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Prejudices in Media Representations

Gender and race intersect in media representations and in real life as well. The feminist movement took the methods of the Civil Rights Movement to heart in agitating for change, just as blacks had done before. The relative positions of women and blacks show both similarities and differences. Women actually constitute a majority in society yet still face discrimination, while racial minorities face discrimination for different reasons. Yet, both groups are seen as less able and less worthy than the white male, suggesting that the plight of black women in particular involves a double dose of discrimination. Distinctions based on both gender and race and on the two in conjunction can be seen in our popular culture, notably in films and television shows that offer particular views of both women and people of color and especially women of color that do not comport with reality but that do reflect deeply ingrained prejudices.

Many of the prejudices we encounter in media representations may be clearer in a historical context because representations in the past were usually more open about certain prejudices. Mullings points out how women were viewed in traditional Western societies in the nineteenth century. The ideal woman was seen as "incontrovertibly identified with the home: as the ideal wife and mother; as good, passive, delicate, pure, submissive, calm, frail, small, and dependent" (Mullings 257). Saegert echoes this idea as she notes how women have been identified with the home so that "the domestic, and the suburban is our psychic, economic, and cultural sense of home" (Saegert 898). Women in early television tended to represent this image. In the 1950s, the nuclear family was widely represented in situation comedy, while in contemporary television programming, divided families, single-parent families, and non-traditional families vie with the nuclear family for television time. Women were seen in shows like The Donna...

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Prejudices in Media Representations. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 06:22, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1701282.html