Stereotypical Race Representation

Stereotypical Race Representation

In the show The Big Bang Theory, the main Indian character Raj is represented as a Geek. We know this by his performance and the mise-en-scene that is framed within the scene. His fashion sense is clearly randomised and we know he has very few social skills and experience because of his dialogue in this scene. His friend Leonard tells him he thinks it's good for him to get out of the apartment from time to time which tells us he rarely leaves the safety of his own home, therefore connoting few social skills and little experience with people. The conversation topic also tells us that they are classed under the Geek representation for males as they are talking about the Indiana Jones films. The manner in which they are talking about these films is significant as they are very enthusiastic and know the specialist knowledge and vocabulary from the show. They also sound educated and well mannered. Although the negative representation of the Geek side of Raj is present there is also a positive representation that he is a nice person, well mannered and also relatively positive. This representation can be seen as negative because it could represent the whole American Indian community can be classed under the Geek stereotype. An audience that has no experience with this group of people will assume this is the same for all people within that group.

In the music video All of Me - John Legend we can see a positive representation of a black male. We can see from the mise-en-scene that he is a well groomed and dressed man who clearly cares about his appearance. This could break the stereotype of most of the people that fall into this group as other forms of media such as films can represent the black male population as being thugs and gangstas. We can see from the mise-en-scene that he is a higher class, wealthy male. We know this from his big house and