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Racial Stereotypes In The Media Essay

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Media is one of the greatest influences in a person’s life, it subconsciously alters the way a person perceives those who surround them. Media also allows for stereotypes to be displayed to broad audiences allowing for concepts about certain groups to be the norm. The world now is more diverse than it ever has been, but racial stereotypes are still very prevalent in these media. In the business of television, these racial stereotypes are used in order to gain the support of certain demographics. In arising shows like Black-ish and Insecure they try to bring racial stereotypes to the light by light heartedly joking about them. In Blackish a family goes through the struggle to create a sense of black identity for their kids while living in …show more content…

For many years racial segregation in entertainment had been key, if a show or network inclusively casted a certain group of people and portray saturated versions of them , then individuals who fall into the same group would be drawn to the show. However, through the years segregation looked less multicultural and caused controversy. This led to many different ethnic groups intertwining in media, creating “diversity”. Although, many networks were trying to create ethnic diversity they began to fail when they only included a single ethnic individual in a series and subjected them to racial stereotypes.In the Independent Article they give examples of how minorities are portrayed in predominately white shows. For example in Modern Family, the wife Gloria (one of the only miniorites) is a beautiful,bombshell Colombian women that speaks with a thick accent and marries a wealthy older man. In a newer shown This Is Us, a character by the name of Randall Pearson is portrayed as a successful black male raised by a white family, however he then goes to meet his “real” dad who is a drug addicted deadbeat. My take away from these moves in the entertainment industry is that they are constructed in order to bring in these ethnic groups because they connect with the specific character. While growing an audience the network also uses this as an opportunity to insert the stereotypes so that they can still be installed in

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