Critics have accused the mainstream of tokenism and stereotyping by creating extreme and exaggerated representation to what extent is this true for the group of people you have studied? (Ethnic minorities)
Tokenism is when the media uses an ethnic minority such as black or Asian in a cast which features mainly white actors making the ethnic minority stand out. Examples of this are were soap opera characters such as Dev and Dev, Asian corner-shop owners in Coronation Street, and Denise, a black single mother who has two children by different fathers in EastEnders. Usually token characters have no relevance to the movie, however are put into the movie in order to make the directors look anti racist. One example of this is the American sitcom my name is earl. In this sitcom the main characters are white except two. One who is Mexican (Catalina) and the other who is black (Darnell), both are stereotyped. Catalina is shown to work as a stripper at a bar, which is a stereotype of what good looking foreigners do to earn a living. Also the black character is shown to be uneducated and dumb, a stereotype often thought to be a representation of black males.
In the movie doghouse, Token actors are used such as Mikey. He is black, aggressive and childish. However the movie also shows one of the characters showing the rest how to treat a women going against the accusation of the media exaggerating stereotypes. This therefore shows that the media doesn’t always exaggerate stereotypes.
There are many stereotypes of women as well, such as the American sitcom everybody hates Chris. The mother shown in the sitcom wears weaves, beats her kids, loud and is violent. These are all stereotypes of black women; however the husband goes against the stereotype of black men being criminals and is shown to be a hard working person who provides for his family legally. Also Chris is a quite unpopular boy in his school going against the stereotypes showed in the media.
Another movie that shows exaggerated stereotypes and tokenism is east is east. A Pakistani man who has a white British wife and own a chippy. The white female in this movie is the token character as they could have used women of an ethnic minority. However the man is shown to have two wives, force his kids to have arranged marriages and beat his wife and kids. He is also seen to have a hatred towards Indians, These are all extreme exaggerations and also stereotypes of Pakistani men.
Another American sitcom which both contains token characters and also exaggerated representations is The Simpsons. All the main characters shown in the episode are yellow (normal) however there is one Indian character who stereotypically owns a local convenience store. He also has 8 kids and is shown to be extremely cheap and never closing the store. He is also shown selling items that are no longer fit for consumption and always avoiding costs within his business. This also goes alongside propps theory of there being some sort of a “villain” someone who doesn’t fit in, and usually doesn’t do right.
In the movie “not another teen movie” there is a African black male who doesn’t fit in the school who goes to, however in this movie the actor being a token actor is said within the dialogue. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vyq61qQF9ik
In conclusion I think that the media does over exaggerate stereotypes especially of ethnic minorities, usually making a cocktail of stereotypes and showing those through one character. This is usually done for the audience to be able to understand story lines better.
