The last discussion on terrorist and stereotyping left me trying to find a clip from the last episode of the new season of Weeds. Here is a link to the website: http://www.tvsquad.com/2010/11/16/weeds-season-6-finale-recap/
But here is the situation that is happening: “Between the half-baked attempts of the Botwins trying to live a Newman life to the feeble attempts at slinging homemade hash and brews, it was nice to see that the Botwins have a semi-sophisticated plan at fleeing danger. Armed with fake passports, the Botwin family circus finally made it to the airport.
Never one to pass up an opportunity to tweak the audience with an inappropriate racial stereotype, this show provided a helpful heaping of racial profiling. After noticing a man who appeared to be Muslim in the security line, Andy moved his motley crew behind him. With TSA agents effectively engaged with the could-be Muslim, Andy, Shane and Stevie made it through security.
Who would have thought that the ineptitude of TSA agents would actually help a family of criminals escape from other criminals?
Speaking of stereotypes: Why would airport officials ever be suspicious of a Mexican man who wants to buy two tickets "anywhere," with money being no object, no baggage and only one passport to try and flee the country? That would never happen in real life, would it? "
Never one to pass up an opportunity to tweak the audience with an inappropriate racial stereotype, this show provided a helpful heaping of racial profiling. After noticing a man who appeared to be Muslim in the security line, Andy moved his motley crew behind him. With TSA agents effectively engaged with the could-be Muslim, Andy, Shane and Stevie made it through security.
Who would have thought that the ineptitude of TSA agents would actually help a family of criminals escape from other criminals?
Speaking of stereotypes: Why would airport officials ever be suspicious of a Mexican man who wants to buy two tickets "anywhere," with money being no object, no baggage and only one passport to try and flee the country? That would never happen in real life, would it? "
- I thought this was a perfect example of the stereotypical attitude that we portray every day and most of us are not even aware of it. After spending what felt like hours trying to find a short clip of the scene I gave up, but if you could find it, this would be a super example for another quarter.
In response to class discussion this week I would like to focus on the term we discussed in call, which is “Edultainment”, we described this is lecture as the use of entertainment to inform viewers of safe sex practices. This term seems absolutely appropriate for many of the shows that we let consume our values and what exactly are our norms. Reflecting to when I was growing up I can visually remember intensely watching the "sexy" part of TV shows wondering if that was what it would be like to be the sexually active person. TV whether we like it or not shapes our reflections of what normal actually is and much of this is done through more adult entertainment programs. When I was younger I would always watch TV geared for more grown adults because I knew that they would be showing me something that I was not yet familiar with, this ties in with social cognitive theory. The characters on TV are not real life people (in many circumstances, unless a its a reality show) but they do play real life role models, and often for younger kids and teens who are the most impressionable. The question I then pose is will the effects on media on our youth grow to worsen or will we be able to find a solution to block the more sophisticated adult networks, or do we even want these shows blocked? Is TV teaching our kids some things we cant???
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