With all this talk about Television, I often wonder why we
do not look at other parts of media in a critical way as well. Now I am not saying that no one has
done this type of critical response before, but why is it not as mainstream as
other critiques. The two mediums
that come to mind the most are radio and comic books.
Comic books have featured some of the worst depictions of
minorities over their lifetime.
Images of war enemies, women, and people of color had a hard time
appearing in comics. During WWII
Japanese soldiers were depicted as disgusting beasts. Women since the 1940s have been over sexualized being placed
in the tightest suits and in the most awkward body positions that do not make
anatomical sense. And more
often than not, African Americans were featured as either living in the poorest
neighborhoods, or the villains.
Radio is also a culprit of poor representation. In the old days many Disk Jockeys were
hired because of their ability to sound like a certain group of people. The companies want to hire these people
to sound like minorities so they would not have to hire any minorities in the
first place but still appeal to them.
That coupled with the idea that many of the voice actors in the days of
radio plays were white yet voicing colored actors. Even today there are a lot
of stereotype voices in radio commercials.
I think one of the reasons for this is the idea of the
people who were part of the leading class were running these mediums. But I think what is a bummer is how we
have not questioned these things.
If we had questioned these representations in the past what would our problems
of representations be like today.
I guess that is the great thing about this class. It taught me that things need to be
questioned. Even something as
innocent looking as the Christmas episode of Tom and Jerry.
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