blog 6

Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay

Grape Soda – dark color represents African American

Black people in the “hood” – dangerous people

            In the movie, Harold and Kumar 2 Escape from Guantanamo Bay, there was a scene where racial stereotypes was displayed. When Harold and Kumar accidently left their troubles behind in a small town, police showed up to investigated. The officer that was in charge of the case was a racist person. Even though Harold and Kumar is a Chinese American and an Indian person, he assumed that the big black guy he see in the town is the criminal instead. As we learned from media, African American are the one that creates most of the crime rate. While the tall and big African American was the one that called the police, he was accused of being a friend to the escaper than a witness. Without any doubts he was put into questions. He started pointing his gun at the African American which created a dramatic scene. He thought the African American was trying to help Harold and Kumar but in reality he is the one that called the police and a witness. While being point at by a gun, he started to panic and this is where the racist stereotypes comes in. The officer went to his car and took out a can of grape juice. I think in a African American perspective, grape soda represents them because of its dark color. It’s a racial stereotype that African Americans love grape soda. The agent was using a stereotype about African Americans craving grape juice/drink like it’s a drug. The agent was talking to a black witness and thought the witness was holding something back, so he was trying to bribe the witness with the drink. As if the man wouldn’t be able to resist the juice and so would talk. As the police officer tried to get more information out of him, he opened the lid and started pouring it on the floor. THIS IS AN ACT OF RACIST. Being as an officer for the anti terrorism department, he’s very sensitive to dangerous people and I guess his sense to black people are one of them. But, as he pours the grape juice on to the floor, he drew all the black people attention and was being hate on now. It’s not insulting when you realize it was a joke at the way the government and people in general believe in stereotypes, and look like idiots in the process.

blog 4

Stereotypes play an important role in today’s society and particularly in propaganda. If we turn on the television, most shows or commercial is full of racial stereotypes. TV shows such as the Simpsons is a good example. It is packed with stereotypes within its broadcast of only half an hour. Since this shows been broadcasting for years, it contains a large number of audience that watch the show daily as it is being show during prime time. Characters such as Apu is discriminated and stereotyped in this show. He is characterized as an Indian immigrant, who prays to Ganesh and have a highly noticeable accent. This is a stereotype which is observed by young children and is perceived as being humorous. Having such stereotypes effect in a children’s show, sooner or later they started applying this knowledge of what they see in TV towards those they meet in real life. Viewers of this show believe this information is to be completely accurate. Due to the power of the media and what ever is shown on television, we quickly absorbed what we see and use it in real life. Also, in today’s society, most of the songs we listen to are very stereotypes. For example, the song Stupid Girls by PINK is filled with stereotypes lyrics. “Stupid girl, stupid girls, stupid girls, maybe if I act like this, the guy will call me back. The more popular the song is, the more impact it will have on the listener. For a popular song like Stupid Girls, it is teaching girl to be stupid so they can get guys. If we were to think logically, this will make no sense. By being perceived by it and listening to it over and over again in radio, internet, or even in stores, the effect will hit us sooner or later making us believe that stupid girls do get guys in the end. Songs and commercials with African American people in it are very stereotypes. When a lot of rapper said they are from the “hoods” or that their videos portray so people get it in their head that every African American person sold drugs or something. Rap music is mostly portrayed on the black culture. When people hear their songs, they expect black people to have the same issues that the rapper rap about. The music video Candy Shop by 50cents shows how they portray women as inferior to men. “Take me to the candy shop, ima let you lick my lollipops” is one of the lyrics from the show and it clearly shows how they treat the women. The video is consists of 50cents himself and hot and beautiful women everyone. Having the only male in it and singing that particular lyrics, it makes us, the people who see or listen to his music video will now think that women are inferior to guy and how they will get a treat if they does what they are told by men. With so many racial stereotypes out there, we absorbed the knowledge from it and been using it in our daily life already and that’s why our society today is so corrupted by simple humorous acts in commercials. 

blog 3

In this ad, they are trying to promote the alcohol skyy vodka by making it seems like a high class drink. They use a city life at night background to purposely extract the viewer's view from the bottle of alcohol and make them focus on the background and other aspects instead. The city background contributes to an impression of the upper class. For example, they use nice furniture, elegant interior design to bring out the beauty of the logo instead of the drink itself. The ads creates an image of guys being able to get sexy ladies by drinking skyy. The point of this ads was not only to advertise the alcohol itself but to give us the image of how they can transform a bottle of alcohol into a beauty. If we look closer at the bottle, there's nothing special about it. It's just blue with the name SKYY on it. But with all other details around it, it make us focus on it instead. By looking at the lady and gentlemen and the room they are in, they portray a view of luxurious. As I said before of how guys can attract ladies by drinking it, it clearly shows that drinking the beauty of this alcohol makes you sexy yourself as well. By combining all these details together they turn a regular drink into a luxurious and elegant drink. If they didn't advertise this ad, skyy vodka would be a normal drink. People would just drink it like normal alcohol. They wouldn't care if it's high class or whatsoever. If we were to do a survey on how many people like skyy vodka, Im pretty sure the results won't be that high. But, once this ad comes out to public, the standard of a normal bottle of alcohol will rise to the top making it a luxurious drink. Imagine how a regular bottle of alcohol turns into one of the leading sell of alcohol by just one ad. That would be pretty crazy.

blog 2

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=abercrombie&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1156&bih=618 ---- abercrombie models

 As I was looking for some race and gender ads, I came across the models from Abercrombie and Hollister. I would say that they choose model based on race or gender. Also, from their physical body. In a way or so, you could count that as discrimination.  It is also one of the most well known companies of employment discrimination in America in recent years, at least from my perspective. It targets late teen and twenty-something crowd but apparently the clothing chain prefers this crowd to be white and male. I remember hearing from my friend that there was this one brown girl who applied for a modeling job at Abercrombie but didn’t get hired. The reason for it was because of her veil that she wears. I guess its part of her religion. Due to the fact that she can’t model because she’s wearing a veil is an act of discrimination to her and to her religion. There were even some cases where workers filed a class action lawsuit against the company for being racist discrimination. They felt that the company assigned them specific tasks and areas to work in based on their ethnicity.  Another victim was an African American college student where she was assigned cleaning and other menial jobs. She was fired soon after. In my opinion this is based on race discrimination, just like how they didn’t hired the brown girl who have a veil on her because it’s religion. If you look at all the models for Abercrombie, majority of them are blond, with slim body. Some might say it’s because of sales business so they have to pick blond models but they can’t avoid the fact that they are being discriminating to other races. Because the world view social identity as discrimination, company like Abercrombie decided to follow it and hired potential people that can earn money for them.  It’s also a part of stereotype where they hired people because of race and gender. They most likely hired white blonde males because of their slim body that other can’t attain. Take Asian for example, different races are born with different body features which makes the blond have a higher advantages than the Asian. In the end I think, company like this affect our social identity of who we are. They discriminates our race on certain jobs and even if one accepted one, they are forced to become what they company want them to be.