These following questions are about the Taken [2008] trailer above.
List the different people and groups represented in the trailer and whether it is a dominant or alternative representation and why?
- White girls
- White middle-aged men
- foreign men
- terrorists
- Americans
What stereotypes can you identify in the trailer?
- The white male hero
- vulnerable females
- hysterical females
- foreign criminals
Why might the Taken trailer offend or alienate certain groups?
- The depiction of foreigners as 'terrorists' or antagonists for the white male hero could perhaps act as a dominant representation of foreigners in the media and could possibly add to the ideology that all foreign immigrants are criminals/ have unethical beliefs. Due to the current social climate of America especially, their thoughts on immigration under the trump presidency, this could be detrimental to their roles in society through an infamous media depiction. The alienation of foreign people within society is already extremely prominent therefore this can be argued as just a conformity to the dominant representation of eastern Europeans in media.
Why do mainstream film and television texts such as Taken so often use stereotypes?
- Mainstream film and television texts use stereotypes as a matter of ease, they quickly communicate backstory and intention to the majority demographic of their audiences and ensure a lack of controversy in their depiction. However, the use of stereotypes in the mainstream media could be argued that it's actually oppressing part of the demographic who are underrepresented or misrepresented within the media- both for satirical entertainment value or for factual scapegoating of particular social groups. Therefore, mainstream texts use stereotypes to be quick, easy and orthodox from the majorities perspective.
No comments:
Post a Comment