Stereotypes
In groups-
1. Come up with as many stereotypes as
you can
2. Are any of them positive?
3. What is the point of stereotyping?
Positive v. negative stereotypes
• French love their food
• Italian men are good lovers
• Black people are good at sport
What is a stereotype?
• It is a process of over simplification
• It characterises a whole group of people
giving them qualities which may be found
in one or two individuals (eg. all black
people are good at sport / all Scottish
people are tight / all gay men are camp)
Stereotypes about disability are….
• Based on superstitions, myths and beliefs
from earlier times but are still around today
and are rooted in deep seated and childish
fears about disability
How do stereotypes help the
producer and the audience?
• Write down 2 or 3 ways they are useful to
the producer and the audience
• Write down 2 or 3 problems with
stereotyping.
• Why do stereotypes exist?
Benefits to the producer
• Allows them to condense a lot of complex
information into a character who not only
is easily recognised but also simple to deal
with
– e.g. baddies in films, the best friend in Action
films, characters in Sit Coms- Joey, Phoebe in
Friends )
– Producers don’t need to establish
characters
Benefits to the audience
• They can recognise characters quickly
• It acts as a short cut … in a new sit com -
he’s the one that will ……..
• They know how to respond to certain
characters (he’s the funny one, he’s the
evil one)
Problems with stereotyping
• Dehumanises people by denying them the
complex psychological make-up that
people have
• It reduces them to a few generalised
personality traits (e.g. gay men as ‘bitchy’
‘funny’ and ‘camp’)
• Allows for ‘scapegoats’ – minority groups
get blamed for problems in society.
Reasons for stereotyping
• Reflects power relations within our society-
it subordinates certain groups
• It involves some element of ridicule
• Often the groups are economically or
socially subordinate?
How and why do stereotypes
change?
• They reflect wider contexts.
• Changes in legislation affect stereotypes (e.g. Disability
Discrimination Act 1995)
• In 1981 – International year of disabled person
awareness campaign
• It becomes ‘old fashioned’ or not PC to keep certain
stereotypes
• Activist groups fight on behalf of Minority groups to draw
attention to the extent of the negative stereotyping (e.g.
Feminist movement, Raspberry Ripple Awards).
• Producers in the media come from the minority group
and can shift the representation of these groups (e.g.
DPU at BBC, Ash Atalla from The Office and Extras)
What stereotypes are there for
people with disabilities
• List the different stereotypes you have
seen?
Stereotypes of people with
disabilities
1. Pitiable, pathetic and object of violence
2. Sinister of Evil
3. Super Cripple
4. Laughable- butt of the joke
5. Non sexual
6. Burden
Pitiable and pathetic or object of
violence
• This patronising stereotype comes from feelings
of superiority of the non disabled to the disabled.
• Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol with little crutch
and limbs supported in an iron frame.
• Reinforced by Telethons and Charity ads to
raise money for the disabled.
• Whatever Happened to Baby Jayne (Joan
Crawford and Bette Davis)
Passive, pitiable, dependent, helpless, victim
Sinister of Evil
• This is a persistent stereotype
• William Shakespeare’s Richard III (hunch back)
• Dwarf in Rupelstilsken
• Witches in Hansel and Gretel
• Captain Hook in Peter Pan
• Many villains in films are given disabilities.
– Dr Strangelove (wheelchair using scientist , Dr No
(with 2 false hands)
– Freddy (Nightmare on Elm Street)
• Psychiatric patients are often represented as
frightening and dangerous
frightening, sinister, dangerous, unpredictable, grotesque, evil
Non Sexual
• Disabled people are almost always
portrayed as totally incapable of sexual
activity.
• Coming Home- was a good example of
couple where the man had become a
paraplegic in Vietnam develop an intimate
sexual relationship
• More recent examples challenge this-
Book Group, Murderball etc
Non sexual, impotent,
Super Cripple
• Super human attributes.
– Ironside- wheelchair bound detective has extraordinary mental
powers.
• Newspapers and magazines often feature the
extraordinary achievements of disabled persons who
‘overcome’ so becoming acceptable.
– Marathons, Paraolympics, and water skiers with one leg,
Murderball
• It encourages the stereotype that disabled people have
to overcompensate to win acceptance.
• The other side of this stereotype is heaping excessive
praise on the disabled person for carrying out a perfectly
reasonable act.
Extraordinary, Over compensating, super human,
Laughable – Butt of the joke
• Un PC humour about victims of tragedies.
• Laughter is used to deal with difficult or embarrassing
situations.
• Hear No Evil, See No Evil- featured a blind man and a
deaf man thrown together to solve a crime with ‘hilarious’
consequences – both are the butt of the joke
• Forrest Gump- a man with learning difficulties.
• Lee Evans- pretending to have CP in There’s Something
About Mary.
• Andy in Little Britain.
Funny, weird, unusual
Burden
• All disabled people are helpless and need to be taken
care of by ‘normal’ people.
• The Burden image objectifies and dehumanises (does
he take sugar)
• Beauty and the Beast- set in New York portrays the
disabled, disfigured outcasts as having to live a
subterranean life – it also emphasises the
unacceptability of the ‘different’ and that they are
dangerous and must be segregated.
• Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame
• The In Valids who are not of perfect genetic design in
Gattaca
Helpless, need looking after, dependent, outcast
Pick a stereotype
• Find texts that include this stereotype
• Find texts that challenge this stereotype
• Think about why the stereotype has
changed (wider contexts)