Ethnic Notions Marlon Riggs Is Keenly Aware

Ethnic Notions

Marlon Riggs is keenly aware of the impact of stereotypes on real social norms related to race. In Ethnic Notions, Riggs enacts some of the prevalent stereotypes against African-Americans. The actors and comedians enacting these stereotypes often hid behind the veil of "comedy" or "humor" as an excuse for what is actually a racist reflection of prevailing social norms. Riggs uses the documentary format to showcase two main issues. The first issue is that stereotypical roles reinforce stereotypes and prevent social progress. Second, that the perpetuation of stereotypes has caused a corresponding lack of serious dramatic roles for African-Americans. A lack of dramatic roles reinforces stereotypes because it dehumanizes the "other," turning an African-American into a caricature.

According to Riggs, some of the prevalent stereotypical roles for African-Americans include the Mammy, the Sambo, and the Black Rambo While these stereotypical roles have been used to entertain, they can also exclude African-American actors from fulfilling roles showing normal life .One of the reasons the Cosby Show was revolutionary was because it was the first time an ordinary middle class African-American family was featured. Stereotyping was not present in the Cosby Show. Instead, the show revealed fresh ways of depicting race in America. Race was almost taken out of the equation in The Cosby Show, because the family was just ordinary Americans. Riggs is not suggesting to ignore race, but to allow for more realistic depictions of African-Americans.

The lack of dramatic roles for African-Americans has dehumanized and disempowered an already disenfranchised community. Actors like Morgan Freeman have shown that Hollywood is willing to overcome the racist stereotypes that permeated American society. Now, there is a greater awareness about the harm that stereotypes can do to actors and to the society at large.

2. In the lecture "The Danger of the Single Story," Chimamanda Adichie criticizes the one-sided story as it relates to historical and social constructions of reality. Adichie describes her writing her first stories about blonde haired and blue-eyed children because the books she read were about people like that; yet she had never met a blonde haired, blue eyed person. When history, literature, and the arts are dominated by one culture, all others start to see themselves through that lens. They are "others" to the norm, which is European. The one-sided story does significant damage to the psyche and to society.

One of the ways the one-sided story does damage to the psyche and to the society is because the one-sided story excludes Others from participating in the dominant culture. It takes a great deal of effort to overcome the belief that people of color can also participate in the act of creation or history-making.