“But you should just be happy you’re being represented!”
Any time I or my friends complains about our genders/sexualities/races/religions being represented negatively or as a stereotype in the media. It makes me feel like people in power and the majority viewing at home will never understand that it feels like it takes a hundred positive messages and portrayals to erase the negative impact or reinforcement of negative stereotypes or misinformation caused by one offensive portrayal.
Erasing negative messages or getting people to question their previously held conceptions is an uphill battle. Reinforcing those beliefs is easy, lazy and dangerous.
January 1st, 2013 | Comments (1)
Often nowadays, entertainment media like to give us marginalized group characters who are mixes of the positive and the crappily stereotypical. That way, they have deniability and can blunt criticism, and even make it harder to criticize those negative, stereotypical attributes and actions.
Which doesn’t mean they don’t also burden us with straight up stereotypical characters, too.
07.01.2013, 4:50 am