Current Forum: Session 1: Images and Representation	Read 13 times 	
Date: 14-Jan-2001 19:50:21	
Author: DRAKE-BOYT, ELIZABETH D. <edd1290@garnet.acns.fsu.edu>	
Subject: Of Coconuts and Puppy Dogs 	
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       Whether or not stereotypes are necessary, Lippmann presents strong arguments to support the idea that they are an inevitable mechanism of categorization on which civilization operates. 
While a castaway on a tropical island could conceivably spend years detailing subtle differences between coconuts growing on the island, the urban shopper in a supermarket makes a quick 
decision about which coconut to toss into the shopping cart. 
       Lippmann points out that "There is economy in this. For the attempt to see all things freshly and in detail, rather than as types and generalities, is exhausting, and among busy affairs 
practically out of the question. . .There is neither time nor opportunity for intimate 
acquaintance. Instead we notice a trait which marks a well known type, and fill in the rest of the picture by means of the stereotypes we carry about in our heads" ("Stereotypes; Codes 
and Their Enemies"). In other words, each of us has such limited direct experience of a complex world that we are forced to make assumptions, judgments, and decisions about it based 
almost entirely on a vast system of second-hand opinions (i. e. "the experts say"; or "it is generally maintained that"), "inevitably our opinions cover a bigger space, a longer reach of time, a greater number of things, than we can directly observe. They have, therefore, to be pieced together out of what others have reported and what we can imagine" (Lippmann). We depend on the truthfulness of those opinions in order to make the most of our decisions, yet rarely take the time to question them. Add to that condition a desire to establish an opinion as once and for all true in all ways (or, as Lippmann says, a mythology) so that decisions and judgments need not take extra time or bother, and a preference for comfort, and the 
result is a closed mind set on running its own preferred stereotypes unquestioningly.
       As a potential and actual perpetrator of damaging stereotypes in our society, film has hardly an equal. It appears and sounds as if it were "real" (Kolker) and therefore completely objective in the projection. The viewer of Griffith's Birth of a Nation or Battle at Elderbush Gulch has an experience of the events portrayed almost as if looking out on the action through a window at something that is actually taking place. Rarely is the viewer or critic of film made aware that the experience is a construction; a deliberately manipulated and mechanically devised experience. The skills of the actors are praised as good when they are believable, and are denounced as poor when they are not believable. If, as Simmons asserts in his introduction that the general target audience of film is "a spectator that is assumed to be white, male, and middle-class," and it is the objective of film to entertain that segment of the population, then it would be to the economic advantage of producers to make films that such spectators would pay to see. In both Griffith films, the heroes are white males. Sometimes a spunky female does something brave, such as the "Battle" scene in which the waif darts out and rescues the baby. Scenes such as this heighten to worth of the waif to be defended against savage Indians. The films reinforce the 
stereotype of the strong white male who defends civilized life against those who would destroy it, while soothingly ignoring the truth that the real victims of western civilization forced 
on the new world were the Native Americans. The film reassures its audience that they are morally "right", that (white and middle class) women and children are to be protected, and others who are not white males (the Indians) are morally "wrong." Any challenge to the privilege of that order and the stereotype supporting it exposes a structure the audience would prefer not to encounter if it is to be entertained, comforted and flattered. 
       In addition, the little puppy dogs in "Battle" serve multiple purposes in promoting negative stereotypes about the Indians. Not only are they cute and fuzzy, and therefore only a hardened savage would be so cruel as to kill and contemplate eating them, but they are also not allowed 
into the house. It struck me as odd that the uncle would refuse dogs house protection, since it is usually a fussy housekeeper who bars the dogs--considered to be dirty. But Griffith uses the 
dogs not only as a tool of sympathy for the helpless and childlike, but to emphasize the crudeness of Indians who would consider such a "filthy" animal as a dog a delicacy to eat. The 

film offers other examples too numerous to go into here. 
       Of course, this is where the trouble with stereotypes lies--the fact that this vast network of opinions constantly crossing and re-crossing with reinforcing agreement may be in error. And 
while an error in choosing the right coconut may have the relatively unimportant consequence that the faulty coconut is thrown out, errors in judgments about people have highly damaging consequences. Lippmann is certain that " . . . the need of economizing attention is so inevitable, that the abandonment of all stereotypes for a wholly innocent approach to experience would impoverish human life." However, the problem lies not so much with the stereotypes as with how we do, or do not manage them. As Lippmann states, "those preconceptions, unless education has made us acutely aware, govern deeply the whole process of perception." The key, it seems is not to eliminate stereotypes, but to constantly be alert to their defining characteristics--to know when one is or is not making a judgment based on a stereotype or an accurate analysis of what is true.