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Representations of people of color as uncivilized, unintelligent or as non…
Representations of people of color as uncivilized, unintelligent or as non human them as being different from white people ultimately led to the acceptance of stereotypes about people of color.
In the 17th century and into the 18th century white people used Black face in movies and shows to protray Black people in a way that made them appear to be unintelligent and aggressive. They would juxtapose these characters by putting with a white character who was the opposite of this protayal and thus creating an us vs them situation.
The film The Birth of a Nation was a movie that makes the Ku Klux Klan heroes while demonizing Black men. In this film there were white men in black face depicting black men as unintelligent and sexually aggressive toward white women.
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The Birth of a Nation was not the only film to use Black face during this time. A show called Topsy and Eva depicted two children, one black and one white. The children were played by two sisters, one in black face and the other playing the white child. Topsy, the "black" character was often portrayed as unintelligent and especially compared to Eva. By doing this the creators of the show create definitions of how a black person acts in comparison to a white person.
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In the early 2000s there were a lot of movies in which a white person would be put in the setting of an "urban" environment to either save the people living in the hood or to learn a lesson about race and class differences. These movies function to show that there is a difference between white people and people of color. This is also seen in movies where they take a person of color out of the hood and put them in a white neigborhood.
The film Bring It On: All or Nothing follows Britanny, a white cheerleader, as she has to deal with leaving her school in a white suburban neighborhood to an urban neighborhood where she goes to school with a people of color. The school is very different from her other school and the movie makes it obvious. One of the reasons it is so different is because the people are her new school are people of color.
[Bring It On All or Nothing Purse Scene] (https://youtu.be/2FTvKM__hME) In this scene, the Black man is harrassing the main chaaracter, a white woman, and the Black woman is being the mean angry Black woman. It is apparent that they are different in the way that they talk and when Brittany points out that the other girl's bag is fake.
In Freedom Writers a movie known for using the white savior trope is about a white woman going into a neighborhood and teaching at an underfunded high school. Through the stories that she reads from their journals, she learns more and more about their trauma. She struggles as she comes from a world so different from theirs.
It is clear that they are trying to show the difference between white people and people of color and not just having it be about the neighborhood because the white student is show being afraid of the people of color and not fitting in with them. It is about race and a representation of how there is an us vs them mentality.
The movie Avatar is a good example of people of color represented as "alien" and not human. This movie is a representation of colonialism, but even in representing what it was like for the Natives they use big blue aliens. The main characters in this movie are played by Zoe Saldana, a Black woman. Rather than create a movie where the people of color are real people, the writers choose to use aliens as a metaphor. Thus furthering the idea that people of color are not white and in a way, not even human
Zoe Saldana also starred in the movie Guardians of the Galaxy, where she once again played an alien character. This was before Black Panther was a movie so there was few if any characters of color in the Marvel superhero movies, so the only woman of color in the marvel universe was a woman who was a green alien.
Even the movie Princess and the Frog, where Disney had their first Black princess, she is not human for the majority of the film. While Tiana makes a great princess, it is very easy to lose sight of the fact that she is a Black woman because she is a frog for most of the movie. Also her prince a man of color is also a frog for most of the movie. Most of the character voiced by actors of color are animals or evil in this movie, while the one white character stays human the whole time. Although it's not as obvious I think that it furthers the idea of people of color of being not human.
Humor in shows is often used to show the people of color as unintelligent or different from white people. Especially when the person of color on the show is always the butt of the joke.
In The Simpsons is also an example of a show where there is a character of color whose race is a part of the joke of the show. The character Apu is an Indian immigrant who runs a convenience store and his catchphrase is "Thank you, come again." His accent is what makes the catchphrase funny and his job also follows the stereotype of Indians running convenience stores.
In the show Modern Family Sofia Vergara's character is basically centered on the fact that she is a latina and her first language is not English and so her accent is really thick. It is often used as comedic relief throughout the show. However, the joke is that she is different from the white characters on the show who speak english "correctly."
In the movie Bringing Down the House an older white man meets a woman online who turns out to be a Black woman who just escaped prison and convinces him to take her case. The joke of the movies is how different they are. This woman is the stereotypical Black person and the man is someone who is supposed to be sophisticated and very different from her.
In recent years we have seen, especially in sci-fi genre films and caroons and shows that when there is a representation of people of color they are aliens or a different color. This furthers the idea that people of color are not human and therefore "others" them.
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https://youtu.be/HU_BueZZNd8?t=74 start from 1:14. In this clip the students of color are protrayed as aggressive and bitter while the teacher is protayed as wise. showing the differences between them.
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https://youtu.be/38UZWDQBeVQ
This clip shows Apu receiving fake identification and then going on to act American. The joke is funny because he is not American and his attempt of being American is the joke.
https://youtu.be/Eda4jdNWxTM This is the trailer for the movie and even the voice over mentions that she is a "soul sista" making it clear that the joke is she is not what he expected because she is black and not white.
