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
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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.
1 comment:
Its interesting to look back at all the action movie stars. You can see that the majority of action stars in American main stream movies are almost all men who are of European descent. Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Steven Seagal, Keanu Reevs, Val Kilmer and Clint Eastwood to name a few. In all there movies the are portrayed as invincible heroes that have an endless amount of bullets and have lethal weapons for hands. If you see a black or Latino man as a action star they are usually portrayed as men with attitude who do what ever they want. Its interesting to see the contrast.
Chris Selix
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