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Racial Stereotypes In Film

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Film is a very powerful way to distribute ideas to many people in a very simple and quick way. This means that when a movie is filled with disparaging racial stereotypes these ideas can easily be made the norm in society in the way that people view a certain group of people or culture. These stereotypes can easily be seen in the films of the early 20th century. They had no problems using racial stereotypes and lies to hurt the name and reputations of the people of Africa. A lot of these are spelled out in the in “White” by Richard Dyer and in “Lights…Camera…Africa: Images of Africa and Africans in Western Popular Films of the 1930s” by Kevin Dunn. But what about modern film making? In Ace Ventura in the wild there are still themes of the dominance …show more content…

First, he gives us some context to the time period in which these films were being made. He talks about the great depression and how this effected the mindset of the average movie goer at the time. Many white males were forced from their jobs and had to look for work in traditionally non-white areas of work; therefore, created an image of inept Africans relying upon the survival skills of white (Dunn 151). Dunn gives many examples of stereotypes that were reinforce with these movies. He speaks about the movie Sanders of the River (1935) and that Sanders is the best representation of the perfect British administrator. The main plot of this movie is that a white man is needed to be present in Africa or the villages will just attack each other and there will be constant war. When Sanders goes away for a little while the entire river goes to war with each other and its only when sanders the white man comes back that there can be peace. He also talks about the idea as Africans as servants. In the movie Sanders always has a black servant to call on, making the point that the only use for an African is subservient to the white man Sanders. Dunn also talks about Africa being either a dream or a nightmare, being that when you’re at the coast where the white man resides is a dream come true but the interior is a terrible unhospitable place for the white man. Dunn helps us see the horrible misrepresentation of Africa in the

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