Media Post 4

When I was younger I watched the Disney channel a lot. While thinking for ideas for my media portfolio, I thought of shows that I used to watch as a younger child. One show that came to mind was called “The Proud Family”. It can pretty much be summed up as a middle class African American family’s lives. During episodes we see Penny’s life as a young teenager, her father’s life as a producer of snacks, Trudy (Penny’s mom) who is a veterinarian and her grandmother. There are problems with this show, on any episode there are constant reminders of the African American stereotype. For example Brainy Asians, spoiled Hispanics, and Ghetto-talking, rap-loving African Americans and white kids who wanna-be. I managed to find an episode on you-tube just titled “The Proud Family”. On this particular episode Mr. Proud (Penny’s dad) has to ship out 15000 crates of his snacks and he freaks out because he thought that the paper only said 1500. It turns out that the paper said 15000 he just spilled his food all over it and covered up a zero. In his factory working for him are a monkey and a child operating the fork-lift. When the child walks off, Mr. Proud has to try and work the fork lift himself and is incompetent to do so and ends up backing up and knocking crates onto his only other worker the monkey who he calls “Mr. Chips”. The next scene takes place in Trudy’s vet waiting room, where Penny is asked to answer the phones for her mother while she is with the patients. Penny’s friend Dijonay slams open the door and says “Penny do you want to go to the mall?” Penny replies with “No I have to answer the phone for my mom while she is busy” Dijonay continues with “Well that’s great now you can watch my little siblings while I go”. Enter all of Dijonay’s loud, wreck less, and uncontrollable little brothers and sisters. Of course there is a lot of yelling in this scene and slang also, there is also a disregard for all the other people in the office. Mariah Carey is a guest on this episode and Dijonay walks up to her and at first thinks she is Oprah. After recognizing who she is, the chaos gets worse. The scene ends with Mariah Carey sneaking out a back door of the vet clinic with what she thinks is her pet monkey (but it really got switched). In so many ways can this episode or any episode I have seen of this show can be applied to what we are working with in class. First I will start with Ethnic Notions I know that I refer to this movie a lot, but the stereotypes presented in that movie may not be presented the same way as in the past, but are still around in our society. First Mr. Proud can be considered a “Sambo”, he is so unbelievably hard to take seriously, he is loud, lazy, he thinks he shouldn’t have to cook or clean, and he is disrespectful. Although this may have not been mentioned in the movie, how about the stereotype that blacks are loud and obnoxious? In the movie it talked about how blacks were considered to be three things. One, ugly, two, savage, and three happy servants and with all of these things leading to total distortion of the black image and sending the subliminal message that all blacks are grotesque. The grandmother (although not present in that scene) is a “Mammie” when she is around, she is the boss even though she is in her son’s house (she can be shown hitting him upside the head at least twice on every episode), and she has no sexual appeal what so ever. I also want to tie this show in with Johnson Chapter 6, where on page 80 he states “In the end, the default position is to adopt the dominant version of reality and act as though it’s the only one out there”. I think that this show has adapted to the black stereotype of today, the slang, rap loving, loud and uncontrollable African American child. It is not the only option; I myself know many people, teenagers, and children etc. that do not act in this manner. I can honestly say this show is degrading. I found reviews for this show on http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0293737/usercomments one reviewer wrote:
“The second reason is because of its racism and negative stereotypes. African-Americans are portrayed as being, cool, slang spewing, hip-hop lovers. White people are portrayed as being nerdy, ugly people who are "wannabes". They try to be cool, or should I say "off the hizzy" (or however you say it), but ultimately are treated like crap by others. Asian-Americans are portrayed as being people who are obsessed with working hard, and learning karate. Latin-Americans are portrayed as being rich and full of themselves. I live in Toronto, which I think is a fairly multi-cultural city, and I do not know ANYONE who talks using slang terms like "off the heezy" or "in the hiz-ouse", black or white. Also portrayed by negative stereotypes are males and fathers in particular. The fathers are portrayed as being incompetent, self- centered idiots who watch football all the time they can, and have zero respect from there children. Other males in the show are portrayed as being sex-maniacs, wimps, or arrogant losers who think they can beat anyone at anything (but always end up losing to females). The one homosexual character is portrayed as a loser who has been excluded by everyone, except the girls who use him as a fashion designer, and treat him like crap anyway. I probably would not be so annoyed/angry if this show was not a kid’s show.”
I think that for my media portfolio this is a good item because it shows how children are subjected to the ideas of inferiority and stereotyping interestingly enough, not just black stereotypes but also Asian, Hispanic, White, Latin, and even homosexual stereotyping. It is important that we don’t teach people that stereotypes are an acceptable idea of multiculturalism which is the preservation of different cultures or cultural identities within a unified society, as a state or nation.
Episode at http://youtube.com/watch?v=gNatoWfLPMw&feature=related