ed by an ethnocentric bias to enhance one's own group and to disparage out-groups" (p. 87). Stereotypes are simplistic ways of seeing others as members of a group rather than as individual human beings. In the movies, most out-group members are marginalized by being restricted to characters who provide either comic relief (as pioneered by Stepin Fetchit) or villainous menace. The drug dealer and the pimp are still commonly cast with black or other minority actors. Actor Laurence Fishburne (1995) asks, "Why does the black man always have to play the pusher, the pimp, and the so and so? The reality is a lot of us still do that. I fight racism by trying to be right as rain and by promoting a positive self-image" (Parish, p. 101).
Blacks have not been the only victims of ongoing on-screen prejudice, whether consciously applied or not. While Hispanics are one of the fastest-growing minorities in America, they often continue to be relegated to figures of fun or fear. Maureen M. Flanagan (1994, Spring) writes, "In 1990 . . . four of the five top grossing
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