Representation of Racism in Gone With the Wind - Essay Example

Representation of Racism in Gone With the Wind A 21st century man gets his idea of his own identity from visual and audio media like television, internet, radio etc. The media gives him a concept of who he is, who others are, his view on everything he is and is surrounded by. He begins to develop his views regarding race, class, sexuality, and what it means to be of a particular sect, a particular ethnicity or a particular race. Being born into this age of media, it plays an important role in molding our personalities and forming concepts and also develops our likes and desires, what to like and what not to like how to act as to get people to like us and how to avoid failure stay at the top of our games. It is from media that we learn how to dress, talk and act appropriately. The impact media has on our lives is so enormous that it is necessary to learn to understand the message it’s trying to portray, the right way. Media is also a means of integrating cultural values in us. It increases a person’s power with respect to the culture and gives him an upper hand in his culture (Douglas Kellner). Cultural studies have given a lot to the criticism of media and to increase knowledge about it. University of Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies has built up a number of ways to carry out critical experiments to analyze, interpret and criticize cultural pieces. After a series of struggles, the centre of focus of Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies is class, race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity and nationality as represented by cultural media. They study the effect of media and how different groups interpret the media differently and what was the cause of the difference in their interpretations. Cultural studies have made it easier to analyze and inspect the whole culture without having prejudices beforehand regarding some other cultural medium. Studies being conducted about Hollywood movies of mid 20th century show how they are more political rather than cultural (Douglas Kellner). A dumb blonde is one of the many common stereotypes. A blonde is by default assumed to be dumb, yet wildly attractive with a great body and she gets special treatment from men everywhere. This stereotype is highly offensive yet still holds true in almost all scenarios. The act of stereotyping is not a new one neither is the accusation of it being offensive and nor is the defensive blow that it is what the truth is. But the question is why is stereotyping an object of protest even though it is not completely false and why is it different from other simplifications and classifications (Judith Andre). Stereotyping refers to the firmness and the inability to change of an object (such as metallic plates, from which the word ‘stereotyping’ originates) being used metaphorically. Concerning modern era, stereotype is taken to mean an easy oversimplified assumption, which a certain group falls under without any change. Psychologists use this term to define an unyielding personality trait in a person. Stereotyping does not take into account proofs that negate the stereotyping. Stereotypes are made because of the human mind’s resistance in face of change. Color-blind racism was the type of racism which prevailed after the civil war. Color blind racism is making one look like he’s not racist yet his action say otherwise and having doubts about the blacks any how. This type of racism is based on a number of factors. After the civil war, whites had stopped discriminating the blacks directly and with their words, but they strategically used deep meaning words to express their views to discriminate the blacks. Media also helped in projecting color blind racism and there were some other small factors as well (Eduardo Bonilla-Silva). In the modern times, when whites talk about black with respect to their race, their words are marked with doubt. They agree and yet disagree, say yes and the same time say no. Usage of such phrases is for some people a way to express their doubts about racism (Hass et al. 1992; Katz and Hass, 1988), for some they signs that people are resisting racism (Schumen et al. 1997) and for some significantly small others, this means that the whites were being thoughtful and diplomatic (Lipset 1996; Sniderman and Carmines. 1997; Sniderman and Piazza 1993). Yet these expressions as well as their explanations are a part of color blind racism. Color blind racism is a philosophy which started to grow in the late sixties in the United States of America. The racial problems still existed but they were not said to be on the basis of race. Whites exclaimed with surety that racism has disappeared and there was no trace of racism left in them (Eduardo Bonilla Silva). According to Eduardo Bonilla Silva color blind racism is contradictory to its own self because after the civil war, the standard of things that can be said publicly did not remain the same regarding social standards. Analysts had to search deep within the ambivalent answers of simple questions regarding racism to find their answers. This can cause the analyst to misinterpret what the person was trying to say as a way to hide their nervousness and loss of words. Projection is one of the strategies used to defend oneself. Projection is a tool which helps in shifting the guilt from ourselves to somewhere else (Keen 1986:21). College students often projected their racial assessments on to the blacks in order to not feel guilty about themselves, even feel good about having such considerations for the blacks. An interview with a college student showed that she was projecting on the blacks about the recent racial issues. On self segregation she said that blacks do it to themselves because they didn’t want to live with the whites and lived in their own worlds separated from everyone else and that according to her was also the reason no one socialized with them. The girl projected her views about two people of different races, coming together in holy matrimony as an act of selfishness by the parents whose child will be of a mixed race and would be the center of ridicule which would have a very negative impact on the child’s growth. So she was expressing her own opinion on interracial marriage without guilt by projecting it on the blacks. Another student said that the blacks segregate themselves and do not even attempt to live with the whites and don’t want to fit in. She said that it would be difficult for them to fit in as it would be for her to fit in with the blacks, keeping herself in their position (Eduardo Bonilla Silva). In Gone With the Wind, the main character Scarlett O’Hara is a feminist and also a terrible racist. The racism is represented by romanticizing the pre civil war South and the way blacks were treated back then. It depicts the point of view of the whites regarding slavery and racism and not the blacks’ perspective that they wanted freedom and hated to work as slaves. Gone With the Wind relates how the post civil war racism was based on stereotyping and was color blind racism. Reference: Andre, Judith. "Stereotypes: Conceptual and normative considerations." Racism and Sexism (1988): 257-62. Print. Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. "The Linguistics of Color Blind Racism: How to Talk Nasty about Blacks without Sounding “Racist”." Critical Sociology 28.1-2 (2002). Print. Kellner, Douglas. Media culture: cultural studies, identity, and politics between the modern and the postmodern. London: Routledge, 1995. Print. Selznick, David O, Sidney C. Howard, Victor Fleming, Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Leslie Howard, Havilland O. De, Thomas Mitchell, Hattie McDaniel, Butterfly McQueen, and Margaret Mitchell. Gone with the Wind. Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, 1999. Print. Read More