Media Influence on Stereotypes

What you see is non always what you get In a society high schoolly influenced by the media, stumps are used manytimes in a comedic way. In Harold and Kumar go to White Castle one of the main themes the word-painting is stab fun at is how stereotypes affect the give outs of the two main fibres one world of Korean decent and the otherwise Indian. The movie opens introducing the first character Harold. The audience sees that he is an Asian male working in a cubicle for a banking company.The impression turns to Harolds co-workers who are both white in an office that is nicer and bigger to that of Harold, discussing how they are going to have fun and party for the weekend when one of them has much work to do, so one of them suggests having person else do it. The shot gives the impression that the two white co-workers are the main characters of the movie as the introductory tantrum shows primarily the two co-workers and have the or so dialogue in the sketch intro however, l ater the audience testament notice that they are not seen again until the end of the movie.What this scene is shown to do is to make humor out of a normalized stereotype of the Asian American host. As this scene will be analyse, the normalized stereotypes of Asians in society is highly recognizable in American culture and media, as it negatively privileges the Asian group while obscuring Americans insecurity of their own part in society. In right aways world roughly people are born with an identity element already established for them. widely distributedized perceptions or a stereotype of a single group has instigated prejudice.With cultural presents already determined by the outside world, many strive to break such representations in order to form their own identity and not what was given to them. It has increasingly more(prenominal) difficult for one to break such representation repayable to factors in society normalizing these representations with the use of the medi a. The media has become a powerful tool in promoting such representation of groups. Stereotypes surround the whole world we live in and are unavoidable.No publication what we do, depending on our personality, attire, or pull down our hairstyle everyone fits into some sort of stereotype even by a little. The definition of a stereotype is a standardized conception or idea of a group of people (Hurst). raze though to the highest degree stereotypes arent dependable there is a reason why they exist and continue to thrive. Stereotypes have flourished continually as the world has become more and more globalized. Especially in the United States one of the most ethnicalally diverse countries in the world.As stereotypes exist they have consequently affected the way that a finical individual or group lives in society. One particular representation that will be analyzed is the stereotypes of Asians in popular media, the movie Harold and Kumar go to White Castle and along with my own pers onal experiences being in the group within Asian Stereotypes will be used to assess the topic. Back at the beginning of this paper an introductory scene was described of the film Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. Even though the scene is only about a few minutes many representations can be noted.The scene implements key normalized stereotypes seen in the public eye. The particular stereotype of Asian group has been connected to the term ideal Minority which applies positive traits as a stereotype. The traits include qualities such as being hardworking, intelligent, studious, productive, and also blameless people. Also cognise to increase their social status through merit. The biggest opposition to the view is that it exaggerates the success of Asians. This ill-advised empowerment given by the stereotype covers up true businesss that are faced by the Asian community.The belief that Asians are harder workers and thus leading to higher earning jobs has led to a more difficult take of climbing the work ladder into higher wage jobs, otherwise known as the glass detonating device phenomena The definition The Glass Ceiling refers to an invisible barrier that limits the level to which a woman or some other member of a demographic minority can advance within the hierarchy in an organization. It much is a barrier that waits Ethnic Americans in addition to women when trying to r for each one upper management levels in many companies (Hester, 2007)Corresponding to the glass ceiling phenomena, the model minority stereotype has been weighd to been the cause that Asians must acquire more education and work more hours than their white opposite numbers to earn the same amount of money. We will go anchor to the same scene mentioned at the beginning and continue. The scene described before shows Harold the Korean descendent character working tenaciously in his cubicle filling out forms and papers and he is then approached by the two co-workers mentioned earlier t hat were contemplating how they are going to party over the weekend when they have work to do.Afterwards it shows the two co-workers giving Harold a pile of their papers and folders then persuading Harold to do the work for them with Harold then unenthusiastically evaluate the task. Afterwards the scene shows the two co-workers in this short dialogue Co-worker 1 Wow That was astound I cant believe how easy that was Co-worker 2 Dude, how do you think I get all my shit done? Those Asian guys just love crunching numbers. You probably just make his weekend. (Both leave laughing)Then the camera pans over to Harold as he shouts write out The co-workers connect the traits of the stereotype to what they just did and sardonically believe they did Harold a favor. What can be shown here in relation to the model minority stereotype is that Harold now has to do more work than is required of him for his white counterparts. However doing this extra work will not earn him more money or any mer it while his white counterpart will be doing less work and receiving the same credit as Harold is.The dialogue shows that the co-workers jokingly believe they are doing Harold a favor due to his traits which allows him to do such tasks however, the ending of the scene shows Harold shouting Fuck which can be seen as epitomizing reaction of Asians frustrations towards how this stereotype has affected them. The scene shows rebellion towards the label of the model minority. This shows that even though the model minority label credits Asians with strong qualities in the end negatively affects them.What does the scene show about the white co-workers? The scene shows the co-workers of Harold irresponsibly passing off their work for someone else to do. This characteristic shows laziness in the white co-workers. This part of the scene was a way to laugh at both Harold and also the two white co-workers. Why was this funny? The thing is that its sometimes true that these kinds of situations o ccur that is where the audience connects the humor in the situation. The scene reveals an abnormal of how Americans are usually viewed.Americans have been known to be hard workers through fighting for freedom through the revolution to rising to one of the most powerful countries of the 20th century. Time goes on being on top, strong qualities can be seen to be fading away. The polarity is seen as Harold the Korean is hard working while the white co-workers are not. In the scene the white co-workers are laughing away semi-sadistically as they leave the building after fetching advantage of their Asian co-worker. The significance of this is that the laughing disguises the white co-workers insecurity of their own work ethic is not as strong.Using the model minority stereotype has in a way been used to exploit as shown in the scene with the white co-workers using the stereotype to use Harold as a work horse. Even though the two white co-workers cant represent Americans it can represent a whole different stereotype to be uncovered America has had a history in dealing with Asians in the past. Around the 19th century a term known as the Yellow Peril actual as a fear to the increasing number of Asians would immigrate to the United States and would fill the country with hostile culture, speech, and even take away jobs from Americans.The fear that the hard working Asians would take away Americans position in the working world, a satire to the response of that fear is shown in the scene as it shows Harold has been used as a crutch to hold up the co-workers in power. In Amitava Kumars Language, a ruddy example is seen when Kumar describes the murder of Vincent Chin who was murdered by two white autoworkers in Detroit. During so he was called a Jap and told Its because of you motherfuckers that were out of work. (p. 05, Critical Encounters With Text). Chin was murdered due to his ethnic identity which in some correlation was believed to put those auto workers out of wor k. Chin was murdered because in the view of the autoworkers was that he was somehow associated with the ethnic group that had replaced them. It could be that the people who replaced them were more efficient, harder working, or demanded begin wages. Whatever it was, they did not confront the face they themselves had anything to do with the fact they were out of work.Which is something that has become a problem in society is that people blame each other and do not choose to confront how they could have caused a certain event. The model minority stereotype has also affected my life personally being of Korean decent. Being part of the model minority stereotypes has caused to build expectations since we are expected to live up to our peers which fall into that category. In elementary school, I remember asking my teachers for answer and noticed some reluctance in doing so. Then I saw my teachers helping other students seeming more lean to help.This situation made it seem to me that I had to work a little harder than my peers in school. In high school, some teachers took personal offence if it seemed as I underperformed on an assignment believing I wasnt trying or was being lazy. Even though if I tried hard and didnt do well it was disappointing to see teachers lose faith due to a misinterpretation. All of these things were built upon the general assumptions brought on by the model minority stereotype, has made it so it was abnormal to not follow the rationalize of such a view.Assumptions are natural impulses that most cannot avoid to do. As human beings no matter what we see, there is some sort of impression that most of us come towards even without knowing the person. just about of these assumptions are guided from varying reasons including friends, family, face, hair, ethnicity, attire, gender, and the media. We analyzed how a particular scene in the film Harold and Kumar go to White Castle exemplifies a generalized assumption. Also a brief personal account on how the stereotype has affected me.Stereotypes create unfairness as it classifies groups based on assumptions. Awareness of the consequences of stereotypes will help the problems associated with it. Stereotypes will continue to die down as long as the world is becoming more and more globalized. So therefore groups and cultures in America will become more connected with each other as time goes on causing familiarity, bringing down assumptions on a group and with this the concept, true equal opportunity will continue to become stronger.Works Cited Jon Hurwitz, Danny Leiner, Hayden Schlossberg . Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. (2001) Amitava Kumar. Language, by, reprinted from Passport Photos by permission of University of California Press. (2000) Hurst, Charles E. Social Inequality Forms, Causes, and Consequences. 6. Boston Pearson Education, Inc, 2007 Ruth Hester, published May 21, 2007 http//www. associatedcontent. com/article/248276/the_glass_ceiling_and_its_effect_on. hypertext mark-up language? cat=3 Amy Kashiwabara, 1996 http//www. lib. berkeley. edu/MRC/Amydoc. html