MEDIA PORTRAYAL IN MUSIC VIDEOS

After learning about disability this week, and learning how it is stereotyped in the media, I started to think about music videos, and how disability is portrayed in that form of media if it is at all. At first I could not think of any music videos that showed any form of disability at all. I tried to find music videos on youtube with a disabled person in it, but the closest I could come to were music videos about people with cancer. An example was Rascal Flatts- Sarah Beth. However, I did come across a video of a girl who is deaf, but can sing with songs through sign language. I found this to be very interesting and pretty cool that someone could do that.
(The video would not upload for some reason, so here is the URL)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1EcmvdVnUI
Although I was a little upset that there were no videos that I could find that did not feature an able-bodied person, it got me to thinking about other aspects of our class that are portrayed in videos. The first one that came to mind is sexuality and gender. In Christina Aguilera’s video for Beautiful, there is a gay couple and a transgendered man among other issues. This was the only video that I could find that really dealt with any issues of race and gender. I did find some from Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Christina Aguilera’s new video that contain some gay and lesbian content, but not dealing with issues to help gays and lesbians, just about people at the clubs and at parties. If it is so difficult to find a video like this for the able-bodied, I doubt that there is a music video that deals with homosexuality and disability in one. After trying to find videos for both of these issues, I definitely noticed that there is a huge lack of portrayal for both of these issues in the media, and especially in music and their videos. It makes you think how are disabled people supposed to break free of their stereotypes of the sweet innocent, noble warrior, saintly sage, tragic victim, and the obsessive avenger if they are not given examples of anything else, and not given examples of being what is considered "normal"?

I also typed in disability in images on google, and the first picture that showed up was of a person in a wheel chair that was blurred out so that you could not see who the person was. This makes it seem like people with disability do not have identities and that they do not have personalities. The picture gives off the impression and feeling that being in a wheelchair is depressing.
After this disturbing picture, I also saw one that can make people with disability feel like they are still capable of anything and are still just as much a part of life as they would be if they were not disabled. The boy in the wheelchair in the picture is holding a basketball and standing with other able-bodied kids. Obviously portraying that being in a wheelchair cannot slow him down.

Hopefully there will be a much more broad portrayal of sexuality and disability in media in the near future.

Crash Stereotypes

"Crash" has been one of my favorite movies ever since it was released in 2004. However, after learning about stereotypes, and how hard it is for people to beak out of their stereotypes, I see the movie much differently than I had before. I noticed that a lot of the stereotypes that we talked about in class, read about in our readings, and watched in class are in "Crash." On eexample is how a latina is expected to be sexy all the time.... Well in the movie, the latina character does sleep with her police partner, reinforcing that this negative stereotype is true. Another example would be in the beginning of the movie where Sandra Bullock's character cuddles to her husband as they were walking to their car because she saw a black man, played be Ludacris. Ludacris' character points out what she did and says that white people are scared of black people, even though there are more white people than black people around where they were. This reinforces the stereotype that all black men are scary. Another example of stereotypes in this movie was when the Persian family was mistaken for being middle eastern, and someone burglarized their store because they thought that they were idle eastern. Also, the man whose store was burglarized accused the hispanic man, who was fixing the lock on the back door of the store, that he was cheating him out of money when he tried to tell the store owner that he needed a new door. Also, he fixed the locks on Sandra Bullock's character's home doors. He overheard her saying that she was scared that he would sell one of his "homies" their new house key, and that she wanted the locks changed again by someone else in the morning. This says that hispanics are expected not to be trusted for some reason. Another example is when the Police Officer played by Matt Dillon saves the woman from the car, portraying him as a white messiah, even though earlier in the movie, he boarderline molested the same woman that he saved. Another stereotype in the movie is when the younger police officer in the film, gives a black man a ride. When the man was reaching or something out of his pocket, the off duty officer assumed that he was grabbing a gun, probably because of his race, and shot him. When all he was grabbing was a statue of mary that the police officer also had on the dash of his car.
Some people i the film, like Ludacris' character, wanted to break free from his stereotype, but was having a difficult time doing so. He almost was stereotypical of other black men, and assumed that they were ll doing something bad. Another example of a character in this film trying to break free from his stereotype was the black police officer played by Don Cheadle. His character was trying to break free from his mothers' stereotype of him. She believed that he was the bad son, and that her other son was the good son. Cheadle's character filled his mother's refrigerator up with fresh food, and when she saw it, she assumed that it was her other son, who had not been home for years. Terrence Howard's character tried to be his stereotype. He was a successful black man in the entertainment industry. He was tired of being pushed around by the police, and instead of trying to conform, he yelled at the police, and would not listen to them.
There are so many stereotypes in this movie that it is difficult to remember all of them. However, thinking about it now, I do not think that stereotyping people was the intention of the movie. I think that the film was trying to portray how we all use stereotypes all the time with races different from our own, no matter who are what we are. We all are stereotypical of each other, and probably of our own race also.

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.