While reading the article I think that the book overplays the whole black stereotype thing that everyone thinks that about black guys. Some of the cases are girls just overreacting to a little messing around or taking joking too seriously. I have black friends and I have no problems with them at all and don't feel these stereotypes toward them what so ever. MTV might have tried to play it up a little more just because it would up the T.V. ratings if everyone was talking about it and think well what is he going to do next week and obviously it worked if it is written in a book. They don't just show unstable black men they have shown plenty of other unstable white people too like Joey from the Hollywood season he was addicted to drugs and alcohol and people didn't know what he was going to do next. They have shown people blowing up all the time like Johanna she's on the top freak outs of reality TV on VH1. So I think while they might try to play it up a little I think it's just to get more viewers to tune in so they get better ratings and more money and exposure. Also I know one of the negative portrayals by a black man from Omaha was provoked by one of the white males in the house and he kept saying "I want you to hit me" so it's not like the black man was just doing it for fun or just messing around he was being provoked and pushed into it although he ended up not hitting him. And some of the of the characters they talked about were 4.0 students and good kids so not everyone had a bad background and was portrayed bad and all had the same background.
Discussion Questions:
1) Why do you think they choose to talk about the image of Black Males instead of any other group of people?
2) Why is it that some people have all these negative stereotypes about black men?
3) What is it going to take to stop these stereotypes and generalizations?
I think you bring up an interesting point. From the sounds of things, The Real World centers around a lot of intense/emotional people. Why is it that the authors/critiques focus only on the the male African American?
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that they show black people as negative just to boost raitingsand only show the negative side of things. Producers show us what they want to show us.
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