Ethnic Notions and Its Representation of Social Issues in America

The film produced in 1987, Ethnic Notions directed by Marlon Riggs portrays many social issues that America have before the Civil War and throughout the Civil Rights Movements. The film showcases different social issues such as sexuality, appearances, and servility that many African American faced during that era. The media deeply enhanced these issues that affected the African American communities. The media was responsible for different stereotypes that were labeled on African American by the white comedians, minstrel acts and the cartoons that were shown to the public.

The media used “blackface” and minstrel acts as ways to defend slavery. The idea of servility was created by the different characters that were created by the media. Characters such as the “Happy Sambo” and the “Mammy” were created in order to defend slavery. The media painted this image of African American as being happy and willing wanting to work for slave owners. Happy Sambo was portrayed as a happy, dancing, lively African American man who was delighted to work for the slave owners. The Mammy was usually portrayed as an older woman who was happy and obedient to serve her masters. These characters were not only use to defend the idea of slavery but it also created falsified ideas of African American being happy and willingly wanting to work under somebody else control.

Minstrel shows was another way for the media to spread falsify ideas about African American. The white performers would paint their so call “blackface” on and mimic African Americans stereotypes. Zip Coon was another character created in order to portray African Americans who were free as not being able to fit into society. This is similar to the media representation of Abraham Lincoln. Many people see Lincoln as the president who abolished slavery. We only see this representation of him because the media only show us this image of him. Lincoln stated that, “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it” (Morgan, 3). Like me, many people didn’t know that he only wanted to persevered the Union. This shows that the media can have major influence on society and how it can shape our views.

The film also touches on the issue of sexuality and gender when it comes to African American women. The film showed many representations of how African American women were portrayed as inferior to white women when it comes to their appearances. The film provided different images of the “Mammy” with characteristics like large, motherly, docile and friendly, which is different on how white women were portrayed. Even in the media today, many women are sexualized to a certain standard such as, a woman should have a nice body, which you don’t really see in the Mammy character.

Before watching Ethnic Notions, I didn’t have a lot of knowledge on blackface or the minstrel shows. I believe this is still happening today with social media being a huge part of our lives. Social media provides a platform for racism because people are constantly comparing different races against each other. Racism like “black face” can still be seen in today society. For example, instead of hiring Asian actor and actress to play the Asian roles, they would hire Caucasian actor and actress doing yellow face to play those roles. Like the African American communities, Asian American communities are also underrepresented in the media. Many times, Asians are the center of racist or stereotypical jokes, but the media never talks about it. For example, reporter Jess Watters, showed racist behaviors when he went around Chinatown in New York and interviewed the Asian communities. Not only did he interview them, he also made fun of them with Asian stereotypes. This story was not cover on the news as much compared to when racism is target at other minorities groups. These images of African Americans are not as prevalent today but they still exist in the media.