Stereotyping in Society

Stereotyping in Society

I think it is pretty hard to go through a week without experiencing at least two or three incidents where someone or a group of people is being sterotyped. Whether it comes from jokes, television, comics, or just hearing people talk about other people, stereotyping is around all the time.

The first example of stereotyping that I witnessed comes from the television show "That 70s Show." At least every episode the "crew," or group of friends always hang out, and they have a foreign exchange student for a friend. They don't know what country he's from but they always make fun of foreigners on the show. They crack jokes about him floating over on a raft to the United States and always make references to him being from different countries that he's not from just because his skin is dark. The jokes are funny and they aren't supposed to hurt the character's feelings, but they are very stereotypical.

I saw a commercial the other day that was an advertisement for using protection during sex to help the fight against the spread of AIDS. The commercial starts out talking about how African Americans represent the leaders of sports because they have the best basketball players, leaders in baseball, and have the fastest track runners. Then at the end of the commercial they say that they are also leading the population of the United States in being diagnosed with the AIDS virus.

When I saw the commercial I didn't really know where it was going and it is good that it ended with a serious message, but I didn't really agree with the way they presented it. It is probably true that African Americans make up most of some sports, but they didn't have to make it sounds like African Americans are superior to white people when it comes to sports.

The third example that I witnessed was from the show Seinfeld. It was the episode where the character Elaine met a new boyfriend and she didn't know what race he was. The guy was slightly dark complected and a different race than white was expected so Elaine kept on taking him to different restaurants trying to figure out what race he was. She thought he was Mexican so she would make references to Mexico and ask him if he wanted to eat Mexican food.

The guy ended up being a white person and Elaine was disappointed because she thought