Portrayal of African Americans in the Media

One group affected by their portrayal in the media is the African American community. Quite often one can see the stereotype of the black person within movies, television shows, and within the news. African American men are portrayed as ‘gang-bangers’ and criminals more often than white men as well as men of many other minority groups. This trend is slowly changing within television and film with Latino men making up a growing percentage of these portrayals, but black men are still the most detrimentally affected group through their portrayal as criminals by the media.
One only has to pick up a copy of a movie with a gang in it to observe this stereotyping of black men. Movies such as John Singleton’s Boyz N the Hood and Phil Joanou’s Gridiron Gang directly depict such forms of gang violence. While the film strives to bring the detrimental effects of gang violence to the attention of not only the black community but also the rest of the general public, one cannot dismiss the fact that it is one of the few films of its kind. Another point to consider is that there are even fewer movies that depict this type of violence within white communities or other ethnic communities. Other films such as Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood, directed by Paris Barclay and written by Phil Beauman and Shawn and Marlon Wayans, make light of gang violence within the black community. The film exploits many stereotypes of the black community such as perpetual gang violence among males, black women having multiple children from multiple men, and underage parents in a comic fashion.
Other ethnic groups are portrayed in films depicting gang violence as well. The number of movies featuring gangs within the Latino culture is on the rise. Films such as Blood in, Blood Out, directed by Taylor Hackford, and Michael Pressman’s Boulevard Nights depict aspects of the violence in Latino gangs and the outcomes of such violence. Despite the existence of such movies, the fact remains that the media continues to focus more on the gangs that exist within the African American community than any other group.
Movies featuring white males involved in gang violence are relatively rare in number when compared to the number of films featuring men of color involved in gang violence. The gangs depicted in these films are usually those of Neo-Nazis, such as the gangs in Tony Kaye’s American History X, the British film This is England by Shane Meadows, and James Merendino’s SLC Punk (though there was only a short segment featuring this Neo-Nazi gang in the latter). Rarely are the white gangs in these films depicted to be committing violence on the same scale as gangs with members of ethnic minorities.
One cannot dispute the fact that, while gang violence is becoming a major aspect in films today, gangs within ethnic communities receive much more attention from the media than those within white communities. While the fact is that more gangs within minority groups exist, should this mean that the media should choose to focus on them without much regard to gangs within white communities and the dangers they present?