The Mask You Live In Analysis

Are you going to sell tacos when you grow up? Are you an illegal Mexican who crossed the border? Soccer is only enjoyed by Mexicans. All the jokes and more I’ve been told by friends before, every single remark I can think of from the top of my head. It is not as funny as I thought it would be but way more confusing even if I caught the gist of it. In the article “Don’t Let Stereotypes Warp Your Judgement”, Robert L. Heilbroner argues that everyone stereotypes in different ways. In the video “The Mask You Live In”, Jennifer Siebel Newsom documents how younger boys have to face stereotyping anytime in their life from any actions they do specifically or emotionally. Even if people find these jokes humorous, starting off as children, we usually do not understand what these jokes mean and how much it can impact someone, hurting someone from all the

According to Heilbroner, “They classify the infinite variety of human beings into a convenient handful of ‘types’ towards whom we learn to act in stereotyped fashion” (2). A lot of adolescents are put into small groups. In high school there are many of those such as the “nerds” or “popular”, everyone is labeled into a group but usually not everyone accepts it. Being labeled into a group says a lot of things, those labeled groups are either picked on or made fun of and it is hard to ignore easily. In fact, Heilbroner did state, “Often we do not even know that we have let a stereotype lapse until we hear someone saying, ‘all so-and-so’s are like such-and-such,’ and we hear ourselves saying, ‘Well maybe.’ “ (3). In the video, a lot of children were being stereotyped by the way they were. Adults or even classmates kept telling the boys who were facing stereotype to “grow a pair..” or to “be a man” for what they were and how they acted. From that I believe that as much as those jokes are kept thrown around, people will be saying, “well maybe”, joining along the joke