Stereotypes

This week we were asked to think about stereotypes in films. On one hand, stereotypes help audiences immediately identify a character and associate them with the desired traits the director needs to quickly convey in order to move the story along, on the other hand, stereotypes can have a damaging effect on our cultural consciousness when wrong or over-simplified information becomes ingrained in our thinking due to its prevalence in visual media.

There are those who proclaim that stereotypes are harmless and that nobody should believe things they see in movies or TV, but a prime and immediate example of the harm that has been done and continues to be perpetuated by film imagery is how many people believe that cats drink milk and rabbits eat carrots. In nature, milk is not a natural food of cats who are no longer babies and if a rabbit came across a carrot in the wild, it would be more likely to eat the leaves than the root. In fact, milk tends to give adult cats gastrointestinal problems and if a rabbit eats nothing but carrot roots, it might get really sick because carrots contain a lot more sugar than a healthy diet for them normally involves. Most likely the imagery of cats drinking milk came from books and animated cartoons like The Aristocats (1970)

The imagery of rabbits eating carrots is credited to the Bugs Bunny cartoons, specifically to an early visual gag where Bugs Bunny is shown eating a carrot to parody Clark Gable in 1934 comedy It Happened One Night.

These images were so compelling that they have become accepted as truth and many pet care blogs and veterinarians have had to step forward to warn people not to follow those stereotypes. There are of course many more examples of how harmful stereotypes can be, but I think the most upsetting example I have come across were accounts of victims of sexual assault being accused of lying about being assaulted because the court felt that they were not exhibiting the stereotypical behaviors of a "victim", for example appearing distraught or crying. In reality, responses to assault and trauma vary widely and appearing calm or unfazed or even still managing to smile while giving testimony are all perfectly normal responses exhibited by victims. Films and TV shows have just painted this image of a dramatically traumatized, broken individual in our minds which is used against victims of atrocities to this day.