STEREOTYPES IN MUSIC

After learning about stereotypes this week, it made me think about music, and how strong stereotypes are in music. For every genre of music, there is a stereotype that is attached. For example, A country singer is a white, blonde, thin girl from the mid-west. A rapper is an African American gangster male who wears baggy clothing. A pop singer is a not-so-bright white girl. The list goes on for a while.

Why do all genres of music have to have a stereotype attached? Like for some reason a black male cannot be a country singer, or a white female cannot be a rapper. It seems to me that if that person either wants to rap or sing country, it shouldn't matter about their race or their gender.

There are a few acceptions to these stereotypes, however. These people include Eminem; a white male rapper, Nikki minaj; a black female rapper, N'Sync; a white male pop group, etc.




However, just as stereotypes of women are used in everyday life; they are also used the same way in music through music videos. These include using women sexually in videos. "Video vixens" dance in an extremely provacative manner on the sets made to look like clubs in barely there clothing. After learning about stereotypes this week, I notices that Latinas are treated in a similar manner through their stereotypes. With the stereotpes that they are "lovers" and "sensual and sexy" all the time.

Overall, there are many stereotypes in music that say that an artist has to look a certain way in order to sing a certain genre, with only a few exceptions. Even in music videos there are stereotypes of women that are used. Luckily, he music industry is changing, and different genders ans races are being able to adapt and breakthrough the different stereotypes.

BOYZ IN THE INEQUALITY HOOD

Watching "Boys in the Hood" in class brought up a lot of issues about race and gender. One of the first things that I noticed about the film was that equality of treatment was not the same for their community as other communities. The police officers assumed that because of where they lived that they were up-to-no-good and treated the people in that neighborhood differently than they would treat the people of a more expensive neighborhood. The police are supposed to be the eyes of the law, but they were not being just in any way, and they were abusing their power to discriminate. The police are supposed to be there to protect EVERYONE. Not just the rich people, or some people. The policemen showed up an hour after Trey's father had called the police about a burglar and they pulled over Ricky and Trey for no reason, and pointed a gun at Trey's face. I doubt that those police officers would do that to people who lived in a more expensive community.

Another point that I noticed in the movie that shows the lack of equality of treatment was the way that the men treated the women. They called them extremely demeaning names and said something like,"You'll never learn anything listening to a bitch." Portraying that women are stupid, so don't bother talking to them.

When Trey was younger and in school when he lived at his mom's house, I noticed that all of the students were black, and the teacher was white. This shows a little bit of the white messiah. That supposedly the white teacher has to save the black children by teaching them as if a black teacher could not?




I have seen movies where there is no white messiah. These include "Remember the Titans", where the main coach brings the team together as a family, "Waste Deep", where the father has to save his son from being held hostage, and "Notorious", the true story of how Notorious B.I.G. became a successful rapper.

However, overall, there is just too much race and gender discrimination in movies when there should be none. "Boyz in the Hood" did pass the bechdel test.

Ocean's Eleven...... men

Earlier this week, I watched the movie Ocean's Eleven. I've seen this movie a few times before, however, after learning about female and male characters and actors in class, I saw the movie differently. The fist thing that I noticed was that this movie would definately not pass the bechdel test. There is one women named Tess (Julia Roberts) that is the only female character in the film with a name.

This film is about a group of males who decide that they want to rob 3 major casinos in Las Vegas. This aspect made me wonder why there are a lot of movies with this plot about robbing a company. However, it is almost always a male or group of males that are doing it. As if for some reason women would not be smart enough or capable enough to rob a company. It's not that I think women should be able to rob places, I just think that women should be able to get some of the fun roles in movies too.

The only actress that I can think of at the moment that does majority action roles in Angelina Jolie with Wanted, Tomb Raider, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. However, she is also usually the only female character, and is still seen as a sexual object rather than anything else.



There are some movies where women do get the badass roles and majority of the characters are women. An example is Charlie's Angels. But then agin they are CHARLIE'S angels. They cannot just be three women fighting crime, they have to be three women fighting crime agaist who Charlie says they will.

Overall, I guess I would just like to see a movie where women were the badass characters that didn't listen to anyone, just like the men get to do. Just because they are women doesn't mean that they have to choose between playing the role of a flapper or a perfect housewife in a movie.

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