Current Forum: Session 1: Images and Representation	Read 19 times 	
Date: 11-Jan-2001 17:37:29	
Author: SURRENCY, JENEEN K. <jks5127@garnet.acns.fsu.edu>	
Subject: Why Stereotype? 	
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       This week’s topic for discussion, “Are stereotypes inevitable or even ‘necessary’?”, reiterates the irony of this multicultural film class, for even though the purpose of a 
multicultural class, of any nature, should be to show the beauty and positive aspects of varying cultures, this class, through the aid of some of the films, some of the articles that are 
assigned to correlate with the films, and several of the films’ viewers’ comments, continuously perpetuates racist and stereotypical viewpoints. For example, last semester, during a 
discussion of James Whale’s Frankenstein, the suggestion was made that the Frankenstein monster represents “otherness.” Then several students suggested that the “otherness” that the 
Frankenstein monster represents is African-Americans. In fact, one student, “buying” into the falsity that African-Americans’ heads are shaped differently than other humans’ heads, went so 
far in her correlation of the Frankenstein monster and African-Americans that the student suggested that the malformed shape of the Frankenstein monster’s head reaffirms that the monster represents African-Americans. Why in society does “otherness” have to mean black and/or African-Americans? Considering literary critics and many of the students in that class after reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein recognized that the Frankenstein monster is androgynous, meaning both male and female, and James Whale was a noted homosexual, why cannot Whale’s version of the Frankenstein monster more appropriately represent homosexuality? During the period in which Whale made his film, homosexuality was extremely tabooed. In other words, homosexuals would have been considered “other” and ostracized just as much as African-Americans would have been. Therefore, instead of the town members in the film representing the Ku Klux Klan and the KKK’s treatment of African-Americans, why cannot the townspeople represent general American society and its treatment of homosexuality? The 
answer is simple: stereotypes.
       According to Walter Lippman’s “Stereotypes,” people “do not first see, and then define, [they] define first and then see.” The ideas expressed in one of the Trinh Minh-ha’s articles the class read last semester reaffirms Lippman's statement. Minh-ha suggested that the dominant culture in American society is xenophobic, and instead of trying to learn more about whatever people or concepts that it finds foreign to it, that aspect of society tries to find a means to demean and denigrate that foreign entity. This demeaning is usually done through a process of labeling and defining, also known as stereotyping, which is why since black skin is different from white skin.
       Whenever a symbol for “otherness” is needed in American society, the group with the darkest skin is the one always chosen. Whenever something is different from the dominant culture, that culture always finds means to denigrate the different faction, in some way, shape, or form.
       An excellent example of this denigration is D.W. Griffith’s Battle at Elderbush Gulch. In Battle at Elderbush Gulch, Griffith reinforces almost every stereotype that has been created about Native Americans, such as that Native Americans are violent savages, lust for the virtue of the “pure” white woman, and eat dogs. Why does Griffith do this? He does this because, as Lippman states in another article, “Codes and Their Enemies,” “the pattern of stereotypes at the center of a [person’s] codes largely determine what groups of facts [a person] shall see, and in what light [he] shall see them.” In other words, because of their need to define and label in a way that they consider explanatory, Griffith and other individuals will take events and facts and skew them in order for those incidents to fit into their set of beliefs.
So, to answer the question of if stereotypes are inevitable, yes, they are, for as long as members of society remain afraid of people and concepts that are foreign to them, and those same members of society continue to try to define those foreign entities without learning more about the people or concepts. 
       Are stereotypes a necessity? No. A couple of summers ago I took a nineteenth century novel class here at FSU. One of the novels the students were supposed to read was Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. During one of the class meetings, the discussion concerning the issue of whether the novel should be read in class, given that it continuously uses the word “nigger,” arose.  The predominantly white class concluded that the reading of books that use racist words is important because the activity gives people a chance to see the racism that has occurred in society. The few African-American members of the class that I spoke to, however, totally disagreed with the assertion. They felt that reading novels that spew racist views just gives the racis that minorities have tried to overcome a chance to resurface.
Considering and making stereotypes a “necessity” allows for the same thing because constantly utilizing them is just another attempt to degrade and morally defeat the group at which that the 
stereotype is aimed. How will old wounds ever be able to heal if they are constantly picked at and aggravated by the stereotypes that originally created them?