reduced. Predominantly, the medium television plays a significant role in the socialization process and is typically available to American children even at the point of birth. The films that are popular in the American theaters come with mediated messages, standards, and values that touch on race and gender (Signorielli, 2001). There is no doubt that the media play an important role in not only what we think but also what dominates our minds. This widely famous quote is contained in the social comparison theory and the downward and upward comparison theories that were first coined by Leon Festinger. According to Leon Festinger’s (1954) social comparison theory, individuals within the society have the tendency of assessing themselves by comparing themselves to others. These comparisons increase significantly with perceptions of similarity. There are two types of comparisons discussed, these includes downward comparison and upward comparison. According to this theory, when one compares himself/herself downward to people who are inferior to him/her, he/she experiences a boost in self-esteem and a decreased feeling of anger. On the other hand, when one compares himself/herself upward with people that appear to be superior to him/her, he experiences feelings of anger, depression and a low self-esteem. The media plays here significantly by portraying celebrities as people with a beauty that others need to emulate (Signorielli, 2001). When a baby is born, one is identified to be either a girl or a boy within the society, as we know it. Ideally, everything that this person does with his her life is based on that simple categorization. Through the media, children are bombarded with various messages, images, and representations of gender, forming a dreamlike world of childhood innocence. Principally, the physical representation of characters on the movie screen, their social roles, and positions in the community as well as their behavioral attributes shape the view that children and even mature people have on gender unknowingly (Baker and Raney, 2013). This study aims at understanding and recognizing how gender roles are represented within the American media and the society in general. Throughout our lives, we acquire knowledge of various roles, which label men and women, and their corresponding characteristics, masculinity and femininity. It is clear that the behavior of men and women is described by the social requirements that the society expects and how it synthesizes the expectations of every individual. The appearance of men and women in the media is characterized by the conventional stereotypes of women’s beauty and thinness, as well as men’s brawniness. A 2001 study by Signorielli concluded that the female body as portrayed in films and television is slender, which is what is appreciated within the society as beauty and admirable. The representation of the man’s body in the media has become more muscular in the course of time demonstrating an illogical evolution of a more masculine male. According to Sparks (1996), majority of the male characters are portrayed in an exaggerated light of muscularity that is almost impossible to acquire in normal situations. Over the years, there have been various studies conducted on the issue of how Disney animated films affect the perception of children in gender matters. in one of his studies, Giroux (1994) established that the mass media, especially the world of Hollywood films, creates a dreamlike world of safety, consistency, and childhood innocence in which kids find a place to place themselves in their emotional lives. According to scholar Henry Giroux, movies such as the Little Mermaid (1989) Beauty and the Beast (1991), The Lion King (1994) and numerous others have all tried to create an identity for girls and women by barely defining gender roles and progressively repeating the stereotyped gender roles (Giroux, 1994). According to Giroux (1994), nearly all the female characters in Disney movies are inferior to males, a phenomenon that is not surprising. Traditional sexy and beautiful images of females are the norm in most movies and this is repeated in numerous TV programs. This has in turn created a unconscious perception of stereotypes among many people. Naturally, women are often presented as weak ornaments that need protection and when it comes to the real action of the movie, they are left out. Apart from the gender, stereotyping, racial stereotyping is a major theme in most Hollywood movies. In an animated movie such as Aladdin, Arabs are depicted stereotypically as mean and cruel. This can clearly be seen from the opening song Arabian Nights where an Arab is heard singing “Oh I come from a land, from a faraway place, where the caravan camels roam, Where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face, It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home” (Metrolyrics, n.d). According to a study conducted by Martin (2007), the influence of the media can best be understood using the cultivation theory first coined by George Gerbner in the mid-1960s. According to this theory, televisions portray ideas that cannot work in the real world. These are ‘television world’, which can be thought true by television viewers although they can never work in the real world. For example, a television may show a slender woman maintaining her perfect body size while taking junk foods. Although this is obviously false in the real world, viewers will pick and try to apply these ideas in the real world. In North America, many women for example have been influenced to emulate ‘television world’ ideas leading to problems like eating disorders among others that result when people misinterpret the ‘television world’ as real. Many women in our society are economically empowered. According to Maslov’s principle, the fact that most people have basic needs like food, water and clothing has driven human wants up the apex where things like love and acceptance become important for people. People are therefore concerned with physical self-image to gain acceptance to our society that has set beauty standards. Moreover, increased economic capacity for people means that people have resources to spend their money on expensive beauty products and procedures that are often portrayed by the media (Martin, 2007; Baker and Raney, 2013). According to a case study conducted by Baker and Raney (2013), the stereotypical representation of women in the media has led to obsession with beauty among Americans. According to Baker and Raney, Many women are living with a lifelong burden of trying to have that unattainable physical appearance and image that is portrayed by the media. In the recent past, there has been a sharp rise in cosmetic surgery, with majority of those undergoing the process claiming that they want to resemble their favorite celebrity. This obsession has brought along with it associated healthy risks. This obsession has also led to economic problems since carrying out the cosmetic procedures are a costly affair. As people continue to suffer health wise and economically, beauty companies have been obtaining huge returns and this has enabled them to continue running their adverts in the media about the real beauty (Baker and Raney, 2013). According to the results of the same study conducted by Baker and Raney (2013), the American media has been awash with pictures of celebrities such as Paris Hilton, Tyra Banks and a host of other American celebrities who are seen as the true representation of beauty in the society. Results of the same study also showed that most American movies and TV programs use the black skin when they want to create a violent or ugly character in their programs. It is therefore not surprising to note that the group that is leading in cosmetic surgery to alter their physical appearance in the United States is women of color. According to a recent study, about 12.7 million cosmetic surgeries and non-surgical procedures were carried out in the United States during 2012 alone. This represents an average increase of over 500% as compared to the previous ten years. The results of the study showed that black women represented about 91 percent of these surgical procedures (Baker and Raney, 2013). Conclusion Most American women today are obsessed with beauty; this preoccupation is mainly a creation of the media, as it stereotypes beauty that is expected of women for centuries. Research has shown that the media has great influence in shaping the perception that people have on various issues and it is therefore important to note that the media has had a big influence in as far as shaping the perception of gender and race is concerned. This media stereotyping has created an ‘ideal’ body image, which though unattainable in the real world is frantically sought by women in the society. This stereotyping has created a culture of obsession with beauty something that has not only affected how women view and treat themselves but also how the society views and treats them. Despite the negative effects of this stereotyping, it is interesting to note that people have come to accept it as the truth and today, people appraise beauty based on the standard that has been set by the media. References Baker, K & Raney, K. (2013). Equally Super? Gender-role Stereotyping of Superheroes Children’s Animated Programs. Mass Communication & Society, 10 (1), 25-41. Giroux, H. (1994). Are Disney Movies Good for your kids? Kinderculture: The Corporate Construction of Childhood. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Martin, C. (2007). Perfect Girls, starving Daughters: The frightening New Normalcy of Hating your Body. Free Press. Metrolyrics. n.d. Arabian Nights Lyrics. Retrieved from www.metrolyrics.com/arabian-nights-lyrics-aladdin.html Signorielli, N. (2001). Television’s Gender Role Images and Contribution to Stereotyping. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Sparks, R. (1996). Masculinity and heroism in the Hollywood blockbuster. British Journal Criminology, 36 (3), 348-360. Read More