Stereotypes In Film

In our Western Society race and ethnicity play a huge role in determining the type of films released in the United States. Films are tailored to attract a specific audience. Filmmakers know that if a certain ethnicity or race sees himself or herself in the film or feels like they could relate to a certain film more people of that background are going to pay to watch the movie. Most of the films made in the United States take a person race and the types of stereotypes connected to this race and put it in their film. For example, the film “Crossing Over”, the film has a lot of different ethnicities, but even then they still fall in the stereotypes. The Latina actress Mireya is an immigrant trying to make a living and gets deported. Taslima the girl from Bangladesh is seen as a
The film is filled with violence and stereotypes of how our society views different ethnicities. The film portrays an African American man as a thief or gangster. This film is telling us that Black people are bad people, which is what society has taught us to believe. If this were a Caucasian man playing this role it would not attract the publics attention because in their opinion white people are good people. People love to see violence on television and therefore these roles must be fulfilled with people our society considers to be violent. An example of a recently released film would be “Straight Out of Compton.” This movie shows how a rapper worked his way up to stardom. With many inspiring rapper in our society this movie was tailored towards the minority community since most rapper are black or Hispanic/Latino. Filmmakers create films based on what is popular in our society or the current trend. That is why I believe that ethnicity and race have a lot to do with the types of films made and released in the United States