Portrayals of Whites Within the Media

For my final post, I have decided to examine the portrayals of whites within the media. After all, to be white is to belong to a racial group, despite the belief by many that discuss race is to exclude whites.

When discussing the issue of the reporting of criminal activity by the media, it must be acknowledged that you can find stories of white criminals (typically white men). The majority of the crimes you see reported regarding white men are more high-tech and of much higher “status” than the ones which you hear concerning minority criminal activity. By “higher status” I do not mean that I condone their behavior in any way. I simply mean that the white criminal activity that you see is usually that which resembles the scandals of Enron and Watergate. These crimes involved embezzlement on a grand scale, in contrast to the crimes involving drugs and gang activity which are characteristic portrayals of minorities.

In contrast to minority women who are often portrayed as hypersexualized, white women are characterized as “civilized” and “proper.” This is common in films which are more recent as well as those which are more dated. In the classic musical My Fair Lady—the film which is based on it—the overbearing, bossy, commanding bachelor Henry Higgins “shapes” the poor Eliza Doolittle (played by Audrey Hepburn), into what a woman of English high society was supposed to be. He teaches her how to speak as those in high society do and to walk with grace and poise, as well as how to address others. He actually wages that he will make her more civilized and presentable enough to attend a royal function. This portrayal of the “civilized” and “proper” white upper-class woman has become a paragon to many white women as well as many women of color. Hepburn’s character, after she becomes “civilized,” is a goal to be obtained to many women. She is the “superior” woman because she is accepted into high society and is even thought to be a Hungarian royal-born at the royal function that she attends.

Overall, the portrayals of whites within the media are vastly superior to those of minorities, even in the cases of criminal activity reporting. The inequities between these portrayals are exceedingly obvious to most people, but seem to be largely ignored.

White Actors and Actresses Portraying Racial Minorities

In many films, especially older films, the roles of racial minority characters have been played by white actors and actresses. This was particularly true of Native American characters in older Westerns. These roles of Native Americans that are played by white actors are infamous for their stereotypical portrayals. The speech that these actors use is disturbingly stereotypical with words that have been used in many films throughout the history of cinema. The mistakes made in regard to many of the cultural aspects of Native American life are also very disturbing. In many interviews with friends who are Native American concerning this problematic cinematic behavior, the common consensus is that the majority of the mainstream media in the past—and occasionally in the present—has misinterpreted many cultural traditions of Native American tribes as well as having done a great injustice by them.





A particularly famous instance of a white woman playing a minority character is in John Cromwell’s 1942 hit movie, Son of Fury. In this film, the famous Gene Tierney plays a woman native to a tropical island opposite the equally famous Tyrone Power. Tierney’s character is named Eve by Benjamin Blake (Power) when he “discovers” their tribe on the remote island. Eve is incredibly hypersexualized within the film, and spends the majority of her time trying to “get in Ben’s pants” as it were. She is also shown to be inferior to him through her use of simple sounds to communicate, whereas her male co-star speaks English.

While researching for this blog I was disheartened to find that so many minority roles have been played by white actors and actresses. I was even more disheartened when I watched these films and rarely found anything that was not stereotypical of the ethnicities of the characters. It is my hope that the media will no longer use white actors and actresses to play the parts of racial minorities and will, instead, find actors who are of the same race and ethnicity as the characters which they are portraying.

Character Focus: MadTV's "Miss Swan"

Anyone who is a fan of MadTV or has even heard of the show has probably heard of the character Miss Bunny Swan: an Asian character that was played by Alex Borstein, a white actress. Miss Swan (pictured at right) was the embodiment of almost every stereotype of Asian-American women. In the many skits in which Borstein played Miss Swan, audiences were subjected to the stereotypes of the Asian woman as unable to understand or speak English, hypersexualized, and as a bad driver.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWGsY8TcIqI

In every instance in which Miss Swan appears she speaks in a stereotyped voice style which has been generalized to all Asians. One particular example of this is the skit in which Miss Swan goes through the drive-thru at "McRonald's." In this skit (link above) she is trying to order food, but confuses the man working in the drive-thru when she cannot understand him. Her answers do not match his questions, and eventually he becomes fed up and the skit concludes with him simply throwing the food into her window. Her final words state that she has done this on purpose in order to get the free food. This instance portrays the stereotype that Asian immigrants to the U.S. are either too lazy to learn to speak "proper" English or do not learn "proper" English in order to manipulate situations. The latter of these two scenarios is not as widespread as the first, but in my dealings with others, I have often heard people say that Asians really can speak "proper" English, but they choose not to in order to be annoying. This stereotype was popularized in the film Dude, Where's My Car?, which starred Ashton Kutcher and Sean William Scott as two stoners out to find Kutcher's car. While in search of the missing car, the pair go through a drive-thru Chinese restaurant where the employee in the drive-thru keeps repeating "and then..." to the point at which Kutcher become so flustered that he starts smashing the drive-thru speaker. This stereotype became immortalized in that moment, and has been further perpetuated by the endless "and then..." jokes told by those who have seen the film. Miss Swan's manipulation of the "McRonald's" drive-thru employee is also a way in which this--quite frankly--annoying stereotype has been perpetuated.

Below is the link to another clip in which Miss Swan is portrayed as lacking "proper" English skills. The skit portrays Miss Swan as a 1-900 phone-sex worker. A man calls the number, and Miss Swan speaks in her stereotypical Asian accent. She proceeds to confuse the man and aggravate him. This portrayal also shows the hypersexualization of the Miss Swan character. Rarely would one see a portrayal of a white woman as a phone-sex operator on television. While the situation is meant to be comedic, it does subconsciously reinforce the stereotype of Asian women as hypersexualized due to the fact that Miss Swan is "talking dirty" to the man on the other end of the phone call.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF4RyB50Xus

Alex Borstein's portrayals of Miss Swan are another way in which the stereotypes surrounding Asian women are demonstrated within the media. While the show MadTV is known as a comedic skit show, it is easy to see that it is a constant reinforcer of the stereotypes and, therefore, the marginalization of Asian women as well as many other minority groups.