steriotypes

In Mr Smiths lesson we looked at the way people where represented through steriotypes and why steriotypes can be useful.
In the comic Tin tin black people are represented to have big lips and lazy because Tin tin says 'my dog could work faster than you'.
Steriotypes are useful because

1. they help the audience to make make a judgment on people to relate to e.g. in there are people dressed up in suits and ties and have guns you would assume that they are gangster's.
2. Steriotypes can help the audience relate to the characters.
3. Steriotyping is a shortcut to knowledge.

The problems with steriotyping is that

1. you overlook the individual
2. place people in groups
3. qualities often exaggerated which leads to a curative

In 1979 Tessa Perkins found out that steriotypes were

• not always negative e.g. french were good cooks.
• not always minorities or less powerful e.g. upper class twits
• they can be held about ones own group e.g. teenagers are always on computer games
• not rigid or unchangeable e.g. cloth cap workers of the 1950's because the 1980's consumerist home-owner who holidays in Spain'.
• not always false e.g. media studies teachers tend to be liberal/ left wing in their politics

Leon Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance argues that we resist adjusting our attitudes unless faced with overwhelming evidence against it. Leon Festinger believed that we seek out conformation of our thoughts/ beliefs. This links with pluralism audience theory which suggests that you reject things you don't believe in.

The steriotypes that we will use in our film will be gangster suit and ties and violent. They will also be deeling drugs and have guns. This fits the steriotype of gangsters because this is what you expect to see when you are watching a gangster film.