Combatting the Stereotypes: Together, we can make a difference!

We can make all the difference in combatting stereotypes. We developed this inspirational video that will soon make its debut at future presentations and lectures.

Native American women

Like any other cultural minority, Native Americans are traditionally portrayed as biologically and morally inferior to the more civilized white Americans. This concept of inferiority extends to word-use and connotation. The curious concept of squaw is still debatable whether it is an acceptable or derogatory term to refer to Native American women. Mostly from what the media has been trying to feed the public, squaw has become a derogatory term for these minority women. From its original or aboriginal concept that means "women," the word squaw evolved to refer to the female reproductive organ and thus became synonymous to vagina ("White Beauty: A Content Analysis of the Portrayals of Minorities in Teen Beauty Magazines" & "Reclaiming the Word "Squaw" in the Name of the Ancestors").

Movements have been made to reclaim the word squaw is of cultural preservation more than correcting a stereotypical notion. Squaw does not actually pertain to a woman's vagina; rather it means the totality of being a woman. It’s a term that refers to women in the aboriginal language and NOT an English word. Ergo, it was used by the native people as a way to refer to their women. However, because of the colonial influence, such meaningful words were twisted in a way that even Native Americans became shameful of being called as such. But no, it means the totality, and the quintessential women ("Reclaiming the Word "Squaw" in the Name of the Ancestors").

Asian women

Unlike the common representation of Asian women in most film as opportunist, hypersexual, and conniving with questionable virtues, The World of Suzie Wong allows a different view that goes the exact opposite of the stereotypical—idealist and romanticist point of view. Suzie Wong was depicted as someone who is submissive, sexy, child at heart and a romantic. Virtue was not part of her characteristics, after all she is a prostitute however such noble characters were able to be portrayed ("Sayonara Stereotypes: The Depiction of Chinese/ Japanese Americans in Hollywood Cinema," "The World of Suzie Wong," & "Invention, Inversion and Intervention: The Oriental Woman in The World of Suzie Wong, M. Butterfly, and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Dessert.")

Sexy is both a positive and a negative stereotypes of Asian women. It could be both something that is cherished and something that could easily be given away none the less, the sexy package makes these women objects of affection and lustful for men. They are submissive because Asian women are made to be servile by nature not because they are inferior, but because it is part of the Asian culture. Child at heart and a romantic because, though she was a prostitute, she was excited like a child on the fact that maybe, the white man could be in love with her ("The World of Suzie Wong," & "Invention, Inversion and Intervention: The Oriental Woman in The World of Suzie Wong, M. Butterfly, and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Dessert.").

Latina women

The spitfire image of Latina women is a continuum concept from the old Hollywood notion of Latina as "icy Castilian beauties, feisty hot tamales, golden-hearted whores and radiant-if-tearful-sufridas" ("The Challenges of 'Cha Cha': What is Latina Beauty?"). From these stereotypes, Latina beauties are still packaged as exotic beauties with curvaceous body and feisty and opinionated attitude.

The representation of Latinas as an object of beauty is through the stereotyping of Latina to have curvaceous body as compares to thin and unappealing body of their western counterparts. Their exotic beauties also connect towards their feisty attitude which makes them very opinionated and aggressive at times who likes their specific whims to be followed. Their intolerance from not getting what they want gives them the aggressive attitude to do whatever they please to get to their goal, often times involving their sexuality and them being an object of affection and lust ("The Challenges of 'Cha Cha': What is Latina Beauty?" & "A Hot Latina Debate with 'The Women'").

African American women

The portrayal of Africa American as sensuous, innately promiscuous, and predatory was symbolic of the name Jezebel—a queen of deceitful and immoral character who persecuted those who believed the Christian prophets. In the African American concept, the Jezebel image that defames African women are viewed in two ways—the pathetic others that looks at African women as physically unattractive and uncivilized—Mammy image as opposed to the exotic others.

The exotic others is a view of modern day African Americans who are desirable, exotic, and object of attraction. These conjured images of African American is further highlighted by portraying them through media in a sexually tensioned settings—scantly dressed women dancing through the beat of rappers, standing on bars holding a cocktail, and other environment where they become object of affection, their exotic beauties highlights the men's desires towards them giving them some sort of power or control. They became the added 'value' or asset of Black males who would like to super impose the power by acquiring such desirable women ("Jezebel Stereotype"). Much of these positive stereotyping towards women of different ethnicity are all still geared towards them as an object of desire of men. It could be that this affection be used as a power play or power struggle between the two genders.

African American Women: Jezebel Stereotype

The name Jezebel is actually a widely believed in the larger American society to signify Black women. History has it that Black women in America have been given stereotypic descriptions. They are often said to be morally bankrupt, are born perverts and behave like predators while their White counterparts, White women were considered to be modest and sexually pure. It is a phenomenon that has not just emerged. This is an opinion that has been held for so long by the American society. Black American women have been shown by the American society to be highly sexually active. In fact they are referred to as "bad-black-girls." It is a view that has been held since early 1630s to date. The perception has been so in the public domain since slavery period when most Blacks were working as slave and at the same time engage themselves in prostitution. They were referred to as mulattoes. At the same time the freeborn fair complexioned Black women were the more than willing ones to be the concubines of the White men who were rich. It was a sad situation that to date still haunts the Black women in America today.

The movie and the music industry have fueled this notion further. They have even

made the already bad situation worse. Pilgrim writes in his Jezebel Stereotype “White Europeans", locked into the racial ethnocentrism of the 17th century, saw Africanpolygamy and tribal dances as proof of the African's uncontrolled sexual lust” it is a fact that Africans have a culture to which they are tied to since then till now. Music and dance is actually an African culture and since they love it and do it and yet will continue doing it, the Europeans with their conviction that it must have contributed to the African’s promiscuity can merely confirm that fact. The dances were mainly performed with nude bodies of women. It is from there where African women were referred to as Jezebel by the Europeans who said the Black men of Africa were not only potential rapists, but also brute.

Jezebel stereotype were used by the whites during slave trade to solicit for sexual favors from Black. The white men, especially the slaver demanded for sex from black women in exchange of certain favors such that they are not sold, raped, beaten and /or their relations are are not sold. This fact that African women did accept to have sex with white men did cement the notion that Black women are lustful. In the movie The Birth of a Nation, we see Lydia Brown playing a mulatto role. This movie acted in the 1915, had a main object of portraying the Black woman as sexually promiscuous, primitive, and morally poor. Deborah (31) in her Aren’t I a Woman? hints that it was meant to carry on the theme which was started in the 17th century. Then came the 1970s when Blacks voluntarily promoted those nefarious traits like Jezebel, Bucks as well as Brutes to be possessed by blacks through movies. Incidentally these movies were mainly written, produced, starred, and directed by the whites. The movies were called blaxploitation movies and a good example was Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. Sweetback is actually a slung language to mean “large penis” and “great lovemaking ability”. It portrayed Black men as great love maker as presently perceived. In most blaxploitation movies, Black women are depicted as being ‘sexual fodder’.

Pilgrim says that live televised music videos from the notorious rap and pop or even hip hop performers portray scantily dressed Black women throwing their hips in air to lyrics. Such incidence portrays them as loose bitches. Black women have been largely regarded as promiscuous. The blacks and the society at large, however, have done very little to reverse that trend. It is though possible to reverse such notion and give it a different direction. It is first, achievable by evading such outdated practices as polygamy, a culture that is tied and narrowed to belong and practiced by the blacks. There should also be well moderated dressing for pop song dancers, instead of their nude or near naked mode of dressing while on the stage dancing to lyrics. There is also a need to introduce a curriculum in schools to dissuade young growing minds from developing such stereotypic opinion. There is also need to entrench laws governing how people relate for example those guiding against discrimination against race since the main victimized race here is Africa and African women in particular.

Music videos like Nelly's "Tip Drill" and Sir Mix a Lot's "Baby Got Back" portray black women as nothing but objects to be had.

Asian American Women: Suzie Wong Sterotype

Asian American women have been portrayed in many sexual stereotypes for years. The many stereotypes include the images of dragon lady, dominatrix, sluts, whores, easy Asian girls, and a hooker with a heart of gold. This last image was made popular from films like The World of Suzie Wong (1960). The main character was portrayed as submissive, passive, and exotic, with a desire to sexually please her man. Because of films like this, today Asian American women are born into a world of hypersexuality that forms and shapes the general consciousness.

Films such as The World of Suzie Wong (1960), Madame Butterfly (1932), and the Broadway play Miss Saigon (1989) formed the “Suzie Wong” stereotype of a submissive and erotic Asian woman.

Suzie’s sexuality can be contained within her Chinese exoticism, wearing a Chinese-cut dress: “cheongsam”.

Suzie Wong stereotyped Asian women as truly “feminine”, content at being passive, subservient, dependent, domestic, and slaves to “love”. (Marchetti, p.116)

In the film the Flower Drum Song, the main character’s role is as a “good” woman, but she cannot resist the call of wild music and dances inappropriately. Her “true identity” is as an untrustworthy entertainer who derives pleasure from revealing and manipulating her body for public display, barely dressed. (Shimizu, p.82)

Today on TV and in films, Asian American females portray characters such as prostitutes and sex slaves. (Shimizu, p.12) It is difficult to find Asian women in roles beyond sexual ones in today’s mass media. UC Berkley Professor of Asian American studies, Elaine Kim has argued that the stereotype of Asian women as submissive sex objects has impeded Asian women’s economic mobility and has forced increased demand in mail-order brides and ethnic pornography. Today the exotic image of a woman in a cheongsam is even more sexualized and made popular by celebrities.

In popular media today some characters combat the Suzie Wong image. In the past Asian female characters would choose to kill themselves when forsaken by a white man, love interest, such as in Madame Butterfly and Miss Saigon. In the film Sideways (2004), Sandra Oh’s character instead beats up her white male love interest when she finds out he is engaged and has treated her love as worthless. (Shimizu, p.268)

Sandra Oh plays many positive, strong, smart, sensitive, multi-layered characters today such as a doctor on Grey’s Anatomy. The Disney film Mulan portrays a young Chinese female as a strong, confident woman who fights for her family and for China.

Videos:

We think this video definitely portrays an asian's woman infatuation for white men.

Against the Asian stereotype

Latina American Women: Spitfire Stereotype

The term “spitfire” appears to be considered, loud-mouthed, ignorant, speaks a thousand words per minute and has a heavy accent. The spitfire term came about in a film in 1939 with

a Mexican actress Lupe Velez in The Girl from Mexico.

This was a very big hit different production companies asked for seven more films with a theme along those lines. From there on the spitfire Latina was the role of most Latina’s in the film industry.

In the past a Spitfire woman was thought of only being originated from Mexico, of course this came from the first film that created this term. But it slowly changed because not all actresses that were Latinas were from Mexico. One good way to think of what these old films showed as a spitfire Latina one could think of the show I Love Lucy and all the mess she would get into and how it would mostly all the time seem as she didn’t know what she was doing. But the only difference is that the spitfire Latina never won at the end of the film, on the contrary Lucy usually did she was able to overcome the mess she got herself in. There are many good examples with films that are not heard of today, for example in the early 1930’s up to mid 1940’s there were films like Mexican Spitfire (1939),

Mexican Spitfire Out West (1940), Mexican Spitfire’s Baby (1942) and many others where the title contained the word Spitfire. This strongly encouraged this stereotype to continue and for the majority of the time this would be the only image people would see of Latina women.

One would think that overtime this stereotype would slowly disappear and start showing the reality of the diversity found in the Latino community. But Hollywood is not interested in that; they are rather interested in portraying Latina women in a degraded image, as someone who doesn’t have control of themselves or their emotions. One good example of this Spitfire image still going on today is in the show Ugly Betty on channel ABC. The main character Betty (mainly known as Ugly Betty) has a sister who completely fits the Spitfire role her name is Hilda Suarez. Her character has the classic role of a Spitfire Latina, she is loudly out-spoken, wearing revealing clothes, has an accent, and any other characteristics associated with Spitfire. Another good example is in a film by Tyler Perry, Meet the Browns, the Latina actress Sofia Vergara plays the role of a typical Spitfire Latina. Her character is again loudly out-spoken, with a heavy accent, very sexualized and many other characteristics. These are only two examples in present time that continue to encourage the belief of Latina’s only being Spitfire’s. One other major problem with the media is that they only seem to put very light skinned Latina women as the protagonist in popular shows, like Telenovelas (soap operas). But it is not only about being light skinned but also heavily looking like a white American. For example, here we see the protagonist in a very popular telenovela, Rebelde, and we can see that she looks like a white woman.

On the contrary, the woman in the next picture is playing the role of the maid which looks like the complete opposite. One can easily see how this would create tensions within the Latino community for women, in order to be accepted by popular culture you have look like the popular women seen on T.V. but as we know it is almost impossible to fit that criteria.

We see how this has a very strong effect on Latina women; one very good example is a very popular Latina woman, Jennifer Lopez. When she first began her career one could really see her Latina features and one would think that she would like to keep her identity. But over time we can see that she has changed her appearance, to what many people would consider a white woman’s features.

Although, the Spitfire image is not portrayed as it was once originally there is a modernized version of being a Spitfire Latina and with that a new standard of what Latina women should look like is starting to develop.

Whether it is in present o past films the Spitfire view of Latina remains and it appears it will remain this way if there isn’t change. One good way to combat this is by showing more positive Latina women leading the way, where they are not sexualized or made to act in any way or form as the Latina Spitfire would. One recent Latina women to set a good example is our Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor.

She has allowed media to show something other than image they have always known, she carries the opposite characteristics of a Spitfire Latina, she knows exactly what she is doing, she has control of her life, she is not sexualized, does not have an accent, and she is not loudly out-spoken.

Like mentioned before the show Ugly Betty showed the common image of a Spitfire Latina but at the same time it shows the opposite. Betty, the main character, is opposite of her sister Hilda she is trying to become a better person, she is not worried about her appearance and overall she does not fit the Spitfire role. It’s good that media is choosing to show Latina’s in a positive way but at the same time they need to be careful not to contradict themselves, like they did in the show Ugly Betty with Hilda. The media and Hollywood needs to understand that there is diversity in the Latino community and all minority communities. If they feel the need to portray these stereotypes, mainly only found in movies and media, which have been portrayed for the past decades they need to also show positive images, the reality. One good example is in a telenovela Ramona with a well known actress in Mexico Kate del Castillo. Kate is the protagonist and unlike many popular women she does not “fit” the look of an American white woman. If there was a larger variety of women of different skin tones, accents, and other characteristics that set Latina women apart this Spitfire stereotype would be easier to fight. This is not something that will be easy but it should definitely be encouraged and put out in the media.

Videos:

Cause I'm Latino

We feel that this music video pokes fun at the spitfire

stereotype found in most music videos.

Native American Women-Princess/Squaw Stereotype

Stereotypes on Native American women have been represented in television shows, movies, novels, and comic books throughout history. Since few Americans really know the true culture of Native American people, we as a society begin to believe these stereotypes as true Native American behavior. It was not until the late twentieth century that filmmakers realized they were portraying these characters inaccurately in their films. Although the stereotype on Native Americans is recognized, it continues to be portrayed even today in pop culture. A popular stereotype of Native American women is the Indian Princess (Princess Squaw). The Indian Princess is portrayed as the Native beauty who is so infatuated with the white man, that she is willing to give up her cultural heritage and marry into the "civilized" white culture. The Indian Princess is never portrayed as a powerful character, instead she is always lured into the desirable white culture

Stereotypes on Native American women have gone all the way back to 1492. What people fail to recognize is the power and strength Native American women have. They have the power and strength to protect their cultures and languages, and to provide for their families. We are blind to these characteristics that Native American women hold because throughout history we have been falsely fed the idea that these women are inferior to the white race.

Princess Squaw has been depicted the same in both present and past culture. She is always seen as the Native Beauty who falls in love with the white man and abandons her culture to be civilized. In the 1950 film Broken Arrow, a young native beauty falls for the white man.

Video Clip of Broken Arrow:

Another past film that depicts the Native American girl falling in love with the white man is Dual in the Sun.

Video Clip of Dual in the Sun:

In present pop culture one can see these stereotypes depicted in Disney Movies such as Pocahontas and Peter Pan. Pocahontas is portrayed as the typical Native beauty who falls in love with the "civilized" John Smith. She is lured into choosing romance with John Smith over staying true to her culture and marrying Kocoum, a man who is part of her tribe. The word "savages" is used very much throughout the movie making them inferior to the white race. The message that is portrayed in this movie is that the white men always dominate over the Native American people.

Video Clip from Pocahontas:

The Disney movie Peter Pan shows this stereotype as well. The Indian Princess Tiger Lily is depicted as having a crush on Peter Pan. In one scene in the movie, the Native Americans are having a pow wow and Tiger Lily kisses Peter Pan. The song that is sung during this scene is, What Makes the Red Man Red? When Tiger Lily kisses Peter Pan, he grows red in the face. Tiger Lily's kiss is what makes his face red. Thus this scene is a depiction of the affection between an Indian Princess and a white man (Pocahontus Bastardizes Real People).

Video Clip from Peter Pan:

An important way to combat the stereotypes on Native American women is to have the media take real life stories and make movies and novels out of them. For example some real life stories of Native American women include: Beverly Hungry Wolf’s The Ways of My Grandmothers, Carolyn Niethammer’s Daughters of the Earth, and H. Greene’s Native American Women. Each of these stories depict real life Native American women and portray them as they truly are.

Like any other cultural minority, Native Americans are traditionally portrayed as biologically and morally inferior to the more civilized white Americans. This concept of inferiority extends to word-use and connotation. The curious concept of squaw is still debatable whether it is an acceptable or derogatory term to refer to Native American women. Mostly from what the media has been trying to feed the public, squaw has become a derogatory term for these minority women. From its original or aboriginal concept that means "women," the word squaw evolved to refer to the female reproductive organ and thus became synonymous to vagina.

Movements have been made to reclaim the word squaw is of cultural preservation more than correcting a stereotypical notion. Squaw does not actually pertain to a woman's vagina; rather it means the totality of being a woman. It’s a term that refers to women in the aboriginal language and NOT an English word. Ergo, it was used by the native people as a way to refer to their women. However, because of the colonial influence, such meaningful words were twisted in a way that even Native Americans became shameful of being called as such. But no, it means the totality, and the quintessential women.